Austin Scholar #85: To be passionate is to suffer
& writing a great college essay is hard
Hey, y'all!
This week from Austin Scholar...
Austin’s Anecdote: Writing a great college essay is hard
To be passionate is to suffer
Scholar’s Sources: What I’ve been reading to inspire my college essay
Austin’s Anecdote: Writing a great college essay is hard
Trying to write my Common App personal statement (the essay that is sent to the colleges I apply to) has been quite a journey.
When I first asked myself, 'what's the most interesting and impactful thing I've done?' the answer was obviously the Learn and Earn program with the Ukrainian refugees. So, that’s what I wrote my first college essay draft on.
But my Alpha Guide, Chloe, took one look at it and told me it felt like the cliche “1-week summer service trip” essay. I saw her point, so I scrapped it.
For my next attempt, I wrote about my genuine love of learning – my intellectual curiosity and fearlessness in my academic exploration.
But my dad, after taking one look at it, told me it was too boring and basic to be interesting to admissions officers. Looking back at it now, I completely agree.
In my third attempt at a personal statement, I tried to use the Hero’s Journey story structure to explain my journey in alternative education – my struggles and successes.
But my college counselor took one look at it and told me that admissions officers would have way, way too many unanswered questions about Alpha and its structure for it to even be a believable essay. So that’s a no-go.
So, now, I have less than one month left until my personal statement is due, and all I have to show for it are three trashed drafts. I’d truly felt hopeless. Lost. Confused. I didn’t like anything I’d written and didn’t know what to try out next.
In my desparation, I turned to my other writing. My newsletters. And that’s where inspiration struck.
I approach writing every newsletter with the intent to be personal and share pieces of my soul with the world. And, really, isn’t that what my college essay should be? Giving away a part of myself to show admissions officers why I am someone valuable to have on their campus?
So, I decided to write my college essay for my newsletter. And although the version I’m sharing below isn’t going to be my actual essay (since my college counselor has advised that including the word “suffering” would be controversial), I feel like it’s a good representation of the direction I’m going to go. Wish me luck as I try to (actually) finish my Common App essay :)
But before we get into it, I have one small request. I’ve been told by college counselors that it will be hard for me to get into college because of my non-standard education. If any of you have any ins to Stanford, Oxford, or Yale admissions (as these are some of the more challenging schools I’m applying to), I would appreciate a referral. I believe my application needs more explanation than a standard applicant.
To be passionate is to suffer
Without further ado, here is the fourth version of my Common App personal statement:
“What are you passionate about?” This is such a vague question, it's hard to answer. Whenever I ask for clarification, it's usually simplified to "What do you really like to do?
There are a lot of things I really like doing. I love to binge-watch “trashy” reality TV and analyze the ridiculousness of the contestants with my parents; I also can’t find more joy than when I’m laughing with my sister.
But is that what passion is? I couldn’t reconcile that such a powerful word could be used to express my enjoyment of these frivolous activities. So, I did what I do best: research. The word “passion,” I found, originally stems from the Latin word passio, meaning to suffer. Although society has grown to use “passion” colloquially to mean “something you love deeply,” it has its roots in suffering.
So I shouldn’t be asking myself “what do I love?”; I should be asking “what am I willing to suffer for?”.
I suppose the answer, for me, started back in fourth grade, when I transitioned from a traditional school to a school that had no teachers–where the students used educational apps to learn on their own. It initially seemed impossible to me, to learn without a teacher. I cried a lot those first few days, wrestling with math problems and grammar passages that I couldn’t work out on my own.
But I believed in the idea of learning without teachers and wanted to see the potential play out. After a few weeks, my persistence paid off. I became empowered by my ability to work through questions and learn independently, and I then found myself not just using the apps to learn, but loving the process. I was not only solving problems on my own, but also connecting ideas and applying my newfound knowledge to real-world situations.
This remarkable strength I found in learning on my own consumed me–filled my soul to a point where it simply spilled out. I wanted–no, needed–to share this discovery with as many people as I could. So, I started publishing a newsletter every week, explaining to parents how they could create this powerful educational experience for their children.
Not all people, however, who read my writing saw the beauty in this solution. I began to receive what seemed like hundreds of hate comments that attacked my ideas and my character, stating that my insights on how kids learn could ruin people’s lives. But before that darkness could snuff out my fire, one of my subscribers messaged me, expressing how one of my newsletters saved her relationship with her daughter. Then another reached out explaining how my writing was transforming her children’s lives–for the better. And that is what empowered me to continue publishing–the idea that my words made an impact on people’s lives.
And as my newsletter platform grew, I received a startling request from one of my subscribers: to bring my knowledge and experience with educational apps to the one place that needed it the most–Ukraine. The thought of stepping across the border into a country actively at war was terrifying. I battled with myself for weeks, trying to find the courage to step into the unknown. But I knew I could use my expertise in alternative education to transform thousands of refugees’ lives. I could feel my heart pulling me to help, to show the world how kids can learn on their own. So I pushed through my fears, my doubts, and into the light and metamorphic power of learning how to learn.
I recognize now that, yes, passion might be rooted in suffering, but it’s fueled by caring so deeply that you’ll do whatever it takes, endure whatever pain, to keep the flame alive. Passion is balancing the dichotomy of love and struggle, embracing the uncomfortable in order to succeed. I am determined to continue to welcome pains and trials in order to appreciate what passion truly is, and to use that to make my mark on the world.
Scholar’s Sources: What I’ve been reading to inspire my college essay
Here are a few of the best sources I’ve been using to inspire my college essay: