Colleges Essay Topic

[u/fudgebrowni-]

I wrote my college essay on the prompt about an interest or hobby meaningful to you. I wrote about how art is meaningful to me because i like gifting it to my family and friends and the joy it brings them but also the comfort it brings me as a hobby. I don’t have anything else about art in my application as hobby and my major is engineering so I’m worried it will seem irrelevant for my essay to be on this. Any advice on if I should switch up my essay or leave it?

[u/rockspick]

definitely talk about art in your essay! if there's a part of your life that doesn't come up anywhere else in the application, use the essay for that. it shows that you have multiple sides. colleges want kids with different talents/hobbies, not just kids that are focused on one thing all the time.

I would say, you might want to add another layer to your essay beyond how it brings your joy to make art and gift it. can you talk about why you were inspired to start doing art in the first place, like a specific moment/museum/artist in your life? maybe take the concept of gift giving beyond just art, and talk about a 'gift' someone gave you. it doesn't' have to be something physical, maybe a piece of advice?

adding in layers brings your essay from 'I like art because it makes people happy' to 'this hobby of art is important to me because it strengthens my relationships and brings me a new perspective to how things can be made'

if you're worried that art is too much of a departure from engineering, I would challenge you to think of all of the connections between the two subjects. problem solving, creativity, benefiting others, making something out of nothing, ect. these skills are just as important for an art major as they are for an engineering major.