Honest critique please!
Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2011 5:40 am
Feel free to be as blunt as possible. I'd rather have my PS torn apart here than send in something bad. Also, if you want to quote please PM me or be willing to delete later (I'm applying next cycle, so I don't want copies of my PS floating around for a year before that). Things in brackets have been edited to preserve some semblance of privacy XP Thank you very much!
Water dribbled down the back of my neck and off the tip of my nose. It was six pm and almost dark already, and the rain only made the sky dim faster. “Hi there!” I called out. “Do you have a moment to help fight global warming?” The stranger glanced up, startled, our eyes met, and he shot me a wary look, as if he and I were engaging in some sort of predatory dance. As he blinked, my smile widened--and he darted to the side, carefully maintaining a distance of five feet between us, before disappearing into the shadows of the next building over. There was no “hello,” no “sorry, not interested,” not even an apologetic smile as he passed by.
Two years earlier, such a snub might have made me self-conscious or irritated, but that night I was surprised to find myself easily dismissing the cold shoulder. A lot had changed since I’d first entered college as a shy and quiet 17-year-old, and perhaps the change that had affected me most was my involvement with an activist and lobbying organization on campus, [ORG NAME]. I’d been involved in the organization for almost three years, but this year was my first as Chapter Chair. More importantly, it was also the fall quarter of the 2008 Presidential Election, and on the ballot was a bill that would [BLURB ABOUT BILL].
That year, I spent my spring break planning and participating in a statewide tour to raise support for the proposition, organizing media events in the 8 cities [ACROSS THE STATE] and speaking at press conferences. I sacrificed weekends to sit outside on picnic tables for hours and call people to get them involved, and stayed in the office until almost midnight on weekdays drawing out massive planning calendars on butcher paper and training interns. On campus, I became a well-known face, spending numerous hours waving strangers down and talking to my peers about the issue. All the while, I watched nervously as the polls remained distressingly low, with no sign of rising. The campaign seemed futile. How could we be doing so much and yet changing so little?
At times, this lack of immediate results is the most challenging part of being an activist. It's hard, in the midst of a campaign, to remember that the signatures you gather and the effort you exert, sometimes weeks or months away from the election, actually have an impact on the final results. At times this leads to despair—how can a group of college students influence state policy? But the backbone of a grassroots organization is its members' ability to persevere despite hardship: the ability to brush off the strangers who walk by you without a word; the ability to defy the seemingly impossible in an attempt to create change.
I can still remember the nervousness that pitted in my stomach on election night as we awaited the results. The polls leading up to the election had consistently shown the proposition failing, and every member of [ORG NAME] was tense with worry. For a while, it seemed as though they'd never get to our proposition. Then the news came: by just 1% of the vote, [BILL NAME] had been passed. There was a moment of silence—perhaps we all had needed a moment to realize that it was real—before the cheers of celebration filled the room. As I sat amongst my peers that night and reveled in our success, I realized that our past diligence rode on the collective understanding that careful planning and a lot of time and hard work could transform a group of students into a formidable organization, capable of influencing state law.
For me, the organization did more than just introduce me to the world of grassroots activism: it helped me discover my career goals. Though the world of activism is filled with bright, hard-working individuals, it also has many flaws: disorganization and high turnover rates run rampant through the system, crippling the effectiveness of the programs. Running for elected office (another field that affects the passage of laws) is similarly crippled, by partisan politics and dirty politicians. In the field of law, I see the potential to continue to work on the issues that I care about through litigation and prosecution, or through work with a non-profit, with fewer of the crippling influences that activism and politics face.
Though our campaign ended that election night in 2008, it was certainly not the end of my involvement in [ORG NAME], and certainly not the end of my interest in environmental and public interest issues. If anything, it was the beginning: a small taste of what hard work and effective planning could do to change the world around me. At [X SCHOOL], I hope to blend my experience in activism with the necessary skills of diligence and perseverance in order to continue my success through law school and beyond.
Water dribbled down the back of my neck and off the tip of my nose. It was six pm and almost dark already, and the rain only made the sky dim faster. “Hi there!” I called out. “Do you have a moment to help fight global warming?” The stranger glanced up, startled, our eyes met, and he shot me a wary look, as if he and I were engaging in some sort of predatory dance. As he blinked, my smile widened--and he darted to the side, carefully maintaining a distance of five feet between us, before disappearing into the shadows of the next building over. There was no “hello,” no “sorry, not interested,” not even an apologetic smile as he passed by.
Two years earlier, such a snub might have made me self-conscious or irritated, but that night I was surprised to find myself easily dismissing the cold shoulder. A lot had changed since I’d first entered college as a shy and quiet 17-year-old, and perhaps the change that had affected me most was my involvement with an activist and lobbying organization on campus, [ORG NAME]. I’d been involved in the organization for almost three years, but this year was my first as Chapter Chair. More importantly, it was also the fall quarter of the 2008 Presidential Election, and on the ballot was a bill that would [BLURB ABOUT BILL].
That year, I spent my spring break planning and participating in a statewide tour to raise support for the proposition, organizing media events in the 8 cities [ACROSS THE STATE] and speaking at press conferences. I sacrificed weekends to sit outside on picnic tables for hours and call people to get them involved, and stayed in the office until almost midnight on weekdays drawing out massive planning calendars on butcher paper and training interns. On campus, I became a well-known face, spending numerous hours waving strangers down and talking to my peers about the issue. All the while, I watched nervously as the polls remained distressingly low, with no sign of rising. The campaign seemed futile. How could we be doing so much and yet changing so little?
At times, this lack of immediate results is the most challenging part of being an activist. It's hard, in the midst of a campaign, to remember that the signatures you gather and the effort you exert, sometimes weeks or months away from the election, actually have an impact on the final results. At times this leads to despair—how can a group of college students influence state policy? But the backbone of a grassroots organization is its members' ability to persevere despite hardship: the ability to brush off the strangers who walk by you without a word; the ability to defy the seemingly impossible in an attempt to create change.
I can still remember the nervousness that pitted in my stomach on election night as we awaited the results. The polls leading up to the election had consistently shown the proposition failing, and every member of [ORG NAME] was tense with worry. For a while, it seemed as though they'd never get to our proposition. Then the news came: by just 1% of the vote, [BILL NAME] had been passed. There was a moment of silence—perhaps we all had needed a moment to realize that it was real—before the cheers of celebration filled the room. As I sat amongst my peers that night and reveled in our success, I realized that our past diligence rode on the collective understanding that careful planning and a lot of time and hard work could transform a group of students into a formidable organization, capable of influencing state law.
For me, the organization did more than just introduce me to the world of grassroots activism: it helped me discover my career goals. Though the world of activism is filled with bright, hard-working individuals, it also has many flaws: disorganization and high turnover rates run rampant through the system, crippling the effectiveness of the programs. Running for elected office (another field that affects the passage of laws) is similarly crippled, by partisan politics and dirty politicians. In the field of law, I see the potential to continue to work on the issues that I care about through litigation and prosecution, or through work with a non-profit, with fewer of the crippling influences that activism and politics face.
Though our campaign ended that election night in 2008, it was certainly not the end of my involvement in [ORG NAME], and certainly not the end of my interest in environmental and public interest issues. If anything, it was the beginning: a small taste of what hard work and effective planning could do to change the world around me. At [X SCHOOL], I hope to blend my experience in activism with the necessary skills of diligence and perseverance in order to continue my success through law school and beyond.
)