I’ve definitely had a bunch of profound experiences in my high school career, but I’ve never had to put any of them in words. As such, I don’t really know what to write about or even how to write them.
My “best” idea right now is to write about my ex-boyfriend/best friend. I know that seems silly and childish, but I learned a lot from this relationship. Long story short, we had a very dysfunctional relationship where we tried to control each other. I hated how he sold his body and soul to academics, and he criticized how I focused on my personal happiness instead of academic perfection (like I still got B’s instead of getting straight A’s). He hurt me a lot, and I realize now that I probably did the same to him. In the end, I learned that it wasn’t my job to dictate what other people do and that I should do what’s best for ME, not others. I also learned about what should constitutes a healthy relationship, which is exactly what we didn’t have. This sounds kind of cheesy, but it was probably the most significant experience of my high school career. Plus, I left a LOT of the details out which makes this sound even cheesier.
My mom thinks I shouldn’t do this. She thinks that I need to write about something positive or else I’ll become bitter–but I’m not bitter about this, not really. I’m not bitter because I realized that I did a lot of wrong too and that I was essentially blaming my ex-boyfriend/best friend for being himself. And I don’t hate him either. I used to, and I used to blame him for the failure of our relationship; but later I realized that it was both of our faults. Plus, young “love” (if you believe that teenagers can fall in love) can be something pretty significant in a young adult, so I figured it could make a powerful essay.
TL;DR: Would writing about my first “love” and what I learned from it make a good college essay? It’s pretty much a profound “failure” in my high school career that I learned a lot from so I figured it would work.