I was a teenager thrust into the world of adults; COMMON APP

Natan Azizov

When my brother offered me the night-shift managerial position at his restaurant, I was excited to start making a little money. Little did I know that working at that rustic pizzeria was going to revolutionize my life. I was a teenager thrust into the world of adults. It became a place where I learned things I never imagined I would learn. A simple and primitive fast food joint for many became my second home where I learned life lessons and where I was able to discover who I was and who I wanted to be. I went from being perceived as a naive child to being respected and held on equal footing to as the authoritative adults I was so afraid of.

I was always extremely shy. In school I was able to go for weeks without muttering a single word to a human soul. When my brother offered me a job, I almost refused because I couldn't stomach the thought of having to interact with all the people. My first day was extremely scary. I remember how scared I was when I stepped behind the counter for my first day. All the workers stared at me as if I was some confused customer who forgot where the line to the register was. Everyone there was about triple my age. I never felt more out of place in my life. All the customers were intimidating and unforgiving. Nobody cared if I had trouble talking or if I was shy. They just wanted their food and their change. My social anxiety was crippling me. I was barely able to ask the customers what they wanted to order. I didn't want to be this shy for the rest of my life so I decided to stick with it. Everyday I would go back to work and try to talk to people until I felt like I was going to throw up. After weeks I noticed it started getting easier. Instead of stuttering on every word now it was every other word.

I worked there for half a year almost. The amount of money I gained pales in comparison with the life lessons I learned there. I learned how to make friends, how to joke with people, and how not to take everything so seriously. I learned how to actually talk to someone. Everyday I go back there I am stricken with waves of nostalgia as a reminiscence how I slowly broke my social anxiety barrier piece by piece. It was the hardest thing I ever had to to in my life and I'm still a long way from done.

This is good but it's all description...start off with a specific story you remember and then describe how you got there..what it means..how it changed you

Haha so you think I have to rewrite the whole thing?

What is the prompt? It is important that you include the prompt for us to understand your writing and provide you with more meaningful feedbacks. Is this about your extracurricular activities or work experience?


This is like you are going back to say the same story with what you started your response. I think you should avoid repetition of ideas and organize the flow better.

Option #4: Describe a place or environment where you are perfectly content. What do you do or experience there, and why is it meaningful to you?

Well.... here the concentration should be more on the place. Yes, you should talk about the experience and its contribution as per your prompt suggests and of course this place should talk about you more than itself. However, everything should revolve around this place where you are perfectly content. For me, this looks like as if you are trying to tell them how this place influenced you to change your personality. Since the prompt ask you to talk about "perfectly content", I think you need to change your writing to get a better alignment with that.