College Essay
This last Sunday, I applied to Lawrence and Oberlin (and decided not to apply to NYU) with this essay. I have decided to post it, just because. If you have any advice (I still have Depaul and possibly others to apply to) feel free to give it. A note: It began at 1226 words, it's now 610.
Prompt: Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.
Last April, I decided I was going to write a musical. It had been a dream of mine for quite a while, and I felt that I was finally ready to take it on. Over the next couple months, I developed a concept and outline that I was almost too afraid to begin writing for fear that I wouldn't do it justice. Eventually, I had put enough together to make a presentation to my school's theater director. On the annual South High One-Acts' opening night, she announced that this "student-written musical" would be a main-stage production in the next year's theater season.
This news was at once both a glorious proclamation and a terrible harbinger of responsibility. As the writer of the script and music, this could be either my greatest success or my greatest failure. It would be this musical, not any part I played, that I would be remembered for in the history of South High theater.
I worked in bursts of creativity, waiting for the most opportune mental state to happen upon me and then striking with tenacity and an absolute disregard for sleep. Many of the show's musical themes were discovered accidentally during my musings at the piano, others drifted haphazardly into my head. At times, I became exceedingly depressed, certain that I would never amount to anything as a writer and composer, frustrated at my own limitations. On better days, I would be giddy with excitement, showing my friends my most recent discovery with unbridled enthusiasm, wrapped up in the whirlwind of my own potential. But despite my sporadic, bi-polar and occasionally unhealthy writing process, I eventually came up with a show I was satisfied with. The characters had all found their voices, and an incredibly complex plot appeared comprehensible after all. I had come up with a score that I was proud of, and hopefully would be difficult to recognize as amateur work.
I have learned alot from this experience. I have learned my limits as a writer and a composer, how to push myself beyond them, and how to present and teach my work to others. Seeing my show staged has given me insight into the theatrical relationship between the vision and the product, the ideal and the actual. I have learned how to work with others on a project without losing control of it, and when to give up that control for the sake of the project.
Taking on such a large task has brought out my ambitious side, and made my desire to create something that will make a difference even stronger, no longer a dream but a goal. Having to present my work has made me braver and more confident, mostly by necessity. And as any project, once completed, leaves you with a better grasp of its domain, I am left a better writer, composer, and artist. Perhaps the greatest effect that writing a musical has had on me is that I now see myself as an artist, rather than just a performer.
Though performing has been a wonderful part of these last four years, this undertaking has been by far the most gratifying. Because of this, I have recently considered this as something which I would like to pursue through college and adulthood. Seeing my show performed onstage is thrilling beyond belief, the idea of seeing it performed in a professional theater is too mind-bogglingly inspiring for words.
Whatever I do end up pursuing, I am sure that I will always treasure this experience. It has been hectic and exasperating, but nevertheless I feel that however far I go in life, down whatever path I choose to take, I will always look back on this experience fondly, knowing that I created something worthwhile.
Because of all the cutting I had to do, it seems rather rushed to me. Does it seem that way to any of you?
Prompt: Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.
Last April, I decided I was going to write a musical. It had been a dream of mine for quite a while, and I felt that I was finally ready to take it on. Over the next couple months, I developed a concept and outline that I was almost too afraid to begin writing for fear that I wouldn't do it justice. Eventually, I had put enough together to make a presentation to my school's theater director. On the annual South High One-Acts' opening night, she announced that this "student-written musical" would be a main-stage production in the next year's theater season.
This news was at once both a glorious proclamation and a terrible harbinger of responsibility. As the writer of the script and music, this could be either my greatest success or my greatest failure. It would be this musical, not any part I played, that I would be remembered for in the history of South High theater.
I worked in bursts of creativity, waiting for the most opportune mental state to happen upon me and then striking with tenacity and an absolute disregard for sleep. Many of the show's musical themes were discovered accidentally during my musings at the piano, others drifted haphazardly into my head. At times, I became exceedingly depressed, certain that I would never amount to anything as a writer and composer, frustrated at my own limitations. On better days, I would be giddy with excitement, showing my friends my most recent discovery with unbridled enthusiasm, wrapped up in the whirlwind of my own potential. But despite my sporadic, bi-polar and occasionally unhealthy writing process, I eventually came up with a show I was satisfied with. The characters had all found their voices, and an incredibly complex plot appeared comprehensible after all. I had come up with a score that I was proud of, and hopefully would be difficult to recognize as amateur work.
I have learned alot from this experience. I have learned my limits as a writer and a composer, how to push myself beyond them, and how to present and teach my work to others. Seeing my show staged has given me insight into the theatrical relationship between the vision and the product, the ideal and the actual. I have learned how to work with others on a project without losing control of it, and when to give up that control for the sake of the project.
Taking on such a large task has brought out my ambitious side, and made my desire to create something that will make a difference even stronger, no longer a dream but a goal. Having to present my work has made me braver and more confident, mostly by necessity. And as any project, once completed, leaves you with a better grasp of its domain, I am left a better writer, composer, and artist. Perhaps the greatest effect that writing a musical has had on me is that I now see myself as an artist, rather than just a performer.
Though performing has been a wonderful part of these last four years, this undertaking has been by far the most gratifying. Because of this, I have recently considered this as something which I would like to pursue through college and adulthood. Seeing my show performed onstage is thrilling beyond belief, the idea of seeing it performed in a professional theater is too mind-bogglingly inspiring for words.
Whatever I do end up pursuing, I am sure that I will always treasure this experience. It has been hectic and exasperating, but nevertheless I feel that however far I go in life, down whatever path I choose to take, I will always look back on this experience fondly, knowing that I created something worthwhile.
Because of all the cutting I had to do, it seems rather rushed to me. Does it seem that way to any of you?