Sample Essays on “Who Am I?” How to guide, with Outlines

Published by gudwriter on November 23, 2017 November 23, 2017

How to Write an Essay About Yourself

Many students, from high school to college level, do not know how to describe themselves. They mix up ideas as they do not really know what they need to include in their writing. The main aim of a who am I essay is to make the reader understand who you are and what you believe in. Remember, the essay doesn’t have to be always about the positive side- you can include your weak points as well in a creative way. You can also write about what makes you unique (unique skills, character, etc). If you need help, college admission essay writing services is available to assist you.

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Striking the balance makes your essay realistic and convincing.

Character : What are your character traits? Which habits define you?

Values : What is your value system? Here, you need to include things that inspire you. It is here that you state your beliefs, motivations, principles, and inspirations. The reader expects you to have either staunch stands on certain things and this is the part where you make them know. Do not highlight radical points, though.

Skills : What aptitudes do you have? And, what is the level in each skill? This may include communication, computer, education, languages, leadership, or anything else you find worthy.

Achievements :

Life experiences that influenced your life

Perhaps you would like to read an essay sample on what makes you unique ?

Who Am I Essay Example 1 Outline

Below is a layout you should follow when writing a personal essay to impress your professor.

  • Hook – The Question – who am I?
  • Brief summary: Well, I know quite much about myself: I am a social, kind, respectful, and principled young man.
  • Thesis : I am a kind, friendly, respectful, and principled young person.
  • Point : Social
  • Illustration : Meeting new friends
  • Logic : Makes me dynamic
  • Thesis relation: A cheerful, social and accommodative person is how many people know me.
  • Point : Respectful and law abiding
  • Illustration : Want to get along with everyone- both juniors and seniors. Car seats, polite character
  • Explanation : I know the limits
  • Thesis relation : Every day, I want to be known as a person who is respectful even to those who least deserve it.
  • Point : Hobbies
  • Illustrations : Sports, chess, music
  • Explanation : Clear my mind, get healthier.
  • Thesis relation : Sportsmanship has taught me to be fair other people, diligent and focused.
  • Point : I am not perfect- when I don’t hit my targets, obvious opposition from people who don’t love progress. My love for novelty makes me uncomfortable with normal rules.
  • Illustrations : My mum says I am selfish and that I always want everything to go my way. Yet, I’m still the person you will find in doing voluntary community work to help people.
  • Explanation : I guess my self-esteem is too high for people to put down. This rubs feathers with people who stand my path to success.
  • Thesis relation : I’d be a liar to say I am a genius, flawless or immortal- and that’s who I am.
  • Restatement of thesis
  • Summary of essay
  • Signing out

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Who Am I Essay Example 1

Who am I? Describing oneself is one of the most complicated tasks. In most cases, we always define ourselves using institutions, other people, or activities. Well, I know quite much about myself: I am a kind, friendly, respectful, and principled young person.

First, I am a sociable person. I love to meet people and make new friends. It’s not that I am an extrovert. However, I always work towards getting along with people. Of course, there are times I enjoy being alone for meditation . However, being around people makes me feel comfortable. I like to utilize every chance I get to make new friends. Interacting with people from different parts of the world makes me a diverse person. I am one of those people who believe that there is richness in human diversity. I am not quite selective of who I socialize with. A cheerful, cordial, and accommodative person is how many people know me.

Second, I am kind and respectful. Well, I appreciate that there is a thin line between being social and respectful. I want to treat everyone – junior or senior- with utmost reverence. In this regard, I am quite a listener. This didn’t start yesterday- I have always loved to give up my seats to elders in the train since I was young. Again, I am firm and at the same time polite. I love to make my points in a way that won’t hurt those around me. I always desire to be respectful even to those who least deserve it. Being respectful does not subtract anything from me after all.

Third, I have a great affection to team play. Well, I probably got this trait from my life as a sportsperson. I have been a school captain in Team Handball and Badminton. Today, I still participate in these games as a coach. I’m adherent to chess and I could become a grandmaster in the next few months. Sports and competitions have trained me to be fair, diligent, hardworking, and focused. As my hobby, chess clears my mind while athletics make me healthy. I’d definitely not tell who I am without mentioning sportsmanship. Actually, sports largely define me.

I am not perfect, though. I can be moody when I don’t hit my targets. My love for novelty makes me uncomfortable with normal rules. My mum says I am selfish and that I always want everything to go my way. Yet, I’m still the person you will find doing voluntary community work to help people. I guess my self-esteem is too high for people to put down. This rubs feathers with anyone who stands on the path to success. I’d be a liar if I said that I am a genius, flawless or immortal- and that’s who I am.

Anyway, it may be a little difficult to explain who I am. However, there are qualities that are an outright depiction of me. Respect, principles, sportsmanship, and leadership are some of them. As a quick learner, I love to change every behavior that doesn’t make me a better person. The desire to be good to everybody has made me who I am today and I intend to keep it that way.

Personal Essay Example 2 Outline

Introduction.

I give a description of myself in relation to my family background, personality, and how I view life.

Paragraph 1:

Family background

  • Revolves around strong Christian faith since my parents are staunch Roman Catholic faithful
  • I was born in Chicago, Illinois 21 years ago and I am the third born in a family of four children.
  • I am a female of African American origin and I am very proud of my cultural background and family values

Paragraph 2:

My personality

  • I am outspoken and like socializing and making new friends
  • I value respect and believe it is two way
  • I am hard working

Paragraph 3:

My view of life

  • All humans are equal regardless of their cultural, racial and religious backgrounds as well as gender
  • I am liberal in that I am open to learning new things such as new cultures, religions, and even languages
  • Divergent views should be tolerated

I can summarize myself as someone who is respectful, accommodating, and open minded. I appreciate that as a human, I need others for my life to be complete. I believe my personality and world views are matching and thus I find life more sociable and interesting.

Personal Essay Example 2

My family background revolves around strong Christian faith since my parents are staunch Roman Catholic faithful. I was born in Chicago, Illinois 21 years ago and I am the third born in a family of four children. I am a female of African-American origin and I am very proud of my cultural background and family values. Like my parents, I have developed the habit and routine of going to church every Sunday in line with Christian doctrines. As a matter of fact, all the members of my family value attending Sunday masses wherever they may find themselves. I grew up in a working-parents family and I have grown to live in harmony with my siblings.

Regarding my personality, I am one person who is outspoken and likes socializing and making new friends. The number of friends I have in college is uncountable because I have no boundaries when it comes to building relationships. That notwithstanding, I value respect and believe it is two way. I expect that anybody I interact with should show me the same level of respect I show them irrespective of their background or status in the society. I am hard working because my parents taught me to loathe laziness since it is the beginning of poverty and miserable life. To me, respect and hard work go hand in hand. Working hard respectfully has opened many doors for me so far in my life.

My view of life is that all humans are equal regardless of their cultural, racial, and religious backgrounds as well as gender. This is why I have friends whose cultural and other backgrounds are diverse. I am also liberal in that I am open to learning new things such as new cultures, religions, and even languages. For instance, I can speak fluent French and Spanish yet I am American. I also believe that divergent views should be tolerated because this is part of enhancing human diversity. My parents had once tried to stop me from being too open minded but I persisted with it. Being open to new things, in my view, amounts to being accommodative to human diversity.

In conclusion, I can summarize myself as someone who is respectful, accommodative, and open minded. I appreciate that as a human, I need others for my life to be complete. When I show that I care for and accommodate different views, I find it easy working with others. I have thus managed to evade suffering any form of racial or cultural profiling because people find me easy to deal with. I believe my personality and world views are matching and thus I find life more sociable and interesting. It is my intention to continue leading this fulfilling life.

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Personal Essay Sample 3 Outline

I am a faithful Christian who is open-minded, friendly, and action-oriented.

Paragraph1:

In spite of being a staunch Christian, I am open to other people’s ways of worship and generally to other people’s way of life and opinions.

  • I can listen to and understand what other people say and treat it as their opinion to which they are entitled whether or not I agree with it.
  • I am able to live amongst people of various cultures.
  • However, I do not let other people’s views or cultures affect my own.

I am a friendly person who highly values friendship.

  • I have the habit of forming strong friendships both in our neighborhood and at school.
  • I have quite a number of friends from various backgrounds because I do not choose friends based on their cultural backgrounds.
  • I believe in genuine friendship and as soon as I detect that one is not a true friend, I drop them.

I follow my decisions and promises with actions as I believe that it is through actions that one can solve their problems and meet their life goals.

  • I keep to my decisions once I make them.
  • I have been able to accomplish many of my life’s endeavors especially in my academic life.
  • I also know that keeping promises is one of the best ways of keeping relationships alive and healthy.
  • I normally do all it takes to keep a promise irrespective of who I make it to.

I am an open-minded Christian who values relationships and I act on my decisions and promises. I am accommodative to diverse views and opinions even when they sharply contrast with mine. I pursue my life goals and keep relationships through action.

Personal Essay Sample 3

As a person, I feel growing over the years has significantly changed who I am. I have had to see and experience many things that I did not get to see in my childhood. I have also met many different people and visited many places. Some of the perspectives I held about people and certain things have certainly changed. In addition, I have undergone significant personal growth which has seen my personality transform as well. I have also become more decisive in my actions and in my relationships with others. I am a faithful Christian who is open-minded, friendly, and action-oriented.

In spite of being a staunch Christian, I am open to other people’s ways of worship and generally to other people’s way of life and opinions. I can listen to and understand what other people say and treat it as their opinion to which they are entitled whether or not I agree with it. This way, I have been able to learn a lot from others and widen my view of life and humanity. I am also able to live amongst people of various cultures. However, I do not let other people’s views or cultures affect my own as much as I may be accommodative to them. This is because I believe that the world has enough space for everyone to practice their own cultures and share their opinions without interfering with others.

I am also a friendly person who highly values friendship. From my childhood, I developed the habit of forming strong friendships both in our neighborhood and at school. I have carried this habit to my adulthood and I have quite a number of friends from various backgrounds because I do not choose friends based on their cultural backgrounds. However, I believe in genuine friendship and as soon as I detect that one is not a true friend, I drop them. To me, a friend should be like family that is always there for one in their better and tough days and moments. Out of this belief, I have helped a number of friends both in and out of school and shared with them some of my innermost secrets. I too have benefited from the loyalty of these friendships.

Further, I follow my decisions and promises with actions as I believe that it is through actions that one can solve their problems and meet their life goals. This virtue has helped me accomplish many of my life’s endeavors especially in my academic life. For example, since my middle school level, I decided that I would not consume television content during examination periods but maximally concentrate on the exams. I have kept to this decision and have thus posted good grades all through because I always have enough time to prepare for exams. I also know that keeping promises is one of the best ways of keeping relationships alive and healthy. I normally do all it takes to keep a promise irrespective of who I make it to. I do keep even as simple a promise as that of sharpening my younger sister’s drawing pencil every morning before she goes to school.

I am an open-minded Christian who values relationships and I act on my decisions and promises. I am accommodative to diverse views and opinions even when they sharply contrast with mine. I pursue my life goals and keep relationships through action. I also have many friends since I believe that genuine friendship is highly beneficial to humans. This personality and values enable me to live a fulfilling life as I am capable of accomplishing my goals and at the same time live harmoniously with others.

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College Essays

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Did you think you were all done pouring out your blood, sweat, and tears in written form for your personal statement , only to be faced with the "why this college?" supplemental essay? This question might seem simple but is in fact a crucial and potentially tricky part of many college applications. What exactly is the "why us?" essay trying to understand about you? And how do you answer this question without falling into its many pitfalls or making any rookie mistakes?

In this article, I'll explain why colleges want you to be able to explain why you are applying. I'll also discuss how to generate and brainstorm topics for this question and how to make yourself sound sincere and committed. Finally, we'll go over some "why this school?" essay do s and don't s.

This article is pretty detailed, so here's a brief overview of what we'll be covering:

Why Do Colleges Want You to Write a "Why Us?" Essay?

Two types of "why this college" essay prompts, step 1: research the school, step 2: brainstorm potential essay topics, step 3: nail the execution, example of a great "why this college" essay.

College admissions officers have to read an incredible amount of student work to put together a winning class, so trust me when I say that everything they ask you to write is meaningful and important .

The purpose of the "why us?" essay goes two ways. On one hand, seeing how you answer this question gives admissions officers a sense of whether you know and value their school .

On the other hand, having to verbalize why you are applying gives you the chance to think about what you want to get out of your college experience  and whether your target schools fit your goals and aspirations.

What Colleges Get Out Of Reading Your "Why This College?" Essay

Colleges want to check three things when they read this essay.

First, they want to see that you have a sense of what makes this college different and special.

  • Do you know something about the school's mission, history, or values?
  • Have you thought about the school's specific approach to learning?
  • Are you comfortable with the school's traditions and the overall feel of student life here?

Second, they want proof that you will be a good fit for the school.

  • Where do your interests lie? Do they correspond to this school's strengths?
  • Is there something about you that meshes well with some aspect of the school?
  • How will you contribute to college life? How will you make your mark on campus?

And third, they want to see that this school will, in turn, be a good fit for you.

  • What do you want to get out of college? Will this college be able to provide that? Will this school contribute to your future success?
  • What will you take advantage of on campus (e.g., academic programs, volunteer or travel opportunities, internships, or student organizations)?
  • Will you succeed academically? Does this school provide the right rigor and pace for your ideal learning environment?

What You Get Out Of Writing Your "Why This College?" Essay

Throughout this process of articulating your answers to the questions above, you will also benefit in a couple of key ways:

It Lets You Build Excitement about the School

Finding specific programs and opportunities at schools you are already happy about will give you a grounded sense of direction for when you start school . At the same time, by describing what is great about schools that are low on your list, you'll likely boost your enthusiasm for these colleges and keep yourself from feeling that they're nothing more than lackluster fallbacks.

It Helps You Ensure That You're Making the Right Choice

Writing the "why us?" essay can act as a moment of clarity. It's possible that you won't be able to come up with any reasons for applying to a particular school. If further research fails to reveal any appealing characteristics that fit with your goals and interests, this school is likely not for you.

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At the end of your four years, you want to feel like this, so take your "Why This College?" essay to heart.

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Craft Your Perfect College Essay

The "why this college?" essay is best thought of as a back-and-forth between you and the college . This means that your essay will really be answering two separate, albeit related, questions:

  • "Why us?":  This is where you explain what makes the school special in your eyes, what attracted you to it, and what you think you'll get out of your experience there.
  • "Why you?":  This is the part where you talk about why you'll fit in at the school; what qualities, skills, talents, or abilities you'll contribute to student life; and how your future will be impacted by the school and its opportunities.

Colleges usually use one of these approaches to frame this essay , meaning that your essay will lean heavier toward whichever question is favored in the prompt. For example, if the prompt is all about "why us?" you'll want to put your main focus on praising the school. If the prompt instead is mostly configured as "why you?" you'll want to dwell at length on your fit and potential.

It's good to remember that these two prompts are simply two sides of the same coin. Your reasons for wanting to apply to a particular school can be made to fit either of these questions.

For instance, say you really want the chance to learn from the world-famous Professor X. A "why us?" essay might dwell on how amazing an opportunity studying with him would be for you, and how he anchors the Telepathy department.

Meanwhile, a "why you?" essay would point out that your own academic telepathy credentials and future career goals make you an ideal student to learn from Professor X, a renowned master of the field.

Next up, I'll show you some real-life examples of what these two different approaches to the same prompt look like.

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Clarifying why you want to study with a particular professor in a specific department can demonstrate to college admissions staff that you've done your research on the school.

"Why Us?" Prompts

  • Why [this college]?
  • Why are you interested in [this college]?
  • Why is [this college] a good choice for you?
  • What do you like best about [this college]?
  • Why do you want to attend [this college]?

Below are some examples of actual "why us?" college essay prompts:

  • Colorado College :  "Describe how your personal experiences with a particular community make you a student who would benefit from Colorado College’s Block Plan."
  • Tufts University : " I am applying to Tufts because… "
  • Tulane University : "Describe why you are interested in joining the Tulane community. Consider your experiences, talents, and values to illustrate what you would contribute to the Tulane community if admitted." (via the Common App )
  • University of Michigan : "Describe the unique qualities that attract you to the specific undergraduate College or School (including preferred admission and dual degree programs) to which you are applying at the University of Michigan. How would that curriculum support your interests?"
  • Wellesley College : " When choosing a college, you are choosing an intellectual community and a place where you believe that you can live, learn, and flourish. We know that there are more than 100 reasons to choose Wellesley, but it's a good place to start. Visit the Wellesley 100 and select two items that attract, inspire, or celebrate what you would bring to our community. Have fun! Use this opportunity to reflect personally on what items appeal to you most and why. "

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In a "why us?" essay, focus on the specific aspects of the school that appeal to you and how you will flourish because of those offerings.

"Why You?" Prompts

  • Why are you a good match or fit for us?
  • What are your interests, and how will you pursue them at [this college]?
  • What do you want to study, and how will that correspond to our program?
  • What or how will you contribute?
  • Why you at [this college]?
  • Why are you applying to [this college]?

Here are some examples of the "why you?" version of the college essay:

  • Babson College : " A defining element of the Babson experience is learning and thriving in an equitable and inclusive community with a wide range of perspectives and interests. Please share something about your background, lived experiences, or viewpoint(s) that speaks to how you will contribute to and learn from Babson's collaborative community. "
  • Bowdoin College : "Generations of students have found connection and meaning in Bowdoin's 'The Offer of the College.' ... Which line from the Offer resonates most with you? Optional: The Offer represents Bowdoin's values. Please reflect on the line you selected and how it has meaning to you." (via the Common App )

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In a "why you?" essay, focus on how your values, interests, and motivations align with the school's offerings and how you'll contribute to campus life.

No matter how the prompt is worded, this essay is a give-and-take of what you and the college have to offer each other. Your job is to quickly zoom in on your main points and use both precision and detail to sound sincere, excited, and authentic.

How do you effectively explain the benefits you see this particular school providing for you and the contributions you will bring to the table as a student there? And how can you do this best using the small amount of space that you have (usually just one to two paragraphs)?

In this section, we'll go through the process of writing the "Why This College?" essay, step-by-step. First, I'll talk about the prep work you'll need to do. Next, we'll go through how to brainstorm good topics (and touch on what topics to avoid). I'll give you some tips on transforming your ideas and research into an actual essay. Finally, I'll take apart an actual "why us?" essay to show you why and how it works.

Before you can write about a school, you'll need to know specific things that make it stand out and appeal to you and your interests . So where do you look for these? And how do you find the details that will speak to you? Here are some ways you can learn more about a school.

In-Person Campus Visits

If you're going on college tours , you've got the perfect opportunity to gather information about the school. Bring a notepad and write down the following:

  • Your tour guide's name
  • One to two funny, surprising, or enthusiastic things your guide said about the school
  • Any unusual features of the campus, such as buildings, sculptures, layout, history, or traditions

Try to also connect with students or faculty while you're there. If you visit a class, note which class it is and who teaches it. See whether you can briefly chat with a student (e.g., in the class you visit, around campus, or in a dining hall), and ask what they like most about the school or what has been most surprising about being there.

Don't forget to write down the answer! Trust me, you'll forget it otherwise—especially if you do this on multiple college visits.

Virtual Campus Visits

If you can't visit a campus in person, the next best thing is an online tour , either from the school's own website or from other websites, such as YOUniversityTV , CampusTours , or YouTube (search "[School Name] + tour").

You can also connect with students without visiting the campus in person . Some admissions websites list contact information for currently enrolled students you can email to ask one or two questions about what their experience of the school has been like.

Or if you know what department, sport, or activity you're interested in, you can ask the admissions office to put you in touch with a student who is involved with that particular interest.

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If you can't visit a campus in person, request a video chat with admissions staff, a current student, or a faculty member to get a better sense of specific topics you might write about in your essay.

Alumni Interview

If you have an interview , ask your interviewer questions about their experience at the school and about what going to that school has done for them since graduation. As always, take notes!

College Fairs

If you have a chance to go to a college fair where your ideal college has representatives, don't just attend and pick up a brochure. Instead, e ngage the representatives in conversation, and ask them about what they think makes the school unique .  Jot down notes on any interesting details they tell you.

The College's Own Materials

Colleges publish lots and lots of different admissions materials—and all of these will be useful for your research. Here are some suggestions for what you can use. (You should be able to find all of the following resources online.)

Brochures and Course Catalogs

Read the mission statement of the school; does its educational philosophy align with yours? You should also read through its catalogs. Are there any programs, classes, departments, or activities that seem tailor-made for you in some way?

Pro Tip: These interesting features you find should be unusual in some way or different from what other schools offer. For example, being fascinated with the English department isn't going to cut it unless you can discuss its unusual focus, its world-renowned professors, or the different way it structures the major that appeals to you specifically.

Alumni Magazine

Are any professors highlighted? Does their research speak to you or connect with a project you did in high school or for an extracurricular?

Sometimes alumni magazines will highlight a college's new focus or new expansion. Does the construction of a new engineering school relate to your intended major? There might also be some columns or letters written by alumni who talk about what going to this particular school has meant to them. What stands out about their experiences?

School or Campus Newspaper

Students write about the hot issues of the day, which means that the articles will be about the best and worst things on campus . It'll also give you insight into student life, opportunities that are available to students, activities you can do off campus, and so on.

The College's Social Media

Your ideal school is most likely on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, and other social media. Follow the school to see what it's posting about.  Are there any exciting new campus developments? Professors in the news? Interesting events, clubs, or activities?

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The Internet

Wikipedia is a great resource for learning basic details about a college's history, traditions, and values. I also recommend looking for forums on College Confidential that specifically deal with the school you're researching.

Another option is to search on Google for interesting phrases, such as "What students really think about [School Name]" or "[School Name] student forum." This will help you get detailed points of view, comments about specific programs or courses, and insight into real student life.

So what should you do now that you've completed a bunch of research? Answer: use it to develop connection points between you and your dream school. These connections will be the skeleton of your "why this college?" essay.

Find the Gems in Your Research

You have on hand all kinds of information, from your own personal experiences on campus and your conversations with people affiliated with your ideal school to what you've learned from campus publications and tidbits gleaned from the web.

Now, it's time to sift through all of your notes to find the three to five things that really speak to you. Link what you've learned about the school to how you can plug into this school's life, approach, and environment. That way, no matter whether your school's prompt is more heavily focused on the "why us?" or "why you?" part of the give-and-take, you'll have an entry point into the essay.

But what should these three to five things be? What should you keep in mind when you're looking for the gem that will become your topic?

Here are some words of wisdom from Calvin Wise , director of recruitment and former associate director of admissions at Johns Hopkins University (emphasis mine):

" Focus on what makes us unique and why that interests you. Do your research, and articulate a multidimensional connection to the specific college or university. We do not want broad statements (the brick pathways and historic buildings are beautiful) or a rehash of the information on our website (College X offers a strong liberal arts curriculum). All institutions have similarities. We want you to talk about our differences. "

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Time to find that diamond, amethyst, opal, tourmaline, or amber in the rough.

Check Your Gems for Color and Clarity

When I say "check your gems," I mean make sure that each of the three to five things you've found is something your ideal school has that other schools don't have.

This something should be seen from your own perspective. The point isn't to generically praise the school but instead to go into detail about why it's so great for you that they have this thing.

This something you find should be meaningful to the school and specific to you. For example, if you focus on academics (e.g., courses, instructors, opportunities, or educational philosophy), find a way to link them either to your previous work or to your future aspirations.

This something should not be shallow and nonspecific. Want to live in a city? Every city has more than one college in it. Find a way to explain why this specific college in this specific city calls to you. Like pretty architecture? Many schools are beautiful, so dwell on why this particular place feels unlike any other. Like good weather, beach, skiing, or some other geographical attribute? There are many schools located near these places, and they know that people enjoy sunbathing. Either build a deeper connection or skip these as reasons.

Convert Your Gems into Essay Topics

Every "why this college?" essay is going to answer both the "why us?" and the "why you?" parts of the back-and-forth equation. But depending on which way your target school has worded its prompt, you'll lean more heavily on that part . This is why I'm going to split this brainstorming into two parts—to go with the "why us?" and "why you?" types of questions.

Of course, since they are both sides of the same coin, you can always easily flip each of these ideas around to have it work well for the other type of prompt . For example, a "why us?" essay might talk about how interesting the XYZ interdisciplinary project is and how it fits well with your senior project.

By contrast, a "why you?" essay would take the same idea but flip it to say that you've learned through your senior project how you deeply value an interdisciplinary approach to academics, making you a great fit for this school and its commitment to such work, as evidenced by project XYZ.

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Describing how project XYZ demonstrates your investment in a particular course of study that then happens to align with a specific program at the university is an effective approach to the "why you?" essay.

Possible "Why Us?" Topics

  • How a particular program of study, internship requirement, or volunteer connection will help further your specific career goals .
  • The school's interesting approach to your future major (if you know what that will be) or a major that combines several disciplines that appeal to you and fit with your current academic work and interests.
  • How the school handles financial aid and the infrastructure setup for low-income students and what that means for you in terms of opening doors.
  • A story about how you became interested in the school (if you learned about it in an interesting way). For example, did the institution host a high school contest you took part in? Did you attend an art exhibit or stage performance there that you enjoyed and that your own artistic work aligns with?
  • How you overcame an initial disinterest in the school (be sure to minimize this first negative impression). Did you do more research? Interact with someone on campus? Learn about the school's commitment to the community? Learn about interesting research being done there?
  • A positive interaction you had with current students, faculty, or staff, as long as this is more than just, "Everyone I met was really nice."
  • An experience you had while on a campus tour. Was there a super-passionate tour guide? Any information that surprised you? Did something happen to transform your idea about the school or campus life (in a good way)?
  • Interesting interdisciplinary work going on at the university and how that connects with your academic interests, career goals, or previous high school work.
  • The history of the school —but only if it's meaningful to you in some way. Has the school always been committed to fostering minority, first-generation, or immigrant students? Was it founded by someone you admire? Did it take an unpopular (but, to you, morally correct) stance at some crucial moment in history?
  • An amazing professor you can't wait to learn from. Is there a chemistry professor whose current research meshes with a science fair project you did? A professor who's a renowned scholar on your favorite literary or artistic period or genre? A professor whose book on economics finally made you understand the most recent financial crisis?
  • A class that sounds fascinating , especially if it's in a field you want to major in.
  • A facility or piece of equipment you can't wait to work in or with  and that doesn't exist in many other places. Is there a specialty library with rare medieval manuscripts? Is there an observatory?
  • A required curriculum that appeals to you because it provides a solid grounding in the classics, shakes up the traditional canon, connects all the students on campus in one intellectual project, or is taught in a unique way.

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If the school can boast a cutting-edge laboratory where you dream of conducting research, that would be a strong focus for a "Why Us?" essay.

Possible "Why You?" Topics

  • Do you want to continue a project you worked on in high school? Talk about how or where in the current course, club, and program offerings this work would fit in. Why will you be a good addition to the team?
  • Have you always been involved in a community service project that's already being done on campus? Write about integrating life on campus with events in the surrounding community.
  • Do you plan to keep performing in the arts, playing music, working on the newspaper, or engaging in something else you were seriously committed to in high school? Discuss how excited you are to join that existing organization.
  • Are you the perfect person to take advantage of an internship program (e.g., because you have already worked in this field, were exposed to it through your parents, or have completed academic work that gives you some experience with it)?
  • Are you the ideal candidate for a study abroad opportunity (e.g., because you can speak the language of the country, it's a place where you've worked or studied before, or your career goals are international in some respect)?
  • Are you a stand-out match for an undergraduate research project (e.g., because you'll major in this field, you've always wanted to work with this professor, or you want to pursue research as a career option)?
  • Is there something you were deeply involved with that doesn't currently exist on campus? Offer to start a club for it. And I mean a club; you aren't going to magically create a new academic department or even a new academic course, so don't try offering that. If you do write about this, make double (and even triple) sure that the school doesn't already have a club, course, or program for this interest.
  • What are some of the programs or activities you plan to get involved with on campus , and what unique qualities will you bring to them?
  • Make this a mini version of a personal statement you never wrote.  Use this essay as another chance to show a few more of the skills, talents, or passions that don't appear in your actual college essay. What's the runner-up interest that you didn't write about? What opportunity, program, or offering at the school lines up with it?

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One way to impress admissions staff in a "Why You?" essay is to discuss your fascination with a particular topic in a specific discipline, such as kinetic sculpture, and how you want to pursue that passion (e.g., as a studio art major).

Possible Topics for a College That's Not Your First Choice

  • If you're writing about a school you're not completely psyched about, one way to sidestep the issue is to focus on what getting this degree will do for you in the future . How do you see yourself changing existing systems, helping others, or otherwise succeeding?
  • Alternatively, discuss what the school values academically, socially, environmentally, or philosophically and how this connects with what you also care about . Does it have a vegan, organic, and cruelty-free cafeteria? A relationship with a local farm or garden? De-emphasized fraternity involvement? Strong commitment to environmental issues? Lots of opportunities to contribute to the community surrounding the school? Active inclusion and a sense of belonging for various underrepresented groups?
  • Try to find at least one or two features you're excited about for each of the schools on your list. If you can't think of a single reason why this would be a good place for you to go, maybe you shouldn't be applying there!

Topics to Avoid in Your Essay

  • Don't write about general characteristics, such as a school's location (or the weather in that location), reputation, or student body size. For example, anyone applying to the Webb Institute , which has just about 100 students , should by all means talk about having a preference for tiny, close-knit communities. By contrast, schools in sunny climates know that people enjoy good weather, but if you can't connect the outdoors with the college itself, think of something else to say.
  • Don't talk about your sports fandom. Saying, "I can see myself in crimson and white/blue and orange/[some color] and [some other color]" is both overused and not a persuasive reason for wanting to go to a particular college. After all, you could cheer for a team without going to the school! Unless you're an athlete, you're an aspiring mascot performer, or you have a truly one-of-a-kind story to tell about your link to the team, opt for a different track.
  • Don't copy descriptions from the college's website to tell admissions officers how great their institution is. They don't want to hear praise; they want to hear how you connect with their school. So if something on the college brochure speaks to you, explain why this specific detail matters to you and how your past experiences, academic work, extracurricular interests, or hobbies relate to that detail.
  • Don't use college rankings as a reason you want to go to a school. Of course prestige matters, but schools that are ranked right next to each other on the list are at about the same level of prestige. What makes you choose one over the other?
  • If you decide to write about a future major, don't just talk about what you want to study and why . Make sure that you also explain why you want to study this thing at this particular school . What do they do differently from other colleges?
  • Don't wax poetic about the school's pretty campus. "From the moment I stepped on your campus, I knew it was the place for me" is another cliché—and another way to say basically nothing about why you actually want to go to this particular school. Lots of schools are pretty, and many are pretty in the exact same way.

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Pop quiz: This pretty gothic building is on what college campus? Yes, that's right—it could be anywhere.

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When you've put together the ideas that will make up your answer to the "why us?" question, it's time to build them into a memorable essay. Here are some tips for doing that successfully:

  • Jump right in. The essay is short, so there's no need for an introduction or conclusion. Spend the first paragraph delving into your best one or two reasons for applying. Then, use the second paragraph to go into slightly less detail about reasons 2 (or 3) through 5.
  • To thine own self be true. Write in your own voice, and be sincere about what you're saying. Believe me—the reader can tell when you mean it and when you're just blathering!
  • Details, details, details. Show the school that you've done your research. Are there any classes, professors, clubs, or activities you're excited about at the school? Be specific (e.g., "I'm fascinated by the work Dr. Jenny Johnson has done with interactive sound installations").
  • If you plan on attending if admitted, say so. Colleges care about the numbers of acceptances deeply, so it might help to know you're a sure thing. But don't write this if you don't mean it!
  • Don't cut and paste the same essay for every school. At least once, you'll most likely forget to change the school name or some other telling detail. You also don't want to have too much vague, cookie-cutter reasoning, or else you'll start to sound bland and forgettable.

For more tips, check out our step-by-step essay-writing advice .

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Avoid cookie-cutter responses to "why this college?" essay prompts. Instead, provide an essay that's personalized to that particular institution.

At this point, it'll be helpful to take a look at a "why us?" essay that works and figure out what the author did to create a meaningful answer to this challenging question.

Here is a "Why Tufts?" essay from James Gregoire '19 for Tufts University :

It was on my official visit with the cross country team that I realized Tufts was the perfect school for me. Our topics of conversation ranged from Asian geography to efficient movement patterns, and everyone spoke enthusiastically about what they were involved in on campus. I really related with the guys I met, and I think they represent the passion that Tufts' students have. I can pursue my dream of being a successful entrepreneur by joining the Tufts Entrepreneurs Society, pursuing an Entrepreneurial Leadership minor, and taking part in an up-and-coming computer science program.

Here are some of the main reasons this essay is so effective:

  • Interaction with current students. James writes about hanging out with the cross-country team and sounds excited about meeting them.
  • "I'm a great fit." He uses the conversation with the cross-country team members to talk about his own good fit here ("I really related with the guys I met").
  • Why the school is special. James also uses the conversation as a way to show that he enjoys the variety of opportunities Tufts offers (their fun conversation covers Asian geography, movement patterns, and other things they "were involved with on campus").
  • Taking advantage of this specialness. James doesn't just list things Tufts offers but also explains which of them are of specific value to him. He's interested in being an entrepreneur, so the Tufts Entrepreneurs Society and the Entrepreneurial Leadership courses appeal to him.
  • Awareness of what the school is up to. Finally, James shows that he's aware of the latest Tufts developments when he mentions the new computer science program.

The Bottom Line: Writing a Great "Why This College?" Essay

  • Proof that you understand what makes this college different and special
  • Evidence that you'll be a good fit at this school
  • Evidence that this college will, in turn, be a good fit for you

The prompt may be phrased in one of two ways: "Why us?" or "Why you?" But these are sides of the same coin and will be addressed in your essay regardless of the prompt style.

Writing the perfect "why this school?" essay requires you to first research the specific qualities and characteristics of this school that appeal to you. You can find this information by doing any or all of the following:

  • Visiting campuses in person or virtually to interact with current students and faculty
  • Posing questions to your college interviewer or to representatives at college fairs
  • Reading the college's own materials , such as its brochures, official website, alumni magazine, campus newspaper, and social media
  • Looking at other websites that talk about the school

To find a topic to write about for your essay, find the three to five things that really speak to you about the school , and then link each of them to yourself, your interests, your goals, or your strengths.

Avoid using clichés that could be true for any school, such as architecture, geography, weather, or sports fandom. Instead, focus on the details that differentiate your intended school from all the others .

What's Next?

Are you also working on your personal statement? If you're using the Common App, check out our complete breakdown of the Common App prompts and learn how to pick the best prompt for you .

If you're applying to a University of California school, we've got an in-depth article on how to write effective UC personal statements .

And if you're submitting ApplyTexas applications, read our helpful guide on how to approach the many different ApplyTexas essay prompts .

Struggling with the college application process as a whole? Our expert guides teach you how to ask for recommendations , how to write about extracurriculars , and how to research colleges .

Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points or your ACT score by 4 points? We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now:

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Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education.

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Baylor University Essay Example by an Accepted Student

With over 15,000 undergrads, Baylor University is the largest Baptist university in the US. The Texas school is known for its top-tier athletics, quality academics, and strong religious values. Its vibrant campus life and stunning location in the heart of Waco, Texas make it a desirable place for many students to pursue a degree.

Getting into Baylor is no easy task. With tens of thousands of highly qualified candidates applying each year, you will need strong essays to make your application stand out. In this post, we will share a real essay an accepted student submitted to Baylor and go over what the essay did well, as well as where there is room for improvement.

Please note: Looking at examples of real essays students have submitted to colleges can be very beneficial to get inspiration for your essays. You should never copy or plagiarize from these examples when writing your own essays. Colleges can tell when an essay isn’t genuine and will not view students favorably if they plagiarized. 

Read our Baylor essay breakdown to get a comprehensive overview of this year’s supplemental prompts.

Baylor Essay Example – Why Baylor?

Prompt: What are you looking for in a university, why do you want to attend Baylor, and how do you see yourself contributing to the Baylor community? (250-450 words)

At a university, I’m looking for more than the “top” or the “best” school; I’m looking for a school that is established and has opportunities for its students to grow in and out of the classroom. In addition, I want a school that supports its students during their time there; I want them to uplift their students and push them to do great things. For me, Baylor does that.

I want to attend Baylor because of the vast number of opportunities for a business-oriented student like me. The sheer number of classes, as well as the number of programs available to students, is immense. For business, classes like international business to management information systems have caught my attention; even classes like risk management and insurance and professional selling have caught my eye.

I plan to major in management information systems and minor in business administration or entrepreneurship. I want to attend Baylor for the expansive club selection. I intend to join clubs like the American Marketing Association at Baylor University, Association for Information Systems, and as a sophomore, have the opportunity to join the Investment and Advisory Network. These clubs can not only help me prepare for life after college but also help me grow during my time at Baylor. 

I see myself contributing at Baylor in many different ways, from contributing inside the classroom and outside. Inside the classroom, I plan to participate in group work, communicate with other students, participate in class discussions, and provide insight on topics I know well. Outside of classes, I plan to join several clubs that spark my interest, clubs to which I can contribute. For example, the Asian Student Association, the Association of Information Technology Professionals, Baylor Buddies, and even the Badminton club. At these clubs, I plan to contribute time and spirit and provide insight into things I can share with others, such as Asian culture and Asian cuisines, my interest in technology, and even my friendliness to others.

What the Essay Did Well

This “Why This College?” essay gives a comprehensive overview of why this student wants to go to Baylor, including academic, extracurricular, and personal enrichment opportunities. Each paragraph is focused on a specific aspect of the college experience—classes, academic extracurriculars, or more personal, hobby-like extracurriculars—which makes it easy to grasp what the student wants from Baylor.

The inclusion of school-specific details also contributes to the reader’s clear understanding of what this student wants from a Baylor education. They name particular classes (although they should have capitalized or italicized the names of these classes, as that provides a level of formality that’s currently missing), discuss various business associations at Baylor and when they plan to join them, and list four additional extracurriculars they want to be a part of that give us extra insight into their personality.

Between the structured presentation of ideas and the naming of nearly a dozen Baylor-specific opportunities, it’s apparent that this student has spent a significant amount of time thinking through what they want their life at Baylor to look like, and done extensive research on how to make that dream a reality. 

What Could Be Improved

There are three major points of improvement for this essay. The first is that we don’t learn much about this student’s personality. Yes, we know what they want to study and what clubs they want to be a part of, but we’re left wondering: why? What sets this student apart from any other applicant who wants to study business, or join these clubs?

This essay would be much stronger if it revealed what this student’s motivations are for pursuing business, how they think joining marketing and investing associations will help them grow or achieve a specific goal of theirs, and what excites them about being part of affinity groups like the Asian Student Association or Baylor Buddies. 

For example, instead of just saying “These clubs can not only help me prepare for life after college but also help me grow during my time at Baylor,” about the business-related extracurriculars they hope to be a part of, the student could say something like the following: 

“I’ve always wondered how the most well-known brands in the world, like Coca-Cola, Nike, and Rolex stay on top, and discussions with my peers in the American Marketing Association will help me start planning how I can one day build a renowned business of my own.”

In contrast to the current line, which is very surface-level, this change shows readers why the student is interested in marketing, and also provides some information about what specific business-related goals they have. The world of business is huge, and includes everything from graphic design to human relations. With more lines like the above example, admissions officers would get a better sense of how the student sees themselves fitting into that world, which would make the essay even stronger.

The other aspect of this essay that could use improvement is the language. Many sentences begin with “I” (i.e. “I want,” “I plan,” “I intend”), which gets repetitive and makes the reader slowly start to lose interest. If the writer had a better mix of sentence openers, the essay would have a smoother rhythm. 

For example, instead of saying “I plan to major in management information systems and minor in business administration or entrepreneurship,” the student could say “Baylor’s major in Management Information Systems, and minors in Business Administration and Entrepreneurship, provide me with an ideal academic structure.” The same information is communicated, but mixing up the presentation of that information helps the reader stay engaged.

Finally, the introductory paragraph doesn’t contribute much to the essay, as it mostly just restates the prompt. Being mindful of maximizing the limited words you have is especially important in supplemental essays, which are almost always shorter than the personal statement, as is immediately grabbing your reader’s attention, as you don’t have much room to get into the swing of things.

The student could make better use of their first paragraph by including an anecdote, ideally with strong sensory details, that shows why they love business so much. For example, they could say something like: 

“Ever since I was a kid, sweating under the summer sun and burning my skin lobster red as I sold lemonade while my friends played in the pool, I have been driven to build my own business. Baylor’s academic and extracurricular opportunities will push me to grow my business acumen, so that I can finally make my childhood dream a reality.”

Where to Get Feedback on Your Essay

Want feedback on your Baylor essay before you submit? That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review tool , where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays. 

If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools. Find the right advisor for you to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!

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My Likes And Dislikes (Essay Sample) 2022

Is it realistic to expect a low-cost, High-Quality Essay from a Cheap Paper Writing Service ?

Essay Writing

We all differ from one another in many different ways. You can find two persons who look alike but you can’t find two persons who think exactly the same. The difference exists owing to how we all think and therefore we have our own likes and dislikes. One major area of difference in our thinking comes from our origin, family background, and climatic conditions of the place where we live. Likes and dislikes also give insight into a person’s inner self and reveal things about their personality. These traits also tell people about one’s character, disposition, and temperament. I also have a few likes and dislikes that I will discuss in this essay.

Table of Contents

Essay On My Likes And Dislikes As A Teenager – 700 Word Long Essay

Every person has their own likes and dislikes in life. Liking something while avoiding others can reveal many things about our personality. It shows what we think, what we approve of, and what we will never try in real life. People’s likes and dislikes depend upon their family background, the place where they live, climatic conditions, and priorities. Once people start to know what they like or dislike, things can start becoming easier. In this essay, I will discuss my likes and dislikes as a teenager in the following pages.

My life has been quite peaceful because of the ability to understand situations, factors, and things that I like and dislike. I usually avoid things and the types of people whom I know will cause trouble for me. On the other hand, I give first priority to situations I am comfortable working in. Because of this ability, I am also able to learn what people around me like and dislike. This means I don’t do things my parents, siblings, and friends dislike which helps me have a good relationship with all of them. Despite all this, the world doesn’t work as you desire and life isn’t fair. I still run into situations that I hate and just destroy my peace of mind.

Talking about my likes, when it comes to people I like optimistic people. I like them because they are hopeful and confident and no matter what happens they remain positive about life. I am not saying that they never get mad, annoyed, or hurt, it’s just that they always see the positive side in people. Based on people’s habits, I like extroverts, not introverts. I am an introvert myself but I don’t like being an introvert. The thing I hate the most about introverts is they keep things to themselves. Keeping everything to themselves and not sharing it with anyone can destroy peace of mind. Other than people here’s a list of what else I like.

 Things That I like (My Likes)

  • I like to travel around. I want to visit all the famous places in the world.
  • I like nature because nature is always refreshing and adds to the beauty of every other thing.
  • I like to go out with my friends and college fellows
  • I like to spend most of my time online. Platforms like Facebook, Youtube, and Instagram.
  • I like to fit in socially no matter if it’s some sports, classroom work, or party. I hate it when I can’t fit in.

Other than the likes, I also have many dislikes which tend to separate me from some people. I do not like the hypocrisy in people, I admire those who are men of action rather than words. It is ugly when people around you pretend to like you on your face and bite you behind your back. Like other people, I also dislike real-life problems, frustrations, and sorrows. Not being able to share personal problems makes them more difficult to handle.

I also dislike people who are too proud and look at others as inferior or low. Being proud of one’s own success is not bad, but I hate it when people rate others based on their wealth and status. Other than these, here are some more things I don’t like.

Things That I Do Not Like (My Dislikes)

  • I hate being forced to do things I don’t want to. Parents/ caretakers need to know when it’s time to stop telling people what to do.
  • I hate being compared with other teenagers no matter how good or bad they are. It’s because I have my own personality and I am unique in my own way.
  • I don’t like people who smoke because they not only destroy their own health but also harm people around them.
  • I hate body shaming anyone or commenting on someone’s caste, color, or creed.
  • I hate being inconsistent. Everyone should be responsible and consistent enough to perform their daily duties.
  • I hate everyone who is unappreciative of someone’s achievement because of jealousy.

In conclusion, everyone has their likes and dislikes and no one should be judged based on that. Research papers show that things people like or hate tell them about their personality. In my opinion, people need to know and respect other people’s likes and dislikes to make this world a better place to live. 

What Is Something You Dislike About Yourself Essay Sample – Short Paragraph About My Likes and Dislikes

Everyone has their likes and dislikes. People like and hate things because of their culture, traditions, religious codes, family ethics, and place of origin. Finding out what people around you like and dislike is useful information to decide what to say or do when you are around them. I believe every person should respect other people’s likes and dislikes. In this short paragraph about likes, I will also share a few things that I love and hate.

Let’s first talk about things I like to do. Well, I like to watch tv, I like to play video games, as a student I like to make study notes for examinations. I also like my hobbies like reading stories for knowledge,  watching movies, and listening to music for joy and pleasure. On top of all, I like cleanliness. I like people who are humble and not proud and who care about others.

Other than liking or disliking other people and things, there is a thing that I dislike about myself. The thing that I hate most about myself is that I am not consistent. I have a bad habit of being inconsistent about almost everything in life. For instance, I study hard one day and then forget about studying for weeks. For some days I become very respectful and helpful to my parents and siblings and then I become an introvert for weeks. Same inconsistency with my diet, my gym, even my relationship with my friends and teachers. I become mad at myself for being like that and regret it every time but I can’t help it.

In conclusion, none of us is perfect and we all have imperfections. Rather than being mad at yourself about things you don’t like about yourself or others we all should look at the positive side. If you are optimistic and positive about things then soon you will start to like everything.

FAQ’s About Essay On Our Likes and Dislikes

Q: how do i write my essay on likes and dislikes.

Start with a small introduction then discuss why you like and dislike things in the body and then write a conclusion.

Q: What do you say in like and dislike?

In a like and dislike essay, you have to discuss what you like and dislike in people and things. It’s better if you also tell why you like certain things and hate others.

Q: How do you ask for likes and dislikes?

You don’t always need to ask people about their likes and dislikes as you can sense it by noticing their habits including what they eat, how they move etc.

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People Probably Like You More Than You Think

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what are you like essay

A research-backed argument for why we underestimate the impression we make on others.

Do people understand the impressions they make on others or do their anxieties lead them to assume the worst? Across nearly 10 years of research and tens of thousands of observations, the authors have come to this answer: people underestimate how much others like them, and this bias has important implications for how people work together.

Initial conversations can have an outsized impact on how relationships develop over time. Naturally, people often dwell on the impressions they might have made the minute they finish speaking with someone for the first time: “Did they like me or were they just being polite?” “Was my pitch funny or offensive?” “Are they deep in thought or deeply bored?”

  • Erica Boothby is a postdoctoral researcher at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where she teaches negotiations. Her research broadly focuses on social connection and the psychological barriers that inhibit connection, with consequences for people’s personal and professional lives. Prior to arriving at the Wharton School, Erica completed her PhD at Yale University and worked at Cornell University’s Behavioral Economics and Decision Research Center.
  • GC Gus Cooney is a social psychologist who studies conversation and social interaction. He teaches Negotiations at the Wharton School.
  • AM Adam Mastroianni is a social psychologist and research scholar at Northwestern University. He teaches negotiations to MBAs and executives and writes the popular science newsletter  Experimental History .
  • AR Andrew Reece is a behavioral data scientist at BetterUp.
  • Gillian Sandstrom is a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Sussex. Her research focuses on how to make difficult conversations a little easier (e.g., talking about cancer, miscarriage, bereavement) and how to encourage people to talk to strangers.

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Student Opinion

What Communities Are You a Part Of? What Communities Would You Like to Explore?

Inspired by a Times photo essay series called “Where We Are,” we invite you to think about why community matters.

Three young men standing on an outdoor basketball court. The man on the right holds a large gray speaker, and all three of them lean in to listen to it. The man on the left wears white track pants and a gray hoodie. The man in the middle wears black track pants and a white tank top. The man on the right wears gray track pants and a black leather jacket.

By Katherine Schulten

If you are participating in our related contest, you can find many more resources here .

How do you define community? What communities are you a part of? Which of them matter to you most?

Are there communities that you are not a part of that you are curious about? Whether you’ve noticed them at your school or at a local park, cafe, gym, church, library or other space in your area, which interest you most?

These are some of the questions that we’re asking for a new contest that invites teenagers to create photo essays inspired by the Times’s immersive “ Where We Are ” series. You can work alone or with others to document any kind of offline community you like, and you can feature people of any age. Then, share your work with us by sending up to eight images with captions and a short introduction.

Even if you’re not participating in the contest, take a look at the series , which ran in 2023. In it, photographers take readers to scenes where friends bond and teenagers learn who they are, like a market in Lagos , Nigeria, where skateboarders dig for fashion; and a Korean American youth camp in upstate New York.

Choose one or more photo essays from the series, scroll through and then answer any of the questions below that you like.

1. The Magic of Your First Car 2. At This Mexican Restaurant, Everyone Is Family 3. Where the Band Kids Are 4. In This Nigerian Market, Young Women Find a Place of Their Own 5. At Camp Naru, Nobody Is ‘an Outlier’ 6. For Black Debutantes in Detroit, Cotillion Is More Than a Ball 7. At This Wrestling Academy, Indian Girls Are ‘Set Free’ 8. In Seville, Spain, These Young Rappers Come Together to Turn ‘Tears Into Rhymes’ 9. For a Queer Community in Los Angeles, This Public Park Is a Lifeline 10. In Guatemala, A Collective of Young Artists Finds Family Through Film 11. On a Caribbean Island, Young People Find Freedom in ‘Bike Life’ 12. At This Texas Campus Ministry, ‘Inclusive Love’ Is the Mission 13. For Young Arab Americans in Michigan, the Hookah Lounge Feels like Home

Students, first react to the photo essays:

Which of the “Where We Are” pieces stood out to you? What about them grabbed your attention?

Which of these communities could you most relate to? How do they connect to your life and experiences?

Which of them introduced you to something new? What did you learn?

Next, reflect on the role of community in your life:

What communities are you a part of? Which of them are most meaningful?

Choose one community to focus on. How does it affect your understanding of who you are? How does it support you?

Both the “Where We Are” series and our contest focus on offline communities grounded in specific places. Are online and offline communities different? Do you prefer one over the other? Is one better, in your opinion?

What communities have you been a part of in the past that have helped shape who you are today? For example, in “ Where the Band Kids Are ,” Ashley Markle chose to photograph the marching band at Ravenna High School because she was once a member. Is there a community you remember fondly?

Then, brainstorm some interesting local communities that you are NOT a part of:

What comes to mind right away when we ask about communities in your area that you are not a part of, but that you might be curious about? (Keep in mind that the people in them don’t have to be teenagers — it could be your grandma’s Mah Jong group, your little brother’s Boy Scout troop or that adult cricket team you see playing every Saturday morning.)

Using the “Where We Are” series as inspiration, consider:

Who gathers in your local parks ?

What businesses — whether restaurants, cafes, gyms, salons, stores, museums or libraries — are popular in your area? Do groups meet regularly in any of those places?

What are the different communities that make up your school ? Think about clubs and sports, about the various physical places where people gather, and about groups that meet before, during and after the school day. Consider, too, groups whose members are both older and younger than you. Which of them especially interest you? Why?

What religious or spiritual groups are in your local area? How do they create a feeling of belonging for their members?

What cultural, racial or ethnic identity communities — like the summer camp for Korean American youth or the debutante balls for young Black men and women in Detroit — are a part of your neighborhood or school?

What local work-related communities are you aware of, whether the work is paid or volunteer? For instance, at a hospital you might find many communities, whether emergency room nurses or volunteers who bring animals to visit sick children.

Are you aware of any hobbyist groups who meet in person nearby? Whether it’s Dungeons and Dragons players, bird-watchers, knitters, skateboarders, dancers or muralists, these kinds of groups might be invisible to you until you look for them.

What local or national political candidates, parties or interest groups have an office or a meeting spot near you? Who is a part of those communities?

What fan communities do you know about, whether they follow a sports team or a local musician?

Are there odd or overlooked places in your neighborhood that have become gathering places? For instance, some communities have a “swap shack” at the local dump where people meet to give and get items for free. In other communities, a parking lot becomes a hangout on warm nights.

Finally, choose a group you are not a part of, and answer these questions:

What is it about this community that makes it special? Why does it matter — both to those in the community and to your neighborhood, town or city in general?

If these questions got you excited, consider entering our contest, which is open through March 20. Our how-to guide can help you take your answers to these questions and create a photo essay. Learn more here.

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.

Find more Student Opinion questions here. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate these prompts into your classroom.

Katherine Schulten has been a Learning Network editor since 2006. Before that, she spent 19 years in New York City public schools as an English teacher, school-newspaper adviser and literacy coach. More about Katherine Schulten

The Unique Hell of Getting Cancer as a Young Adult

Women Dealing With Mental Health

W hen I got diagnosed with Stage 3b Hodgkin Lymphoma at age 32, it was almost impossible to process. Without a family history or lifestyle risk factors that put cancer on my radar, I stared at the emergency room doctor in utter disbelief when he said the CT scan of my swollen lymph node showed what appeared to be cancer—and lots of it. A few days away from a bucket list trip to Japan, I’d only gone to the emergency room because the antibiotics CityMD prescribed to me when I was sick weren’t working.I didn’t want to be sick in a foreign country. So when the doctor told me of my diagnosis, the  only question I could conjure was: “So Tokyo is a no-go?”

Around the world, cancer rates in people under 50 are surging, with a recent study in BMJ Oncology showing that new cases for young adults have risen 79% overall over the past three decades. In the U.S. alone, new cancer diagnoses in people under 50 hit 3.26 million, which is a 79% rise since 1990, with the most common types being breast, windpipe, lung, bowel, and stomach. A new feature in the Wall Street Journal highlights the mad dash among doctors and researchers to determine what’s causing this troubling rise. Strangely, overall cancer rates in the U.S. have dropped over the past three decades, while young people—particularly with colorectal cancers—are increasingly diagnosed at late stages. “We need to make it easier for adolescents and young adults to participate in clinical trials to improve outcomes and study the factors contributing to earlier onset cancers so we can develop new cures,” says Julia Glade Bender, MD, co-lead of the Stuart Center for Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) Cancers at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York City (where I am currently a patient.)

Doctors suspect that lifestyle factors and environmental elements, from microplastics to ultra-processed foods, could be to blame. But many adults in their 20s and 30s, such as myself, were otherwise healthy before their diagnoses. It felt like all those years of forcing myself to run, eat high-fiber foods, and choke down kombucha were for nothing. 

Cancer is hell at any age, but the challenges facing young adults are especially steep, as the disease disrupts a formative period for building a career, family, and even healthy self-esteem, from body image to gender identity. It’s critical that our approach to treating and supporting these patients reflects the severity of this disruption. In recent years, a growing number of cancer hospitals have developed young adult-specific programming like support groups, information sessions on dating and sexual health, and even mobile apps to help counter social alienation. But there is still a long way to go.

Read more: Why I Stopped Being A “Good” Cancer Patient

Shockingly enough, canceling my trip to Japan was the least of my worries. Beyond the excruciating physical side effects of high-dose chemotherapy and a number of life-threatening complications, cancer pulverized my self-esteem into nothingness, as I watched peers get married and promoted from my bed. Thankfully, after switching to a new hospital, I found support groups that connected me with a community of peers who got it, as well as social workers who work exclusively with young adults and thus recognized many of my biggest challenges, like social isolation, financial strain, the dating nightmare, and hating my bald head.

Perhaps the biggest reason I resented cancer was for disrupting a milestone I’d worked for my whole life: a book launch. (My diagnosis came two months before my first book was published.) Young adulthood is meant to be littered with these kinds of professional and personal benchmarks, many of which are hard enough to accomplish without tumors; dating, for instance, is impossible for me even as a healthy person. Now I have to re-enter the pool older, weaker, and more traumatized? 

“Young adult patients may be trying to assert independence from parents, establish a career or intimate relationship, or even be parents themselves,” says Bender. “Most will be naïve to the medical system or a serious health condition.” And so they require flexible, creative clinicians who can help navigate them “to and through the best available therapy and back to their lives, inevitably ‘changed’ but intact.” Not only do these patients need specialized psychosocial support, but research initiatives should prioritize developing treatments that minimize long-term toxicities.

Given that many young patients haven’t yet built financial stability and are often in some form of debt, organizations like Young Adults Survivors United (YASU) have emerged to support young adult survivors and patients through the financial overwhelm. Stephanie Samolovitch, MSW and founder of YASU, says that there’s still an enormous need for resources supporting young adult cancer patients and survivors.

“Cancer causes a young adult to be dependent again, whether it’s moving back in with parents, getting rides to appointments, or asking for financial help,” says Samolovitch, who was diagnosed with leukemia in 2005, two weeks before her 20th birthday. “Young adults never expect to apply for Medicaid or Social Security Disability during our twenties or thirties, yet cancer doesn't give us a choice sometimes. That causes stress, shame, depression, and anxiety when trying to navigate the healthcare system.”

Read more: How to Create an Action Plan After a Cancer Diagnosis

When Ana Calderone, a 33-year-old magazine editor, was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer at 30, the most challenging part of getting diagnosed so young was “everything.”

“I felt like it set my whole life back, which sounds stupid because I was literally fighting for my life,” she says. “Who cares if I had to delay my wedding a year because I was still getting radiation treatment? But it was really hard at the time. Everything was delayed, and still is.”

During chemo, Calderone’s doctors gave her a shot that she still receives to try and preserve her ovaries, and she’s been able to try IVF twice. She says she had to proactively advocate for those things with her care team. While Calderone is currently cancer free, she still must take medication that has further delayed her plans to build a family. “I’m fairly confident I’d have a child by now if I didn’t get cancer. That’s been the most devastating part,” she says. “My oncologist would consider letting me get pregnant in two more years, which would be 4.5 years post-diagnosis, and even that is still a risk.”

For 32-year-old Megan Koehler, whose son was one and a half when she was diagnosed with Hodgkin Lymphoma, the hardest part “was knowing the world continued on while I spent days in bed,” she says. “My coworkers still worked on projects I was supposed to be part of, and the worst was knowing my son was growing up, learning to speak sentences, and just becoming a toddler without me – or so it felt that way.” 

She remembers crying for most of his second birthday because she was in bed post chemo, feeling devastated that she didn’t have the energy to spend the day with him. During a 50-plus day hospital stay caused by an adverse reaction to a chemotherapy drug, she would Facetime him and cry when he spoke in sentences, because he wasn’t doing that before she was admitted. While she’s grateful for the support she had from her husband and mother, she felt alienated. “I spoke to a few people my age via social media, but no one in person. My center mostly catered to the older generations, so it was somewhat isolating. I did have a great relationship with a few of the infusion nurses who were around my age.”

While oncologists may be rightly focused on saving patients’ lives, there must be more consideration for quality of life during and after treatment – both physical and mental. “More questions need to be asked about their relationships, fertility options, and any mental health concerns or symptoms,” says Samolovitch. From a research perspective, initiatives must expand to pinpoint not only the reason for the rise of cancer in young adults, but find ways to screen and diagnose earlier.

Towards the beginning of my treatment, before I switched hospitals, my oncologist seemed to treat my concerns about self-esteem and hair loss as trivial compared to the real work of saving my life. At my weakest, I had to advocate repeatedly to get accurate information on cold capping, a process of scalp cooling that can preserve most of your hair during chemotherapy, and I had to beg again and again for a social worker to reach out to me, which took weeks. 

It’s a beautiful thing that more young adults with cancer are surviving their illnesses. But that means they’ll have decades of life ahead of them. Providers must do a better job supporting young adult patients through all the collateral damage that comes with cancer and its treatment.  

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The Loss of Things I Took for Granted

Ten years into my college teaching career, students stopped being able to read effectively..

Recent years have seen successive waves of book bans in Republican-controlled states, aimed at pulling any text with “woke” themes from classrooms and library shelves. Though the results sometimes seem farcical, as with the banning of Art Spiegelman’s Maus due to its inclusion of “cuss words” and explicit rodent nudity, the book-banning agenda is no laughing matter. Motivated by bigotry, it has already done demonstrable harm and promises to do more. But at the same time, the appropriate response is, in principle, simple. Named individuals have advanced explicit policies with clear goals and outcomes, and we can replace those individuals with people who want to reverse those policies. That is already beginning to happen in many places, and I hope those successes will continue until every banned book is restored.

If and when that happens, however, we will not be able to declare victory quite yet. Defeating the open conspiracy to deprive students of physical access to books will do little to counteract the more diffuse confluence of forces that are depriving students of the skills needed to meaningfully engage with those books in the first place. As a college educator, I am confronted daily with the results of that conspiracy-without-conspirators. I have been teaching in small liberal arts colleges for over 15 years now, and in the past five years, it’s as though someone flipped a switch. For most of my career, I assigned around 30 pages of reading per class meeting as a baseline expectation—sometimes scaling up for purely expository readings or pulling back for more difficult texts. (No human being can read 30 pages of Hegel in one sitting, for example.) Now students are intimidated by anything over 10 pages and seem to walk away from readings of as little as 20 pages with no real understanding. Even smart and motivated students struggle to do more with written texts than extract decontextualized take-aways. Considerable class time is taken up simply establishing what happened in a story or the basic steps of an argument—skills I used to be able to take for granted.

Since this development very directly affects my ability to do my job as I understand it, I talk about it a lot. And when I talk about it with nonacademics, certain predictable responses inevitably arise, all questioning the reality of the trend I describe. Hasn’t every generation felt that the younger cohort is going to hell in a handbasket? Haven’t professors always complained that educators at earlier levels are not adequately equipping their students? And haven’t students from time immemorial skipped the readings?

The response of my fellow academics, however, reassures me that I’m not simply indulging in intergenerational grousing. Anecdotally, I have literally never met a professor who did not share my experience. Professors are also discussing the issue in academic trade publications , from a variety of perspectives. What we almost all seem to agree on is that we are facing new obstacles in structuring and delivering our courses, requiring us to ratchet down expectations in the face of a ratcheting down of preparation. Yes, there were always students who skipped the readings, but we are in new territory when even highly motivated honors students struggle to grasp the basic argument of a 20-page article. Yes, professors never feel satisfied that high school teachers have done enough, but not every generation of professors has had to deal with the fallout of No Child Left Behind and Common Core. Finally, yes, every generation thinks the younger generation is failing to make the grade— except for the current cohort of professors, who are by and large more invested in their students’ success and mental health and more responsive to student needs than any group of educators in human history. We are not complaining about our students. We are complaining about what has been taken from them.

If we ask what has caused this change, there are some obvious culprits. The first is the same thing that has taken away almost everyone’s ability to focus—the ubiquitous smartphone. Even as a career academic who studies the Quran in Arabic for fun, I have noticed my reading endurance flagging. I once found myself boasting at a faculty meeting that I had read through my entire hourlong train ride without looking at my phone. My colleagues agreed this was a major feat, one they had not achieved recently. Even if I rarely attain that high level of focus, though, I am able to “turn it on” when demanded, for instance to plow through a big novel during a holiday break. That’s because I was able to develop and practice those skills of extended concentration and attentive reading before the intervention of the smartphone. For children who were raised with smartphones, by contrast, that foundation is missing. It is probably no coincidence that the iPhone itself, originally released in 2007, is approaching college age, meaning that professors are increasingly dealing with students who would have become addicted to the dopamine hit of the omnipresent screen long before they were introduced to the more subtle pleasures of the page.

The second go-to explanation is the massive disruption of school closures during COVID-19. There is still some debate about the necessity of those measures, but what is not up for debate any longer is the very real learning loss that students suffered at every level. The impact will inevitably continue to be felt for the next decade or more, until the last cohort affected by the mass “pivot to online” finally graduates. I doubt that the pandemic closures were the decisive factor in themselves, however. Not only did the marked decline in reading resilience start before the pandemic, but the students I am seeing would have already been in high school during the school closures. Hence they would be better equipped to get something out of the online format and, more importantly, their basic reading competence would have already been established.

Less discussed than these broader cultural trends over which educators have little control are the major changes in reading pedagogy that have occurred in recent decades—some motivated by the ever-increasing demand to “teach to the test” and some by fads coming out of schools of education. In the latter category is the widely discussed decline in phonics education in favor of the “balanced literacy” approach advocated by education expert Lucy Calkins (who has more recently come to accept the need for more phonics instruction). I started to see the results of this ill-advised change several years ago, when students abruptly stopped attempting to sound out unfamiliar words and instead paused until they recognized the whole word as a unit. (In a recent class session, a smart, capable student was caught short by the word circumstances when reading a text out loud.) The result of this vibes-based literacy is that students never attain genuine fluency in reading. Even aside from the impact of smartphones, their experience of reading is constantly interrupted by their intentionally cultivated inability to process unfamiliar words.

For all the flaws of the balanced literacy method, it was presumably implemented by people who thought it would help. It is hard to see a similar motivation in the growing trend toward assigning students only the kind of short passages that can be included in a standardized test. Due in part to changes driven by the infamous Common Core standards , teachers now have to fight to assign their students longer readings, much less entire books, because those activities won’t feed directly into students getting higher test scores, which leads to schools getting more funding. The emphasis on standardized tests was always a distraction at best, but we have reached the point where it is actively cannibalizing students’ educational experience—an outcome no one intended or planned, and for which there is no possible justification.

We can’t go back in time and do the pandemic differently at this point, nor is there any realistic path to putting the smartphone genie back in the bottle. (Though I will note that we as a society do at least attempt to keep other addictive products out of the hands of children.) But I have to think that we can, at the very least, stop actively preventing young people from developing the ability to follow extended narratives and arguments in the classroom. Regardless of their profession or ultimate educational level, they will need those skills. The world is a complicated place. People—their histories and identities, their institutions and work processes, their fears and desires—are simply too complex to be captured in a worksheet with a paragraph and some reading comprehension questions. Large-scale prose writing is the best medium we have for capturing that complexity, and the education system should not be in the business of keeping students from learning how to engage effectively with it.

This is a matter not of snobbery, but of basic justice. I recognize that not everyone centers their lives on books as much as a humanities professor does. I think they’re missing out, but they’re adults and they can choose how to spend their time. What’s happening with the current generation is not that they are simply choosing TikTok over Jane Austen. They are being deprived of the ability to choose—for no real reason or benefit. We can and must stop perpetrating this crime on our young people.

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A glacier calving makes a huge splash.

Atlantic Ocean is headed for a tipping point − once melting glaciers shut down the Gulf Stream, we would see extreme climate change within decades, study shows

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Postdoctoral Researcher in Climate Physics, Utrecht University

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Professor of Physics, Utrecht University

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Climate Model Specialist, Utrecht University

Disclosure statement

René van Westen receives funding from the European Research Council (ERC-AdG project 101055096, TAOC).

Henk A. Dijkstra receives funding from the European Research Council (ERC-AdG project 101055096, TAOC, PI: Dijkstra).

Michael Kliphuis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Superstorms, abrupt climate shifts and New York City frozen in ice. That’s how the blockbuster Hollywood movie “ The Day After Tomorrow ” depicted an abrupt shutdown of the Atlantic Ocean’s circulation and the catastrophic consequences.

While Hollywood’s vision was over the top, the 2004 movie raised a serious question: If global warming shuts down the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, which is crucial for carrying heat from the tropics to the northern latitudes, how abrupt and severe would the climate changes be?

Twenty years after the movie’s release, we know a lot more about the Atlantic Ocean’s circulation. Instruments deployed in the ocean starting in 2004 show that the Atlantic Ocean circulation has observably slowed over the past two decades, possibly to its weakest state in almost a millennium . Studies also suggest that the circulation has reached a dangerous tipping point in the past that sent it into a precipitous, unstoppable decline, and that it could hit that tipping point again as the planet warms and glaciers and ice sheets melt.

In a new study using the latest generation of Earth’s climate models, we simulated the flow of fresh water until the ocean circulation reached that tipping point.

The results showed that the circulation could fully shut down within a century of hitting the tipping point, and that it’s headed in that direction. If that happened, average temperatures would drop by several degrees in North America, parts of Asia and Europe, and people would see severe and cascading consequences around the world.

We also discovered a physics-based early warning signal that can alert the world when the Atlantic Ocean circulation is nearing its tipping point.

The ocean’s conveyor belt

Ocean currents are driven by winds, tides and water density differences .

In the Atlantic Ocean circulation, the relatively warm and salty surface water near the equator flows toward Greenland. During its journey it crosses the Caribbean Sea, loops up into the Gulf of Mexico, and then flows along the U.S. East Coast before crossing the Atlantic.

Two illustrations show how the AMOC looks today and its weaker state in the future

This current, also known as the Gulf Stream, brings heat to Europe. As it flows northward and cools, the water mass becomes heavier. By the time it reaches Greenland, it starts to sink and flow southward. The sinking of water near Greenland pulls water from elsewhere in the Atlantic Ocean and the cycle repeats, like a conveyor belt .

Too much fresh water from melting glaciers and the Greenland ice sheet can dilute the saltiness of the water, preventing it from sinking, and weaken this ocean conveyor belt . A weaker conveyor belt transports less heat northward and also enables less heavy water to reach Greenland, which further weakens the conveyor belt’s strength. Once it reaches the tipping point , it shuts down quickly.

What happens to the climate at the tipping point?

The existence of a tipping point was first noticed in an overly simplified model of the Atlantic Ocean circulation in the early 1960s . Today’s more detailed climate models indicate a continued slowing of the conveyor belt’s strength under climate change. However, an abrupt shutdown of the Atlantic Ocean circulation appeared to be absent in these climate models.

This is where our study comes in. We performed an experiment with a detailed climate model to find the tipping point for an abrupt shutdown by slowly increasing the input of fresh water.

We found that once it reaches the tipping point, the conveyor belt shuts down within 100 years. The heat transport toward the north is strongly reduced, leading to abrupt climate shifts.

The result: Dangerous cold in the North

Regions that are influenced by the Gulf Stream receive substantially less heat when the circulation stops. This cools the North American and European continents by a few degrees.

The European climate is much more influenced by the Gulf Stream than other regions. In our experiment, that meant parts of the continent changed at more than 5 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius) per decade – far faster than today’s global warming of about 0.36 F (0.2 C) per decade. We found that parts of Norway would experience temperature drops of more than 36 F (20 C). On the other hand, regions in the Southern Hemisphere would warm by a few degrees.

Two maps show US and Europe both cooling by several degrees if the AMOC stops.

These temperature changes develop over about 100 years. That might seem like a long time, but on typical climate time scales, it is abrupt.

The conveyor belt shutting down would also affect sea level and precipitation patterns, which can push other ecosystems closer to their tipping points . For example, the Amazon rainforest is vulnerable to declining precipitation . If its forest ecosystem turned to grassland, the transition would release carbon to the atmosphere and result in the loss of a valuable carbon sink, further accelerating climate change.

The Atlantic circulation has slowed significantly in the distant past . During glacial periods when ice sheets that covered large parts of the planet were melting, the influx of fresh water slowed the Atlantic circulation, triggering huge climate fluctuations.

So, when will we see this tipping point?

The big question – when will the Atlantic circulation reach a tipping point – remains unanswered. Observations don’t go back far enough to provide a clear result. While a recent study suggested that the conveyor belt is rapidly approaching its tipping point , possibly within a few years, these statistical analyses made several assumptions that give rise to uncertainty.

Instead, we were able to develop a physics-based and observable early warning signal involving the salinity transport at the southern boundary of the Atlantic Ocean. Once a threshold is reached, the tipping point is likely to follow in one to four decades.

A line chart of circulation strength shows a quick drop-off after the amount of freshwater in the ocean hits a tipping point.

The climate impacts from our study underline the severity of such an abrupt conveyor belt collapse. The temperature, sea level and precipitation changes will severely affect society, and the climate shifts are unstoppable on human time scales.

It might seem counterintuitive to worry about extreme cold as the planet warms, but if the main Atlantic Ocean circulation shuts down from too much meltwater pouring in, that’s the risk ahead.

This article was updated on Feb. 11, 2024, to fix a typo: The experiment found temperatures in parts of Europe changed by more than 5 F per decade.

  • Climate change
  • Global warming
  • Extreme weather
  • Atlantic Ocean
  • Climate models
  • Greenland ice sheet
  • Ocean circulation

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  • How to structure an essay: Templates and tips

How to Structure an Essay | Tips & Templates

Published on September 18, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

The basic structure of an essay always consists of an introduction , a body , and a conclusion . But for many students, the most difficult part of structuring an essay is deciding how to organize information within the body.

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Table of contents

The basics of essay structure, chronological structure, compare-and-contrast structure, problems-methods-solutions structure, signposting to clarify your structure, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about essay structure.

There are two main things to keep in mind when working on your essay structure: making sure to include the right information in each part, and deciding how you’ll organize the information within the body.

Parts of an essay

The three parts that make up all essays are described in the table below.

Order of information

You’ll also have to consider how to present information within the body. There are a few general principles that can guide you here.

The first is that your argument should move from the simplest claim to the most complex . The body of a good argumentative essay often begins with simple and widely accepted claims, and then moves towards more complex and contentious ones.

For example, you might begin by describing a generally accepted philosophical concept, and then apply it to a new topic. The grounding in the general concept will allow the reader to understand your unique application of it.

The second principle is that background information should appear towards the beginning of your essay . General background is presented in the introduction. If you have additional background to present, this information will usually come at the start of the body.

The third principle is that everything in your essay should be relevant to the thesis . Ask yourself whether each piece of information advances your argument or provides necessary background. And make sure that the text clearly expresses each piece of information’s relevance.

The sections below present several organizational templates for essays: the chronological approach, the compare-and-contrast approach, and the problems-methods-solutions approach.

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The chronological approach (sometimes called the cause-and-effect approach) is probably the simplest way to structure an essay. It just means discussing events in the order in which they occurred, discussing how they are related (i.e. the cause and effect involved) as you go.

A chronological approach can be useful when your essay is about a series of events. Don’t rule out other approaches, though—even when the chronological approach is the obvious one, you might be able to bring out more with a different structure.

Explore the tabs below to see a general template and a specific example outline from an essay on the invention of the printing press.

  • Thesis statement
  • Discussion of event/period
  • Consequences
  • Importance of topic
  • Strong closing statement
  • Claim that the printing press marks the end of the Middle Ages
  • Background on the low levels of literacy before the printing press
  • Thesis statement: The invention of the printing press increased circulation of information in Europe, paving the way for the Reformation
  • High levels of illiteracy in medieval Europe
  • Literacy and thus knowledge and education were mainly the domain of religious and political elites
  • Consequence: this discouraged political and religious change
  • Invention of the printing press in 1440 by Johannes Gutenberg
  • Implications of the new technology for book production
  • Consequence: Rapid spread of the technology and the printing of the Gutenberg Bible
  • Trend for translating the Bible into vernacular languages during the years following the printing press’s invention
  • Luther’s own translation of the Bible during the Reformation
  • Consequence: The large-scale effects the Reformation would have on religion and politics
  • Summarize the history described
  • Stress the significance of the printing press to the events of this period

Essays with two or more main subjects are often structured around comparing and contrasting . For example, a literary analysis essay might compare two different texts, and an argumentative essay might compare the strengths of different arguments.

There are two main ways of structuring a compare-and-contrast essay: the alternating method, and the block method.

Alternating

In the alternating method, each paragraph compares your subjects in terms of a specific point of comparison. These points of comparison are therefore what defines each paragraph.

The tabs below show a general template for this structure, and a specific example for an essay comparing and contrasting distance learning with traditional classroom learning.

  • Synthesis of arguments
  • Topical relevance of distance learning in lockdown
  • Increasing prevalence of distance learning over the last decade
  • Thesis statement: While distance learning has certain advantages, it introduces multiple new accessibility issues that must be addressed for it to be as effective as classroom learning
  • Classroom learning: Ease of identifying difficulties and privately discussing them
  • Distance learning: Difficulty of noticing and unobtrusively helping
  • Classroom learning: Difficulties accessing the classroom (disability, distance travelled from home)
  • Distance learning: Difficulties with online work (lack of tech literacy, unreliable connection, distractions)
  • Classroom learning: Tends to encourage personal engagement among students and with teacher, more relaxed social environment
  • Distance learning: Greater ability to reach out to teacher privately
  • Sum up, emphasize that distance learning introduces more difficulties than it solves
  • Stress the importance of addressing issues with distance learning as it becomes increasingly common
  • Distance learning may prove to be the future, but it still has a long way to go

In the block method, each subject is covered all in one go, potentially across multiple paragraphs. For example, you might write two paragraphs about your first subject and then two about your second subject, making comparisons back to the first.

The tabs again show a general template, followed by another essay on distance learning, this time with the body structured in blocks.

  • Point 1 (compare)
  • Point 2 (compare)
  • Point 3 (compare)
  • Point 4 (compare)
  • Advantages: Flexibility, accessibility
  • Disadvantages: Discomfort, challenges for those with poor internet or tech literacy
  • Advantages: Potential for teacher to discuss issues with a student in a separate private call
  • Disadvantages: Difficulty of identifying struggling students and aiding them unobtrusively, lack of personal interaction among students
  • Advantages: More accessible to those with low tech literacy, equality of all sharing one learning environment
  • Disadvantages: Students must live close enough to attend, commutes may vary, classrooms not always accessible for disabled students
  • Advantages: Ease of picking up on signs a student is struggling, more personal interaction among students
  • Disadvantages: May be harder for students to approach teacher privately in person to raise issues

An essay that concerns a specific problem (practical or theoretical) may be structured according to the problems-methods-solutions approach.

This is just what it sounds like: You define the problem, characterize a method or theory that may solve it, and finally analyze the problem, using this method or theory to arrive at a solution. If the problem is theoretical, the solution might be the analysis you present in the essay itself; otherwise, you might just present a proposed solution.

The tabs below show a template for this structure and an example outline for an essay about the problem of fake news.

  • Introduce the problem
  • Provide background
  • Describe your approach to solving it
  • Define the problem precisely
  • Describe why it’s important
  • Indicate previous approaches to the problem
  • Present your new approach, and why it’s better
  • Apply the new method or theory to the problem
  • Indicate the solution you arrive at by doing so
  • Assess (potential or actual) effectiveness of solution
  • Describe the implications
  • Problem: The growth of “fake news” online
  • Prevalence of polarized/conspiracy-focused news sources online
  • Thesis statement: Rather than attempting to stamp out online fake news through social media moderation, an effective approach to combating it must work with educational institutions to improve media literacy
  • Definition: Deliberate disinformation designed to spread virally online
  • Popularization of the term, growth of the phenomenon
  • Previous approaches: Labeling and moderation on social media platforms
  • Critique: This approach feeds conspiracies; the real solution is to improve media literacy so users can better identify fake news
  • Greater emphasis should be placed on media literacy education in schools
  • This allows people to assess news sources independently, rather than just being told which ones to trust
  • This is a long-term solution but could be highly effective
  • It would require significant organization and investment, but would equip people to judge news sources more effectively
  • Rather than trying to contain the spread of fake news, we must teach the next generation not to fall for it

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what are you like essay

Signposting means guiding the reader through your essay with language that describes or hints at the structure of what follows.  It can help you clarify your structure for yourself as well as helping your reader follow your ideas.

The essay overview

In longer essays whose body is split into multiple named sections, the introduction often ends with an overview of the rest of the essay. This gives a brief description of the main idea or argument of each section.

The overview allows the reader to immediately understand what will be covered in the essay and in what order. Though it describes what  comes later in the text, it is generally written in the present tense . The following example is from a literary analysis essay on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein .

Transitions

Transition words and phrases are used throughout all good essays to link together different ideas. They help guide the reader through your text, and an essay that uses them effectively will be much easier to follow.

Various different relationships can be expressed by transition words, as shown in this example.

Because Hitler failed to respond to the British ultimatum, France and the UK declared war on Germany. Although it was an outcome the Allies had hoped to avoid, they were prepared to back up their ultimatum in order to combat the existential threat posed by the Third Reich.

Transition sentences may be included to transition between different paragraphs or sections of an essay. A good transition sentence moves the reader on to the next topic while indicating how it relates to the previous one.

… Distance learning, then, seems to improve accessibility in some ways while representing a step backwards in others.

However , considering the issue of personal interaction among students presents a different picture.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

  • Ad hominem fallacy
  • Post hoc fallacy
  • Appeal to authority fallacy
  • False cause fallacy
  • Sunk cost fallacy

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  • Write a College Essay
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  • College Essay Format & Structure
  • Comparing and Contrasting in an Essay

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The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement , a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas.

The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ideas.

An essay isn’t just a loose collection of facts and ideas. Instead, it should be centered on an overarching argument (summarized in your thesis statement ) that every part of the essay relates to.

The way you structure your essay is crucial to presenting your argument coherently. A well-structured essay helps your reader follow the logic of your ideas and understand your overall point.

Comparisons in essays are generally structured in one of two ways:

  • The alternating method, where you compare your subjects side by side according to one specific aspect at a time.
  • The block method, where you cover each subject separately in its entirety.

It’s also possible to combine both methods, for example by writing a full paragraph on each of your topics and then a final paragraph contrasting the two according to a specific metric.

You should try to follow your outline as you write your essay . However, if your ideas change or it becomes clear that your structure could be better, it’s okay to depart from your essay outline . Just make sure you know why you’re doing so.

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Temu Is Speedrunning American Familiarity

The company’s ad strategy: bludgeon you into knowing its name.

Listen to this article

Produced by ElevenLabs and NOA, News Over Audio, using AI narration.

Last night, the shopping app Temu, which is not quite a year and a half old, ran its second Super Bowl ad in as many years. It was hard to miss, because the same ad appeared several times, including following the game-winning touchdown. By most estimates, the three times the ad was featured in the middle of gameplay would have cost an eye-watering $21 million alone.

Alongside ads in which Beyoncé announced a new album and Sir Patrick Stewart proposed skinning Peppa Pig to make a football, the content of Temu’s ad was comparatively unremarkable. It had no A-list celebrities or beloved cultural touchstones; not a single heartstring was tugged. Instead, a cast of silent, off-brand Pixar characters saw their wishes for 99-cent toupees and $6.99 jeans granted by an orange-gowned sorceress, who had herself been granted those powers by ordering the magical dress she was wearing from Temu for $9.99. All of this played out under a jingle that encouraged viewers to shop like a billionaire —which is to say to shop constantly, for fun and entertainment, without a moment of regard for price tags. The ad had the milquetoast gleam characteristic of media generated by AI, though beyond aesthetics, there’s no indication that that’s the case.

Most companies that spend big bucks on Super Bowl ad time go to great lengths and great expense to make commercials that are plausibly worth the priciest real estate in American marketing—the kind of thing that people might actually like , or at least discuss, instead of merely tolerate. Temu, which was launched by a company in China but caters to a largely American consumer base, took the opposite approach: an ad that wouldn’t have looked out of place during a block of Law & Order reruns or a house-flipping reality show on HGTV but that played over and over again to the biggest audience money can buy. By its third appearance, one of the guests at my Super Bowl party was singing a portion of the jingle— ooh ooh, Temu —to himself, and the rest of us had realized that we’d been pronouncing the app’s name incorrectly all along. (It’s TEH-moo , apparently, as opposed to TEE-moo .)

Temu, if you’re among the uninitiated whom the ad was intended to reach, is one of a wave of fast-growing retailers with ties to China, including Shein and TikTok Shop, that have emerged in recent years. These retailers offer a huge selection of dirt-cheap consumer goods, and they’re competing against one another in a bid ultimately to challenge Amazon’s dominance as the primary intermediary between Chinese manufacturers and the Americans who buy their products. The company’s ad, which is just one part of a larger campaign across media that a recent J.P. Morgan report estimated would cost the retailer $3 billion this year, had performed precisely as intended, at least judging by my party guests. Temu is spending a literal fortune in an attempt to speedrun familiarity among American shoppers.

From the beginning, Temu has seemed to understand that one of the biggest obstacles it faces on its apparent quest to rise to the top of American shopping is simply getting its name out there. The United States is a mature consumer market—Amazon dominates online retail, and Walmart and Target, long a couple of Amazon’s chief digital competitors, also have a chokehold on everyday in-person shopping for much of the country. At the lowest end of the market, Dollar Tree and Dollar General operate tens of thousands of stores in North America, largely targeting customers in poorer or more rural areas. Americans are not exactly at a loss for places to buy weird junk, and it wasn’t clear that they really needed or wanted another one when Temu launched in September 2022. When the company ran its first Super Bowl ad a few months later, not that many people in the U.S. had heard of Temu or its parent company, PDD Holdings, which until recently was headquartered in Shanghai and also operates the Chinese retail giant Pinduoduo.

Over the past few decades, Super Bowl ads—historically the province of powerful consumer brands such as Coca-Cola, Budweiser, and Ford—have become a way for new companies that are flush with investor cash to signal their desired entrance into mainstream consumer consciousness. At the dawn of the millennium , dot-com start-ups such as E-Trade and Pets.com bought up all the Super Bowl ad inventory they could get. More recently, ads for cryptocurrency exchanges enlisted stars including Matt Damon and Larry David to introduce the concept to the not-so-terminally online. When most Americans have no clue who you are, what you sell, or why they should buy it, a slick ad in a notoriously expensive moment not only spreads the word about your company to an enormous audience; it also suggests that your company belongs alongside those that have been around so long, they’ve become part of the scenery of American life.

Temu’s ties to China make these associations even more valuable to its future. A majority of Americans have long said they prefer to buy domestically manufactured goods , and a significant number of consumers report being opposed to Chinese-made products specifically. But these preferences start to bend when foreign-made products are cheaper. In practice, almost all Americans now routinely purchase consumer goods made elsewhere. Amazon has contributed mightily to this reality: Slowly but surely, the retailer’s broad offering of products from third-party international sellers, its chaotic user interface, and its huge number of listings created by non-native English speakers seem to be acclimating millions of people to the kinds of transactions that would have seemed intolerably risky a decade ago. Buying directly from a foreign retailer is a step that Temu clearly is betting many of these same shoppers can now be persuaded to take, if the circumstances are right. One of the first hurdles is making sure everyone knows your name.

History tells us that we should be skeptical of businesses trying to use expensive ad campaigns to buy their way into those associations. The dot-com boom busted spectacularly, and the crypto market plummeted with revelations of scams not long after it splashed a lot of cash on TV ads. That Temu is back for a second year is notable, as is the choice to pursue familiarity instead of glitz or buzzy celebrity associations. The absence of picky megawatt stars, expensive licensing for famous songs or characters, and football-specific themes means that the ad will be easy to rerun again and again during all kinds of broadcasts, teaching millions more Americans how to say the app’s name via a simple jingle. The lesson was already spreading before the Super Bowl: Temu has been blanketing previous “shop like a billionaire” ads across other broadcasts all year. (This is perhaps one explanation for Temu’s counterintuitive popularity among older adults, whose shopping habits are thought to be more difficult to change than those of younger consumers who are comfortable shopping all over the internet; older people also watch a lot more broadcast TV.)

This approach is exactly in line with a number of other marketing moves that Temu has made in the past year, which have seen the retailer pouring millions of dollars into surfacing its products in search listings and online-ad placements. Combined with its efforts on TV and elsewhere, these campaigns cost an estimated $1.7 billion. According to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal , those enormous expenditures—along with a smaller campaign by Shein—have been enough to push up the cost of advertising all over the internet. In turn, that has buoyed the fortunes of Google and Meta, which control the bulk of online advertising. It’s also begun to eat into the bottom lines of some of Temu’s competitors, which now must pay higher prices for advertising while Temu undercuts them on the prices of its products.

Last year, Temu did an estimated $16 billion in sales, which was roughly more than three-quarters of Target’s online revenue in 2022. Most industry watchers attribute this unprecedented scale-up to a combination of ubiquity and price—the company is spending a ton to get in front of as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, and it’s selling many of its products at prices so low that they seem mathematically impossible. Temu has been accused of selling goods made with forced labor in order to achieve those prices. The company is also widely believed to be temporarily selling products at a loss in an attempt to buy market share from competitors. (Temu has denied accusations about its working conditions. In a statement to the WSJ , a spokesperson for Temu also denied that the company was losing money in an effort to quickly gain ground on its rivals.) Amazon, too, has tamped down prices for years in order to convert online-shopping skeptics, though it has denied that pushing for lower prices is predatory.

Advertising is both more and less powerful than people commonly believe it to be. It’s almost never enough, on its own, to make a product or service into a phenomenon from scratch; if it were, consumer history wouldn’t be riddled with so many famous failures once hoisted aloft by luxurious marketing budgets. But in the global consumer system, advertising of some sort usually is a prerequisite for whatever success you’re trying to achieve. Otherwise, it’s rare that many people will even find out your business exists. Temu’s long-term success will depend on a lot more than ads, but if it fails, it won’t be because no one knew its name.

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