Scholarship Help!

[boulderjohn]

A little background...

1. Through a series of stupid decisions, I went to a college I could not afford. That school now has tuition and fees over $55,000, so it is now much more expensive than the school you are considering, and I am sure that considering inflation it was then, too.

2. As a high school English teacher, I annually had my seniors go through the ins and outs of college applications and financing, bringing counselors into my classroom to help out. I wanted to make sure my students did not make the same mistakes as I did, without the benefit of sage counsel, which was also missing for me.

Here are some thoughts you may find helpful.

1. The 300 word minimum is a serious limitation, but it did not force you to make errors in grammar and punctuation. Thinking on semi-colons has changed in recent years, but what you did with them has never been correct. The instructions for the essay strongly emphasize correct use of these conventions.

2. If you get the very top prize being offered, which would be doubtful for even a truly powerful performance, it won't put much more than a minor dent in the total cost of a four year degree. If you have a lot of other sources of financing, great! If not, think things through. Having spent a fortune and having taken 12 years after college to pay off my student loans, I had my children go to a public state school where they got a good education and left school with none of us owing a cent. You can easily accomplish the goals you mention in that essay in a school with much lower costs.

 

[Scuba_Jenny]

Lopez 116, I would like to thank you for giving me support and defending me.

---------- Post added May 2nd, 2013 at 09:05 PM ----------

And Scuba_Jenny, although I understand people think that college is too hard and won't make it, I will be one of those people who graduate because I am determined to graduate and not give up. Not going to college isn't an option for me.

I never insinuated that you won't graduate. Colleges are in the business of selling an education. I am not being cynical. This is fact. There are people that go to college and realize that it's not for them. Some drop out for financial reasons. Some leave for other reasons.. namely life. What if you are in a car wreck, through no fault of your own? What if (gasp!) you get pregnant? Or fall in love? Or discover a widget and suddenly you are a new business owner? Too many variables. Seriously, I wish you the best of luck! Nobody starts something expecting to fail. (40% failure rate is not bad.. say comparing to starting a business as a restauranter.. I think that failure rate is closer to 90%.)
On that note.. if you are really passionate about what you want to do, that is awesome. There are many 30, 40, 50, 60 yr old who still don't know what they really love. Good luck! I hope you can grasp a few grains of wisdom from this thread and realize not all are out to condemn your dreams.

 

[nimoh]

Nimoh: You as well cannot criticize an essay if you cannot even capitalize the first words in your sentences. That contributes to poor grammar my friend.

the difference is that in my post, I was just jotting down my thoughts, rather than trying to compete for funding.

but yes I agree that the grammar in my post(s) ain't too good

and by the way, I can criticize an essay irrespective of my own writing style. I believe you meant to use "shouldn't" instead of "cannot".

 

[TSandM]

I don't believe that what I wrote was rude. It wasn't positive, but not being positive is not equivalent to being rude.

I applaud ambition. I applaud creativity. I am delighted to see young people with passion and inspiration. But I think we do no one any favors by approving poor work, and as boulderjohn observes, the essay, limited in length though it was by the rules, had no need to contain errors in grammar, or simply poor word choices that affected flow. Writing is one of the few things I have always done well, and I love good writing done by other people. When you are writing something to enter in a contest, where there will be many others who also see this as an easy means of obtaining educational funds, you should be aware that you will be competing with people who have writing skills and have taken the time to review and edit their submissions.

I realize we now live in a world where everyone gets a blue ribbon at the end of the race. But out in the real world, that isn't the case. Quality work is more likely to be recognized and rewarded, and nobody who hires you is going to care if you're earnest and passionate, if you can't get the required job done. I tried to give Christine some realistic feedback on what she had written. She wasn't happy with that, and one might note that her subsequent post also contains many errors in writing. I think getting some coaching on her use of English might help her in a scholarship search across the board.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Christine is all of 17 years old. She has never known a world without the Internet. From her perspective, I would imagine that "crowdfunding" one's college education--or at least soliciting votes on-line for a scholarship contest--is perfectly natural. In this realm, one doesn't need to be best to win, one just needs to get a lot of people to each give just a little bit of help.

 

[SeaHorse81]

Two points come to mind as I review this thread:

First, it is a highly competitive world out there, and good writing skills are a reliable way to stand out from the crowd. Improving writing skills creates greater chances of success, and that’s just the reality of it.

Second, my work puts me in contact with a fair number of people in their early-to-mid 20s who have recently graduated from college. Over and over, I am seeing people graduating with crushing amounts of student loan debt. They essentially have mortgages without a house. They continue to live at home with their parents, unable to launch into their own lives, because there is too little money left over after loan payments for them to begin to build anything of their own. They are angry, deeply frustrated, and financially trapped.

The common story is that they got a degree in a subject they love, maybe from a school that they love, and that’s as far as the decision-making went as they got into college. What none of them (that I have spoken to) did was research whether their chosen degree would facilitate their ability to earn enough money to realistically pay off the loans, let alone build a life. None of these people now stuck at home with their parents went into college with a clue as to what exactly they would do for a living when they got out, how much they might expect to earn, and who their likely future employers might be. Consequently, they are essentially unemployable in their chosen field, because there was never a place for them there but they didn’t know it. They didn’t do their homework first, so now they try to pay off professional-level student loans with minimum wage jobs.

I have no idea how any of these people will ever really make it now. The debt which was intended to give them their start in life now becomes the factor which will keep them from ever really having that life. It’s horrible to see. Following one's passion is a wonderful thing, but at the end of the day, you've still got to make the math work. Christine, if you've got the math figured out and have done the necessary research, I applaud you. If you haven't, I hope you don't become another of these financial casualties I'm seeing. Seriously, it's not good.

 

[Tom Winters]

I know kids who recently went to college, and between their Florida Prepaid Tuition, their Bright Futures scholarships, and incidentals, they make money going to college. Now granted, it's a state school like the University of Florida or Florida State, but geez, these are kinda great schools.
As for forking over $47,000 per annum, that's more than Harvard but less than NYU. Plus another $150K for the Masters and $125K for the PhD.
The US by God Navy has a designator for Oceanography - 1800. It's Restricted Line so you can't accede to Command-at-Sea, but by the Laws of the Gods of the Sea, you will become an Oceanographer. You'll need a collitch degree or commission from a paid education at the US Naval Academy. Might not be the path you want to take. I worked my way through college, and it was not a lot of fun.
Good luck with all that.

 

[DanMont]

Just to add my two pennies worth. Whilst I can see that you are limited by conditions placed upon you in regards to word count, I do think you could have put a bit more effort into proof reading your paragraph. There are a number of grammatical and spelling errors that a simple re-read would have highlighted. If you don't already you should definitely ask someone else to read anything important like this to give you some constructive criticism.

As a current Marine Biology undergraduate I do however wish you luck, and hope you manage to raise the funds you need to get in to graduate school.
(Seeing how much you have to pay I am very glad I live in the UK though!)

 

[cbm32]

I found the criticism constructive. Not rude or overly harsh. Unfortunately, it has become a world in which nearly ANY criticism is construed as being inappropriate.

 

[SeaHawk12]

I know it's a tab bit late, but I feel it is necessary for me to comment on your work. Just a little background, I am currently an undergraduate student in Marine Biology/ Physics and graduated high school with an IB diploma, so I understand that you are engaged in the most rigorous courses available to you.

Now, in terms of your work, although the essay shows good intentions and does convey a deep set love of the oceans to the reader, its emotion is often obscured by excessive wording, poor flow, and often repetitive phrasing. If you plan to succeed at the college level, I would highly suggest improving your english writing abilities, especially since the IB HL English exam, which you will be taking, is quite tough.

Additionally, an imposed word limit is no reason to submit subpar work. If you do not personally believe that this essay was the absolute best quality work you could create, then there is no way others can be convinced of this fact either. Word limits of these natures will become more and more common as you move through your college career, and the ability to condense large amounts of information into short paragraphs is one highly desired in the natural sciences. Additionally, remember that the ascetics of a paper are almost as important as the content. Having a well balanced layout will help significantly in your future endeavors!

I hope that you are able to attend the university of your choice and that you truly CAN make a difference for the marine environment. Remember to plan past your graduation, as many of my fiends have yet to do!