Need a few ideas for LMU essay?

College Essays
1

<p>I have been looking at this LMU prompt constantly and can’t really find a spark… It needs to be 500-1000 words and I’m finding it really hard to put together an essay that flows well. Can anyone provide a few tips or ideas? That would be helpful. </p>

<p>Prompt 1: </p>

<p>In his 2010 address to representatives of Jesuit universities worldwide, Fr. Adolfo Nicolas, SJ, Superior General of the Jesuits, discussed imagination. He believes that exercising an imagination which grasps reality and involves “a refusal to let go until we get beneath the surface” is a crucial element of Jesuit education. In the same speech, he worried that today’s instant and global communication technologies discourage such deep reflection and engagement with the real and instead foster a “globalization of superficiality.”</p>

<p>To Fr. Nicolas, imagination requires going to the depths of reality and recreating (re-imagining) it. Do social media and instant communication pose obstacles to such reflection and serious thinking? How can college students practice serious reflection in our always connected and instantaneous world?</p>

<p>Thank you so much.</p>

2

<p>Put more simply, the questions asks - Is social media making people stupid? </p>

<p>You are supposed to answer ‘Yes’.</p>

<p>Next, you’ll be asked to make suggestions as to how people can slow down, think, and reflect in an environment where they can get anything they want at any time. </p>

<p>If you’re the type who’s constantly texting, tweeting, instagraming, and whatnot, it’s basically a reveal-and-repent type essay.</p>

<p>If you’re oldschool - you use #2 pencils, have a dumbphone, and log trees in your spare time - you get to argue how your lifestyle and approach is so much more fulfilling. </p>

<p>The premise behind this prompt is this - it’s become trendy for adults to paint in broad strokes about how kids are getting obnoxious and lazy due to social media. They’ve conveniently forgotten how the same words were used when the television and radio became mainstream. Either way - it’s the ‘in’ thing. Major self-indulgence from the old peeps.</p>

<p>What they want most of all is to hear kids agreeing with them by requiring it for a college application. </p>

<p>Make them feel good about their sentiments and you’ll be golden.</p>

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3

<p>Be careful with this one. It is going to be hard to make yourself stand out as many kids are going to be repeating the same ideas.</p>

4

<p>How could I put my own spin on it so it is unique compared to others?</p>