Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what lessons did you learn?
My school has always placed academics over creativity, and around the time I began high school, student activity came to a near standstill. Ever since I could remember I really wanted to take part in the school musical, but to my dismay, the theatre program had been shut down. When I approached my administration inquiring on starting it up again, they explained to me that all the teachers were simply too busy to take up any extra assignments. It was then that I proposed the idea of creating the first student-run musical, and, to my surprise, they loved it! However, theatre and the arts were usually unpopular in conservative Saudi Arabia, and they insisted that I be the one to run the musical and to ensure it be appropriate and respectful towards our culture and country's beliefs.
I knew this would be a huge responsibility and that I needed help, so I wrote an article in the school newspaper publicizing the production hoping to find a co-director and a team of hardworking individuals willing to share the work. The news spread like wildfire! The announcement received an incredibly positive reaction, leaving no shortage in volunteers. Our shared passion for the arts cultivated cooperation and determination in the team. Even school faculty showed their support by offering help and advice whenever they could. It began to look like the project was going to outdo my expectations.
Several weeks into rehearsals, however, things started going downhill when my co-director quit for medical reasons. My concern was quickly overcome by anxiety as I realized that there wasn't anybody capable of filling her position this late in the production. I felt pressured knowing that everybody was counting on me to not let all their hard work go to waste, so I decided to push through, and take on sole responsibility of directing it.
After that, running the production was much more difficult and our progress slowed down radically. Our situation only worsened once midterms came along; that was when we began losing crucial crewmembers and countless volunteers. Eventually, the severe lack of members became crippling to our progress. I desperately tried gathering students willing to help, but nobody was willing to join halfway through. Afraid of losing the student body's and the administration's trust, I made the foolish choice to distribute the extra spots to the reaming members instead of postponing the musical.
It was getting closer to the performance day, but by that time, my decisions became reckless. Props were left unpainted, costumes weren't the right sizes, and equipment started going missing. Handling all the additional duties became mind-numbingly difficult for everyone. I even resorted to leaving the group for several rehearsals to complete other tasks. As hard as we tried, our efforts still weren't enough, making what happened next even more tragic. Things got so out of hand that the administration thought it would be best to pull the plug on project altogether. We were all crushed, but they made it clear that their decision was final.
Once I had time to think, I realized how avoidable my mistakes were. I refused to see how dire our situation had become. My ego got the best of me, leading me to denying my limits and taking up more than I could handle. I gambled the fate of everyone's efforts when I resorted to desperate measures, and I lost. I was mostly distraught, however, by the lost efforts of those who stayed onboard the entire time, even as the production sank. I decided I couldn't my incompetence destroy their chances for future performances. I pleaded with the administration to not let the crew's hard work go to waste. Despite what happened, I felt content that at least next year's team will get the chance to succeed where I haven't.
Danah, this is a good essay that is only dimmed by the imbalance between the story of failure and the lessons you learned. Your essay would be greatly helped if you could find a way to lessen the story of the failure, say cutting it down to only half the page so that you can use the remaining half of the page to discuss the lessons that you learned from what happened. This is a very good story to tell, unfortunately, the lessons that you learned went under developed and almost seems like a mere after thought. The lessons that you learned should share the spotlight with the failure that you incurred. You don't need to be very detailed about the failures if you cannot be as detailed in discussing the lessons from each failure. All the essay needs to properly work is balance. Balance the negative (failure) with the positive (lessons learned) in order to effectively show that you were learning an important lesson with every failure that came your way. Once you manage to do that, the essay will not only be balanced, but also offer a deeper insight into how the failure helped you develop as a person :-)
I think the way you told the story makes it sounds very interesting. The reader just wana know how it's gona end! However, although the story waas very exciting, I think you should shorten it a bit and expand more on the reflection. Maybe you can talk about how this affect you in other aspects? (I don't know if my judgement is the same as the admission though. I'm just another student also applying for colleges.:)
anyway good luck!:)
