short essay about leadership

College Essays
1

<p>i’d really appreciate any comments. Thanks for reading. </p>

<p>In my experience, one of the best ways to truly learn and improve oneself is to be in the leadership position. Throughout my high school career, I have been blessed with the opportunities of being the captain of the varsity soccer team as well as the math league team. While the experience on the soccer field trained me to be physically strong and exemplary, being the captain of the fellow mathematics geniuses taught me what leadership is truly all about. </p>

<p>When I first came to the United States, one of my first impressions was that very few of my classmates shared the same passion for math. Being one of the few Asians in the school, somehow I was elected to be the captain of the Math team. At first I had no idea what I was supposed to do since I had never been a leader of any sort before. Eventually, carrying the passion for math in mind, I decided that this was a great opportunity for me to challenge myself and make my high school years memorable. </p>

<p>We faced many difficulties along the way. At first, the whole team consists of only four members (all Asians of course!) We did not have any spare room to practice in, so we had to go to my house everyday after school to work. Moreover, there was no financial support from the school, so we paid for everything using our own money. In these difficult conditions, I realized that there were many students who had full potential but lacked interest. By performing the magical “1+1=1” bit and explaining the trick behind it, I motivated many of them to develop their potential talents into full interest by joining our team. The next step is to get support from our school. We figured that in order to get our message heard, we needed to prove ourselves a significant lot. We started with performing social community services such as tutoring after school, organizing a Math day, and providing car wash to raise money. Eventually, our efforts were recognized and we received enough financial support to enter the competition and represent our Alma Mater. </p>

<p>We finished 8th out of 10 schools at the first competition. Two months later, we were crowned the regional champions for the first time in the history of Brownwood High School. In addition to taking initiatives, I managed to lead a group of young talented people to a collective goal that had previously not been identified. I believe that this leadership experience opened new doors to myself as well as to those of my fellow teammates.</p>

2

<p>I liked the last paragraph how you showed the improvement. I’ve got to go really quickly, so I’ll just make one instinctive comment right now, which is that in areas you seem less confident. In the sentence “Being one of the few Asians in the school, somehow I was elected to be the captain of the Math team”, I can sense a lack of confidence in the word “somehow”. You should change it to show that you believed in yourself being elected as captain, or otherwise, admit that you were not confident before, and later grew to become confident etc… Dunno, it’s just a quick comment, but hopefully it helps :/</p>

3

<p>that’s kinda what I want to say, at first i was not confident but then since i love math i wanted to challenge myself => success.
thank you so much for the comment, i’d really appreciate any other inputs.</p>

4

<p>In your lead paragraph:

  1. get rid of blessed. Carries a religious connotation
  2. break up the soccer from the math. …with the opportunity of being the captain of the soccer team. The experience on the soccer field …to be physically strong and exemlplary. (I think you need a better word than exemplary)However, being the captain of the math league team taught me what leadership truly is about.
  3. second paragraph: Skip the one of the few asians part. Go straight to something like Still not knowing what was involved, I ran for and was elected captain of the math team. Eventually…
  4. third paragraph: drop the asian remark again - you don’t want to participate in stereotyping. Not sure if the magical 1+1 thing is a math joke or trick that other will know. Who is reading this and if not mathy, this reference might not work. I motivated many of those students… The next step was ( the rest of the story is in the past tense so you need to change is to was). For the car wash, I would use a word such as operated or held. I am assuming you used Alma Mater in place of your school name just for staying unknown here on CC. If not, in the final essay, use your school name.</p>

<p>Otherwise, I think you should be proud of what you did with the math team. Good job!</p>

<p>Please excuse any spelling problems. I am really tired.</p>

5

<p>twomules: about the asian stereotype thing, i just want to emphasize that at my schools except for the asians, originially no one was interested in math. then i brought in the part where I persuaded and recruited some new members with 1+1 bit, i dont think u have to know math to find this interesting :slight_smile:
anyways i really appreciate your inputs I will take them into consideration.</p>