The University of Chicago Application Essay

1. What is your intended major? Discuss how your interest in the subject developed and describe any experience you have had in the field — such as volunteer work, internships and employment, participation in student organizations and activities — and what you have gained from your involvement.

Some people have troubles selecting their majors, but in my case I realized that communication, psychology or sociology are the majors of my choice just in time to apply for a transfer. From the early years of my life I loved talking with all sorts of people, as communication brought me joy and happiness. However I never paid any extra attention to it and made a main emphasis on studying all subjects in general. Even though my parents always supported me, they tried suggesting me to look for a major that would bring my communication skills in the first place, but I considered my great abilities of communicating and debating as a simple bonus to my great knowledge as it was. My family and friends who went to different competitions to support me told me that my projects always succeeded as a result of awesome presentations I made – it was so easy and simple for me to give a 5-minute speech about anything I wanted to without any preparations at all. I could also start debating over any issues I liked or answer the questions of the audience – it was never a problem – I used psychological approach to analyzing people and finding the ways to get in touch with them.

Once I finished high school I certain issues choosing a major so eventually I ended up studying in the community college. However after just a few weeks of study I realized I had to find something else because this was not my level of study and I needed to make a transfer to a different institution. At the same time I joined the debate club, and rather soon I understood having constant discussions and talking over various issues would allow me to get prepared to my transfer. Moreover, I really appreciated the possibility of observing the behavior of other people in the smallest details and changes that affected them whenever they were under certain stress or pressure. I started observing people when they were communicating in different life situations, as well as during study and while they were relaxing and entertaining. Every day was bringing new discoveries to me, and I was getting more confident I needed a transfer. I continued studying hard in order to gain as much knowledge as possible in communications, psychology and sociology by the time of transfer. Thus I decided to reconsider my educational priorities and transfer to a different institution in order to have the major I really want to study and which would make my life really full of joy. I informed my family that I would change my major to communication, psychology or sociology and they supported me as they are confident in my ability to become a great student and gain the degree with the new major of my choice.

2. Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?

There is a moment in everyone’s life that gets deep into the memory, and we never forget such moments, as they are important to us in the most different ways. I had a lot of moments I remember, but here is one that goes back to my high school, and it involves my participation in the media class project. The aim of the project was to prepare a really detailed yearbook, profiling all the students at our schools as well as the teachers. There were only five people working on this project, and I got to be the leader of this team. My duties included distribution of responsibilities among the rest of the team, as well as appointing people to various parts of our project. As a leader, I decided to take the toughest part to myself – collecting information about our teachers. I realized I could go online and find something about them, talk to their colleagues or other students and hear the opinions, but I felt that it was not enough. I could not imagine the project issued under my supervision could be issued as a scientific journal containing some bare facts and possibly someone’s opinions or rumors. Thus I decided to take on the initiative and find a creative approach to getting the information I needed so much.

Everyone knows that teachers usually do not act very friendly to their students, and I was not an exception. Surely, I was a good student, and teachers appreciated my efforts in terms of academics, but I really had no clue how to approach them in order to get some interesting information that could attract readers to actually read the texts, not just skip through the pages. After days of search I finally found a solution that allowed me to accomplish our project with my head high up. I negotiated a chance to join the teachers during lunch and promised to keep silence unless otherwise specified. I went to lunch with them for over two months, and during that time they got so much used to me that whenever I showed up, they were willing to share something with me. I introduced them with the peculiarities of our project and asked to share something that they never brought to public, especially at school. They were hesitating, but eventually I collected enough high-quality information for my section of the yearbook, and when we published it, success came along together with appreciation from the readers and the heroes of the book.

I remember this event in my life as it gave me a lot of experience of communication with people. I learned to be patient and to listen to everything I was told, as well as to analyze the information and choose only the things I needed. It also taught me to search for various alternatives while approaching people as everybody requires special attention and all people cannot be treated the same way. Communicating with different people is really involving and demanding and brings benefits when the right approach is found. Moreover, psychological aspect is no less important since figuring out how the people think and what are their intentions is really crucial in any sort of activity.