Nearing final draft--nitpicks needed! Forum

[jennamc_85]

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[mala2]

Please--tear it apart...it's tearing me apart. If you have a PS in this forum or PM me your essay, I will do a prompt critique of yours as well.


Many parents drop off their college freshmen at the dorms, extra-long sheets and a miniature refrigerator in tow. Mine dropped me off at a trailer house with an oversized flashlight and a shotgun.Good. Make it more clear how this was your home for college. Did you end up going to high school here? I guess you do in the next paragraph, but I would try to bring it in here a little. The sentence is definitely attention grabbing.

I first visited my future home during my Junior year of high school when, after two days of driving, my father’s van kicked up a cloud of tawny dust as we approached the trailer house on a backcountry dirt road. This was our new Florida vacation home. Compared to surroundings in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, the only difference in scenery here was a topsoil of sand instead of dirt. At first unimpressed with the investment, I soon found nearby XX and the University of XYZ. In its lively campus and austere buildings I saw opportunity--for education and for a life much different from the one I knew. I negotiated provisional parental approval to attend XYZ on the condition that I live in the trailer house, away from the city and its temptations.temptations for what? is your family religious?

My parents’ support, however, would prove the smallest obstacle. I filled out my XYZ application not knowing what “AP” or “IB” meant, only that they did not apply to me. I knew what honors classes were, but only in the capacity that a few of the area schools offered them and mine did not. The rural Wisconsin town in which I spent my first 18 years had a population of 817, and my graduating class was 43; my school did not have the resources to offer advanced courses for a few exceptional students. Our teachers taught to accommodate the bottom, and no one informed us that we were shorted, perhaps if only to save us from our own resentment. My rejection letter from XYZ arrived promptly.

My astonishing naivety left me without a plan. My parents suggested I attend community college close to home. Undaunted, I chose to attend community college in XX with intentions to transfer. My parents drove two days to drop me off at their trailer house with a flashlight, for emergencies; and a gun I did not know how to use, for my father’s piece of mind. However, I would prove to be equipped for more thanwhat? and hurricane-induced power outages and armed intruders.

I pushed hard knowing exactly where I stood, earning a 3.98 at community college and transferring seamlessly to XYZ, working and earning scholarships along the way. The world began to seem much larger. My literature classes introduced me to the parade of French theorists who sparked my interest in the intersection of language and law, culture and power. I understood language as an imperfect, man-made material, the poverties and assumptions of which emerge in the law, language as its medium. Having attained knowledge and opportunities that once seemed out of reach, I set my career goals higher. Law was a natural choice for me, loving language and theory, but knowing that only a career rooted in practice, results, and the possibility for social change could satiate me.I think there are some grammar problems in this sentence My intellectual curiosity led me to finish an independent study and honors thesis on the intersection of language, law, and politics. I left my commission sales job for a lower paying position at a small law firm, and then a coveted student position at the U.S. Attorney’s Office. My mind set on a legal career, I sought to push myself further out of my comfort zone. Study abroad was the perfect opportunity.

Having earned a merit scholarship to research my honors thesis abroad, I traded my trailer house for a flat in Paris’s Goutte D’Or District, an affordable but notoriously seedy area I canbest describe as a little piece of Africa planted in the north of Paris. Here, I was a foreigner immersed in a culture within a culture. My features stood out against the headscarved French-Algerian and Moroccan women around me, attracting unwanted attention and often harassment. Like a bullied child, I repeated to my professors the words that the men lining the street screamed at me on my way to school—through my professors’ translations, I achieved a complete French vocabulary in derogatory terms for women and sex parts. The more I understood, the less acceptable I found the situation. So in Paris, when I approached my neighborhood, I became a woman in a headscarf in order to pass unnoticed in the crowd. Having never experienced a culture in which I was a minority, I was grateful for this applied lesson in cultural relativism. I honed my academic prowess through work on my thesis, but I am a more culturally fluent and generally resilient person because of my experiences on the streets of Goutte D’Or and subsequent travel through 13 countries.I think this may be fine. It comes off to me as a little naive, but I've lived in the Arab world a lot. Wearing a head scarf was smart. wonder how many Algerian/Moroccan women take off their hijab when they come closer to the city center?

My experiences have not been typical,as opposed to what? growing up on a cul de sac in the suburbs? maybe. but a lot of people have been through tougher stuff. I would rephrase that but they have provided an excellent foundation for me to pursue a degree in law. I came to college from an isolated place where I could not fully express my talents; but this background has only made my transition more pronounced and my accomplishments more significant. I have proven astounding adaptability by thriving in wildly different environments and by repeatedly and successfully pushing myself into unknown territory. My goals set on practicing law, I am certain that Boston College of Law is the next logical step in my progression.the country thing will probably play well in Boston:)

Given my aspirations, BC is far and away my top choice.to me this first sentence is too much. You explain why it's your first choice later on. Over the past year, I have worked for a team of top energy lawyers on a client’s acquisition of a wind development project and learned many technical aspects of sustainable power generation. My work in an energy practice has demanded my understanding of the tensions between economic interests and sustainability, and it has introduced me to an array of clean technologies in development that have potential to change our world. In my career, I hope to work with cleantech startups and help execute profitable ideas that profit humanity. BC’s location in an American innovation center has clear value for my pursuits. Programs such as the Emerging Enterprises and Business Law Program and the Community Enterprise Clinic would provide me simulated and real-world opportunities to learn in practice the knowledge required to advise new businesses. BC’s high environmental law ranking speaks for itself. My current boss, a BC alumnus, touts first year curriculum as among the best in the nation, and he describes an atmosphere that fosters collaboration throughout the rigors of law school. I hope to avail myself BC Law offers and meet new challenges with the same energy and curiosity that has garnered me personal transformation and academic success.

Good essay! I can't remember if it's Boston, Philadelphia, or Baltimore, but there's a city that is rezoning buildings with gardens on the roofs as a way to conserve energy. If it's Boston it might relate to your essay

[birdmann783]

too much of the word "MY"

Good start but I couldn't read anymore after constantly hearing the word

[orangebluewhitered]

PEACE OF MIND

I understood language as an imperfect, man-made material, the poverties and assumptions of which emerge in the law, language as its medium.

-- Rework this; it's totally unclear what you mean.

Law was a natural choice for me, loving language and theory, but knowing that only a career rooted in practice, results, and the possibility for social change could satiate me.

-- This is ungrammatical- it implies that law loves language and theory and knows blahblah etc.

My features stood out against the headscarved French-Algerian and Moroccan women around me

-- I would say "among" or "amongst".

Like a bullied child,

-- You're not like a bullied child, you were a bullied and harassed woman. I don't know why you would trivialize what happened to when you're trying to make a point about it.

[jennamc_85]

Thank you everyone who replied! Great catches and comments. Any more takers? I am hoping to ship soon.

[NonTradHealthLaw]

A couple things jumped out - misspelling of naïveté - could use a heavy handed grammar/punctuation critique.

Nice theme and thesis, though.