It's a sailor's life for me...PS - nearly final draft Forum

[jrmartin]

Thanks for the advice!

[DreamShake]

Really interesting material; it has a lot of potential as a PS. However, there's way too much "telling" and not enough "showing." If you want the reader to be involved and to appreciate your experiences, you must put them in your shoes; it needs to be a story, not a recounting of events. Part of the problem may be that you have so much to discuss (you certainly have done/been involved in some interesting things), which can be remedied by cutting the essay down to just a handful of key experiences and elaborating on only those.

Also, "unique" is a taboo word in PS's--it's beaten to death because so many people use it.

[Action Jackson]

I think you have a very interesting backstory but a very uninteresting PS. I agree with DreamShake's comment about showing rather than telling. I would add that I think you shouldn't even go into this much depth about your career. If I were you, I would pick a sailing story from your childhood, a time when you a life lesson encapsulated in something you learned from sailing, and write about that.

If you're going to make this be "why law school," then you need to come up with a better explanation. I mean, being out on the sea in international water must have exposed you to complex legal issues. Just say you developed an interest in maritime law and leave it at that.

[johnnyutah]

Couldn't read. Too jealous that you have a boat.

[CanadianWolf]

As a first draft, this is a good start. As a near final draft, it is not as well written or as well organized as it should be for a final draft resulting in a predictable, somewhat boring narrative. The weakness comes from the final two paragraphs. Consider rewriting them or just deleting them.

[jrmartin]

Thanks for your help everybody. I do appreciate your suggestions, which are similar to the concerns that I had and still have. When I spoke to the admissions director at my target school he advised me to write about the diversity of my experiences aboard the yachts and how that work experience shaped me.

I also realize that it is easy to think my family must have been wealthy in order to afford a boat. The reality is that we sold our house and car in order to afford it and lived very frugally aboard it for 4 years in a living space not much bigger than a small kitchen. The upside to that was growing up in the tropics, which I will never complain about!