how to achieve academic success in university essay

Academic Success for Student Essay

Academic success for any student is what each and every student in learning institutions strive to get. Although every student wants to achieve academic success not each and every one of them manages to achieve academic success. This is because there are certain things that one as a student should follow to achieve academic success. Some of the most important factors that one should put into consideration and practice to achieve academic success include the following.

People smart learning style involves many factors or components and affects all round life of an individual. In order to achieve smart learning style as a student you should strive to ensure that you understand concepts and skills in different academic fields. This style means that one should strive in all fields to achieve good performance. You can not be smart in one area while the rest you are poor and say that you are smart, at least in every area you should be smart. (Littlefield, 2009)

Adopting smart learning style is not that easy it calls for balancing of the entire academic fields. This is because if there is no balance in one area you will be smart while the rest you will fail. Strive to have a balance in all academic as well as social areas in life to achieve smart learning style. (Littlefield, 2009)

Critical thinking is one of the major factors that one should put into consideration as a student in order to achieve academic success. Critical thinking means is a situation or a practice whereby as a student you do not just take the literal meaning of something but you think of that particular situation under all dimensions. Critical thinking involves taking into account all the concepts that are related to that particular situation, after taking note of the concepts then analysis of the concepts follows in order to gain deeper understanding of the situation or the concept.

Taking note and understanding all the concepts related to the situation or area of study one is analyzing is very important. This is because through understanding of the concepts it becomes easier to tackle different fields of study that one is involved in. also the skills that one has can play great role in success of the given student academically. For instance, if you have excellent writing skills you can utilize them to gain high achievements academically. There are also other personal strategies that one may have; these strategies can be used positively to achieve high grades academically. For instance in a situation whereby you do not perform well in certain filed you can involve yourself in research on certain concepts that are challenging and at the end of it you find that you have succeeded academically in that field.

Creativeness is another important factor in gaining academic success, being creative means that out of a small and minor thing you can come up with a big idea. Creativeness can work best for a student when combined together with skills and strategies that one as a student has. In order for a student to gain academic success one has to be creative on how to utilize different opportunities to gain success at the end.

However there is more of being a student than achievement of academic success though is the major goal for every student. One should strive to achieve success in all areas of life and it calls for one to have a balanced life. However gaining balanced life to many people is a challenge and it calls for commitment in all areas of life. As much as one is committed to academics he or she should be committed in other areas of life like social activities since they help in building not only the academic part of life but also building ones character. Also through social activities the mind relaxes such that one can understand different academic fields that are being learned.

In order to have a balanced life as a student there are certain changes that one has to make in life. For instance there are certain routines that one is used to that do not help in building balanced life, in order to achieve balanced life and prosper academically some of the routines should be changed. Change of routines calls for commitment and persistence, this is because routine is something that one is used to so changing from those routines is not an easier thing hence call for commitment and persistence. Through this it will be possible to overcome some of the major academic challenges that one goes through.

The last factor that one as a student should put into consideration is adoption of good habits. Practice of good habits is essential in academic success of a student, this is because practice of a certain habit in ones life results to formation of a relevant character in that person. However changing of habits is not an easy thing it calls for commitment and persistence in practice of the habits.

Learning of good habits or changing one’s habit is not easy, at one point I decided to change my study habit which was not very good and to adopt a good study habit. This is one of the things that I found to be very challenging in my life; this is because it was a must for me to through many different changes in life that I was not used to before. I was one of the students who were known for wasting time and not being very serious in my academics and changing from this kind of a lifestyle was a challenge. Though it has been challenging I am happy that today have managed to adapt good study habits and am still pursuing it.

List of reference

Littlefield J. (2009) Smart study strategies. Web.

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8 effective strategies for academic success

Whether you're currently enrolled at Penn LPS Online or you're considering enrolling in the future, it's important to be aware of strategies you can implement to set yourself up for academic success. Adjusting to becoming a student again can be particularly challenging if you're an adult learner with work and family obligations in addition to your educational ambitions—so it can take determination, discipline, and patience to effectively balance all these roles.

Penn LPS Online was created to make a high-quality Ivy League education accessible and affordable to working professionals like you. Whether you're easing into your studies by taking one or more courses , pursuing a certificate , or earning a bachelor's degree , the flexible online learning format at Penn LPS Online makes it easy to enhance your personal and career development—and help set yourself up for a brighter future.

Read on to explore 8 strategies you can use to help you succeed in your studies and to make the most of your experience at Penn LPS Online.

1. Set SMART goals

Setting goals for each semester can be a highly effective strategy to help you keep your academic priorities in check. The SMART approach involves ensuring that your goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. Here is an example of a SMART goal:

• Specific goal: Set aside at least one hour a day to read assigned course materials.
• Measure your progress daily by tracking your time through a study app (measurable).
• Ensure your goal is attainable by letting your friends and family know that you are unavailable during this set time and, if possible, turn off your phone.
• This goal is relevant because it will allow you to consistently stay on top of your readings, so you're prepared for class discussions and other coursework.
• This goal is timely because it allows you to track your progress daily, weekly, or monthly.

The benefits of creating SMART goals are that they can provide you with the direction you need to stay on task with your studies, increase your focus, boost your motivation, and reduce your overall anxiety. Although your SMART goals may be focused on academics, it's important to consider your personal priorities as well, which segues into the next strategy.

2. Make planning and time management a priority

Creating a plan to balance your work, life, and education is integral to achieving academic and personal success. For a typical 8-week course at Penn LPS Online, you may need to spend 10-15 hours per week on readings and assignments. If you're not used to learning on an accelerated schedule, juggling your educational and life responsibilities can quickly become overwhelming. That's why implementing an effective time management strategy is so important. If you work a 9-5 job, you'll need to figure out when you can fit in daily study time in a way that's most productive for you—whether that's in the morning before work, on your lunch break, or in the evening.

“The military teaches you to really think on your feet and adapt to whatever is happening at that moment. Having an assignment due is like having a mission. There’s a lot of planning: if we had a paper due Sunday, I would work backward and plan down to the day what I needed to do to complete it by Sunday.” – Robert Marshall , Penn LPS Online Certificate in Applied Positive Psychology ‘19

If you want to excel in your studies, it's essential that you stay organized. Part of that involves creating a system to track important dates and deadlines so you can best prioritize your time. That could come in the form of a day planner, a Google or Outlook calendar on your phone, or a time management app—what's important is that you can lay out all your important work meetings, family responsibilities, and school assignments in a format that is easily accessible. It may also be helpful to create daily or weekly to-do lists so you can see where you need to spend your time on a micro and a macro level. And don't forget to schedule breaks—giving yourself the space to decompress can be critical to your academic success and your mental health.

3. Get very familiar with the course materials

It may seem obvious, but not everyone realizes what a powerful tool a course syllabus can be when it comes to setting yourself up for academic success. A syllabus gives you the information you need to determine where and when you need to spend your time. It's also something that you can consistently go back to throughout the semester to keep track of deadlines for assigned readings, quizzes, assignments, and discussions so you can plan your schedule accordingly (in your time management app or otherwise).

At Penn LPS Online, you can find the important course info—including your syllabus—by logging into the Canvas course site and reviewing the "Getting Started" module. There, you'll find an overview of the topics the course covers, the specific course requirements and deadlines, and any textbooks you will need. The course site also serves as your virtual classroom where you'll interact with classmates and instructors through video lectures, live Zoom meetings, discussion boards, and more. With a fast-paced, 8-week timeline for most Penn LPS Online courses, it's also critical that you commit to attending all your scheduled classes so that you don't miss valuable information or fall behind in your studies.

4. Engage with your instructors and peers

Another effective strategy to help ensure your academic success is to connect with your instructors and peers early andoften. A peer-reviewed article published in Innovative High Education found that positive student-faculty interactions are linked with improved academic outcomes and can help reduce retention gaps in higher education, especially for college students from underrepresented backgrounds. 1 To that end, all Penn LPS Online courses include a participation requirement with the expectation that you'll actively engage with your course instructors and fellow students. Examples of meaningful online participation—whether through audio, video, or typed text—includes:

• Posting thorough and thoughtful responses to discussion topics
• Sharing personal insights and experiences with your peers
• Contributing ideas and effort into group projects

When in doubt, ask a lot of questions! At Penn LPS Online, it's easy and beneficial to you as a learner to get to know your instructors and teaching assistants through online office hours, appointments, text chats, or email. If you feel hesitant to reach out, it's important to remember that your instructors are invested in your success and can be invaluable resources if you're struggling with the subject matter or adjusting to online learning. It's also essential to connect with your peers at Penn LPS Online—and you'll have many opportunities to do so through online discussions, group work, and Zoom lectures. If you're someone who learns better with input from others, you can also start your own online study group to share class notes, discuss questions, and study for quizzes or exams. Engaging with a study group can also be a good way to hold yourself accountable and stay on top of the required coursework. If you're willing to open yourself up, you may also create relationships that can serve as a valuable network once you graduate.

"Everyone was brilliant. Each course was such a melting pot, professionally and culturally, and everyone was able to shine a different light on the material. And even though we are so extremely different, we are all adult students who are moving forward in our education. It was great to collaborate with peers who share that experience ."— Mary Koenke , Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences ‘20

5. Take advantage of Penn LPS Online resources

There is a plethora of resources available at Penn LPS Online to help support you along every aspect of your educational journey. A great place to start is with your academic advisor who can serve as your go-to guide for support. Your advisor is well-equipped to help you choose and register for courses, clarify certificate or degree requirements, address academic issues or concerns, identify resources including library, counseling, and disability services, and navigate the transfer credit process.

If you find that the technical aspects of your online courses are causing you concern, you can also reach out to the Penn LPS Online Learning team for 24/7 support. Whether you need guidance navigating the Canvas online learning platform or you're having issues with internet access or hardware, you can email the team at [email protected] for troubleshooting support.

Finally, if you're looking for academic assistance, chat-based tutoring is available for subject areas including English, math, and science through Brainfuse, which you can access via Canvas. If you need coaching on effective writing practices for your assignments, the Brainfuse Writing Lab is a great resource—and you'll receive feedback within 24 hours of submitting your work.

6. Take care of your physical and mental health

Balancing university, work, and life in general can be stressful. That's why it's essential to stay on top of your physical and mental well-being. One of the most important things you can do to maintain a healthy lifestyle is to make sleep a priority; you can't expect to absorb your course materials if you're running on empty. If stress or anxiety are preventing you from sleeping well, you may want to consider adding meditation into your nightly routine to help quiet your brain and prepare your body for rest.

It's common for busy students to rely too heavily on caffeine and sugar to get through the day, which often ends in a crash. To avoid falling into this trap, keep a water bottle on hand to help you stay hydrated, and try to eat balanced meals with protein, nuts, fruits, and vegetables that fuel your body and leave you satisfied. This will require additional planning, but the benefits are worth it. Finally, whenever possible, set aside time to stay active throughout the day—whether that's a quick walk, a yoga class on your lunch break, or a stop at the gym before work. Getting moving can provide a reset in your day that is good for your body and your mind.

7. Follow your passions

It can be easy to forget that exploring your intellectual curiosities, strengths, and passions is beneficial to your ability to thrive academically and personally. Research from psychologist Andy Tixfound that what distinguishes successful learners is the belief that intelligence and ability can be expanded, a "growth mindset" that motivates students to seek out and overcome intellectual challenges. The highest-performing students are also intrinsically motivated , which means they're guided by their own sense of purpose a desire to learn for learning's sake. 2

There are many ways to feed your intellectual curiosity at Penn LPS Online. One option is to commit to taking at least one class a semester that strongly piques your interest or takes you outside of your comfort zone. Another is to consider the Individualized Studies concentration for the BAAS degree. The Individualized Studies concentration allows you to combine complementary areas of study so you can explore your unique academic interests while building the skills and knowledge to help you meet your career goals.

8. Have fun!

This final strategy is simple: Immerse yourself in your studies, ask questions, explore what intrigues you, and take the time to get to know your peers and professors. Your university experience is what you make of it, so commit to making it as enjoyable as possible. To learn more about available Penn LPS Online services to help make your academic journey successful, please visit the  Student Resources  page.

1 Mariana T. Guzzardo, Nidhi Khosla, Annis Lee Adams, Jeffra D. Bussmann, Alina Engelman, Natalie Ingraham, Ryan Gamba, Ali Jones-Bey, Matthew D. Moore, Negin R. Toosi, and Sarah Taylor. "'The ones that care make all the difference': Perspectives on student-faculty relationships." Innovative Higher Education 46 (2021), p. 41-58. 2 Andy Tix. "Psychological Factors in Student Success." Psychology Today . April 15, 2020.

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20 Ace your Assignments

You want to do well in your course. You have worked out all your schedules. You attend all your classes. You have a place to study that works for you. Now you are staring at that big project that you need to get started on, but you can’t figure out where to begin, and your anxiety is rising. Does this sound familiar? You are not alone – this is a situation facing many students. The feeling of paralysis and being unable to follow through is sometimes called procrastination, but it does not have to take over. Try some of the techniques below.

Consider your Anxiety as Excitement

In your studies you will always be facing new ideas, new challenges, and trying to do what you have never done before. It is perfectly natural to feel uneasy about these new things. Consider that anxiety is a form of excitement (which it is). Think about a challenge that you have faced and remember the how you felt when you were successful. Build on this, take a deep breath, and move forward.

Set Your Goal(s)

The first and most self-motivating action step is to decide what you want from each project. Consider what you will gain from the assignment and how your competence will improve. Where does this assignment fit into the larger picture of what you are aiming for? Imagine a future where you look back on this successful project. By focusing on what you want and need, you direct your energies and self-motivation to get things done for you. Create a SMART Goal for your project.

Break the Project into Chunks

Group the tasks into chunks that fit together. A large project might have ten or more them. You will often start with an outline of steps, then do research into materials, then start to create, and so on. Each chunk should be seen by you as a piece that is small enough to complete successfully.

Analyze the Assignment

Pull out your assignment sheet and start to identify the keywords and items that the Instructor wants. Make a list of them down the left hand side of a document. To the right of each item, list the criteria for successfully achieving it. This creates a checklist where you can check off the elements that you have completed as you progress. You now have a clear idea about what is needed.

Create a Timeline

Order the tasks in a logical sequence and assign times to get them done. You now have a written plan that you can refer to as you go along.

Do One Thing at a Time

Pick the first item and get started. Get excited about doing it. Enjoy the positive sensation of having it done and checked it off your list. If you still feel overwhelmed, go back two steps, break this task into smaller pieces, and do the chunks one at a time. You want to see yourself doing each step and succeeding in getting it done.

Take Regular Breaks

Build break time into your studies. Take 10 minutes off to do something you want to do every hour. After three hours stop for a longer break that might include a snack or a meal. After six hours, put your studies aside until tomorrow. This helps you keep up your positive excitement about the parts that you are doing.

Review Your Progress

At the end of each piece of the project that you complete, sit back and review your plan to see how much you have done. Adjust times as necessary.

Remember your personal goals for the project and keep going!

Ways to Achieve Academic Success Copyright © 2020 by Kwantlen Polytechnic University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Writing academic essays: a few tips

22 September 2020

Here are a few basic tips to help you with your academic writing. These may be particularly of use if you have limited experience of writing essays.

On this page you will find:

• Read the assignment
• Plan - your writing as well as your answer

Read the assignment (yes, again)

• Support your claim – explicitly

Academic styles

These are generic tips and you will need to adapt to the style and conventions specific to your discipline and department. Always check the handbook and any recommended style guide. 

Read the assignment 

Yes, it looks obvious, and yet is perhaps the most overlooked aspect of writing academic essays. Essay questions are not necessarily straightforward, and it is all too easy to miss an aspect of the question, misinterpret what is asked, or even go off topic. Look in particular at the verbs used in the question: are you asked to analyse? Discuss? Compare? Evaluate? 

Plan – your writing as well as your answer

An essay requires time: to read, take notes, process, evaluate, organise ideas, draft, and actually write. In addition, you will need extra time to edit and cut if your draft is too long. It is easy to underestimate the time needed, particularly if you are not used to writing essays, and it is all too tempting to leave it to the last minute.  Breaking the assignment down can prevent feeling overwhelmed. Try this early: what will you need to read? Are these sources easily accessible? Are there any aspects of the question that will require more research or preparation? 

Similarly, plan your answer carefully: create an outline for the whole answer, with all the sections and paragraphs. Think about the order of information you need to include, how the different sections connect. This needs to be clear before you draft your essay. 

Do not start writing your introduction before you have a strong sense of what will go into your essay: the introduction is often too vague as a result. 

This is important in many ways: it helps you to support your answer with clear references, to avoid plagiarism, but also to make it clear what your evidence / sources are saying and what your position is. Once you have accumulated a lot of notes, it may be difficult to remember where a particularly useful fact or idea is from. Is that from you? From a text? Which one? Is that a paraphrase or a quotation? Keeping a record of where your notes come from will help you to find the right support and reference it clearly. For instance, you can use colour coding to indicate when an idea is yours (just stick to the same colour). 

As you gather notes, start drafting your essay, it is easy to go off track. You may have discovered interesting things, maybe they are related to the theme of the question, but does that help to actually address the question asked? As you take notes and draft the essay, go back to the assignment: are there any parts you are not addressing? Are you off on a tangent? Be strict: better to realise you are off on a tangent early and correct this than to submit an off-topic essay…

Support your claim – explicitly 

You may be asked to take a position on a given question. This is not asking about your beliefs or personal opinions. Such questions are testing your ability to evaluate the facts and evidence at hand so as to reach an informed position.

Finding evidence

Evidence from primary and secondary sources are what you must use to support your position.

• Primary sources include original documents, photographs, interviews, etc.
• Secondary sources present information that has already been processed or interpreted by someone else.

For example, if you are writing a paper about a museum exhibition, then the items displayed, interviews of visitors or the curator, and exhibition photos could serve as primary sources of evidence. A review from a magazine or a collection of essays about the exhibition would be secondary sources.

Using evidence – explicitly 

You may find the evidence compelling, but it does not speak for itself: you have to make the case. You must say why / how this evidence supports your position. 

As an academic writer, do not assume that your readers can read your mind: although they may be familiar with the ideas you are discussing, they do not know what you are trying to do with those ideas unless you indicate it through explanations, organisation of ideas, transitions, etc.

Check and check again: is the evidence you are presenting relevant to the question? If so, how? Does it make sense? Is your chain of thought clear enough that a friend could follow?

Writing academically generally implies a rather impersonal tone as well as following certain editorial conventions. Again, such conventions will differ depending on disciplines, so always check your handbook, and, if in doubt, check with your department. 

Here are a few general guidelines:

Avoid being personal 

It is often the case that your department will want you to avoid saying “I” in an academic essay. Similarly, avoid using “we” or “you”, as if you were talking directly to the reader of your essay. “We all know that…”, “as you know” are generally frowned upon. Try using the passive or “this paper” / “this essay” instead of “I”. 

Please note that this “rule” is contested and largely depends on your discipline. If you are asked to write a reflective piece or a fieldtrip report, you may need to use the first person. 

Check your department’s style guide 

Word count (and what this includes) and referencing conventions have less to do with your ideas and how you express yourself and can be overlooked. However, abiding by these rules demonstrates professionalism and ignoring them will negatively impact on your marks.

Avoid informal styles 

• In general, academic writing avoids contraction: they don’t (do not), they aren’t (are not). 
• Avoid grand generalisation (e.g. “everyone knows that…”, “no one wants war”, etc.): academic writing and thinking requires nuance and subtleties.
• Avoid using an overly emotional language (“it is sad that…”): you need to show an ability to build rational and logical arguments.
• Be specific. The following terms tend to lead to vague statements: 
• People / some people / many people / most people – who exactly? 
• Some time ago / since the beginning / for a long time / throughout history / over time / as time passes / through the passing of time – when?
• Throughout the world / the whole world – where? 
• Similarly avoid any informal language such as cool, stuff, coz, besides, etc.

Be careful with the word “obviously,” particularly in an introduction when you have not yet made a demonstration. And if you need to make a demonstration, it means that things are not obvious.

As a general rule a good essay needs to be: clear, concise, to the point, addressing the question fully, logically organised, coherent. It also needs to show critical thinking and analysis. These qualities are not always discussed or explained. Think carefully about what they mean in your discipline and how you can integrate them in your own writing. 

Ask for help

If you are struggling, know this is normal, but know also that there is help out there. Talk to your tutors and reach out: the ACC offers support to help you.

Here is where you can find academic communication support and resources at UCL , and this is the ACC page. 

Make the most of UCL here:

• UCL Student Support and Advice Services
• Your Academic Self
• Careers and Alumni
• UCL Culture

Home — Essay Samples — Education — College Life — Strategies for Sustaining Academic Success in College

Strategies for Sustaining Academic Success in College

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1.2 Your Academic Journey and Personal Story

Questions to Consider:

• How can your academic journey develop skills needed for college success?
• How can your personal story prepare you for applying to college?

Your Academic Journey

Now that you have a better understanding of what college can do for you, it is time to focus on how high school is preparing you for college, or better yet, how you can prepare yourself in high school to become college ready. It is clear that what you do (or don’t do) in high school can affect your ability to get into the colleges of your choice, but there is more to preparing yourself than just earning a high GPA or class rank. Your high school education can provide you with ample opportunity to help you hone your academic skills.

Take Difficult Courses

Any student who is serious about applying to college should consider taking challenging classes while in high school. Why? Because those classes can help lay a foundation of high expectations and hard work and they are often highly regarded by college admissions counselors. These classes are sometimes called Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB), or honors/advanced classes. If you are considering taking such courses, talk to your guidance counselor or current teachers. They may be able to offer suggestions for how to get selected (if there is an application process) and give you a realistic picture of what will be expected. There is no need to take all AP, IB, or advanced classes to prove you are ready for college, but taking a few can provide a college admissions committee evidence that you are open to challenge.

Manage Time and Tasks

If there is one skill that you can develop now that will help you throughout your college career, it is the ability to manage your time and complete tasks. If you already use a planner to track what you need to do and when it is due , then you are on the right track. You can enhance these skills by setting reminders for yourself—and not relying on teachers or parents to tell you when to complete or submit an assignment. The most important part of managing your time and tasks effectively is to build in time well before something is due to complete the work and to overestimate (at least initially) how long you need, which can provide time “buffers” that will keep you from rushing through work to finish it.

Learn to Learn

Earlier, you were introduced to the argument that the purpose of college is to become a learner. You don’t have to wait until college, though, to figure out how best to learn different subject matters. This is one reason you should consider taking challenging classes–they require that you put more time and effort in them to learn the material. And those skills will make transitioning to college much easier. How can you “learn to learn”? You may have little control over what you are learning and how you are tested, but you can control how you approach the learning. One way to learn how to learn is to space out your learning over time (as best as you can—sometimes teachers like to give you a pop quiz when you least expect it!). Reviewing a bit of material for a short amount of time over several days (as opposed to cramming it in right before a test) produces better results. Another way to learn how to learn is to monitor how well your learning strategies work. Did you do well on a test? Take some time to reflect on what you did that resulted in a good grade. Did you space out your studying? Did you look for connections in the material? Likewise, if you do poorly on a test, determine what led to the result. The more you can identify what works and doesn’t for you, the easier it is to make improvements in your learning strategies.

Demonstrate Integrity and Ownership of Learning

Being a high school student often means having a lot on your plate. It can be easy to put off homework and studying, not do it at all, or cut corners to complete the work. While you may be able to get away with some stumbles like forgetting to turn in an assignment, other behaviors, such as getting someone (including Artificial Intelligence software) to do your homework or write a paper for you can get you into trouble. Now is the time to build the skills you will need later in college. Taking full responsibility for your learning as well as demonstrating integrity in all assignments no matter how big or small are the foundation of those skills. How do you do this? For one, you acknowledge that every action or inaction will produce a result. If you put in the work to write the paper, you will earn the grade you receive. If you do not put in the work or find a way to shortcut the process by using someone else’s writing, then you have missed an opportunity to improve your writing, your thinking, and your project management skills. Plus, you may get into trouble for academic dishonesty, which could mean failing an assignment or a course, or getting a more substantial punishment, such as expulsion. The stakes only get higher when you are in college.

Keep Test Scores in Perspective

You will learn more about standardized test scores and their purpose for getting into college later in this chapter, but it is worth noting that while what you make on the ACT, SAT, or equivalent standardized test, may factor into your ability to get into and pay for the college of your dreams, it is not necessarily a reflection of who you are and what you are capable of. Definitely do all you can to raise your test scores through practicing, prepping, and doing your best on the day of the test. But do not assume that a low test score will be the end of your long-term goals or educational journey. They are just one piece of information by which an institution may evaluate your potential, but it shouldn’t be the only thing that tells who you are.

Your Personal Story

Just as important as your academic journey is your personal story. You will need to develop and reflect on both for your applications to college and scholarships. Those who read about you will want to know not only about your accomplishments, but also your challenges and how you have overcome them.

What Makes You Unique

It may seem cliché to say “There is only one you!” But there is some truth in the fact that you are unique—there is no one else like you. To that end, you may want to draw upon those unique characteristics as you begin to shape the story that you will share with college admissions staff and scholarship committees. Will you be the first in your family to go to college? Do you live on a working farm and feed the goats, cows, and horses every morning before school? Can you ride a unicycle or juggle or both? There may be both personal characteristics as well as experiences that make you stand out from others, and if there are, consider weaving these details into the tapestry of your story. Start by making a list of your characteristics—no trait is too small or typical at this point. You can eliminate items later when you start building your story, but for now, create the list and add to it as you think of new things that you are or can do.

Getting Gritty

Many college essay prompts include an opportunity to share a time in your life in which you faced adversity and overcame it. For some students, this prompt is difficult for they have either not experienced a life-changing setback or not considered themselves challenged. It is important to remember that any setback or disappointment—no matter how inconsequential it may seem to you—can be the basis for an essay that responds to such a prompt. There is no need to embellish the circumstance if it is truly not harrowing, but it is acceptable to frame the experience as something that was difficult for you. Most readers of essays are less looking for a made-for-Hollywood story and more wanting to see someone who has demonstrated tenacity, resilience, and reflection no matter how big or small the adversity is. Even if you are not required to write an essay on a time in your life in which you failed or experienced disappointment, having a story handy for interviews (for scholarships, internships, or jobs) can help you share insight into your personality and strengths in a succinct way.

Finding the Themes of Your Life

In Katharine Brooks’ (2010) book You Majored in What? 3 she shares a writing and reflecting activity called “Wandering Pathways and Butterfly Moments” that guides readers through a series of prompts to develop a list of life experiences for the purpose of discovering what career pathway may be most fruitful for them to pursue. These life experiences could be as monumental as moving to a new state and starting a new school or they can be as mundane as spending the summers fishing. The goal of the exercise is to record what you have done or what has happened to you to get a sense of a “story.” These stories are built upon the connections and themes that you see in the experiences. Here are some of the life experiences Brooks wants you to consider when you are crafting your personal story.

• What have you done during the summer or holiday breaks from school?
• What did you play when you were a young child?
• What are some of your major life experiences (e.g. family events such as births, deaths, marriages, divorces)?
• What do people say you do well or have a talent for or seek you out for?
• What do you consider your greatest achievements?
• What jobs have you had?
• What groups have you belonged to?
• What awards have you won?
• What lessons have you learned?
• What do you like to do for fun?
• What kind of “secret” talent do you have?

The goal of answering the questions is to capture as much about who you are and how you have been shaped to develop clear connections among the life elements and create themes. These themes can drive your personal story that can share on a deeper level who you are or who you are becoming.

Consider this scenario: Raphael has taken the time to write down his life experiences so he can build his personal narrative. Some of the answers to the questions above include the following:

• Raphael’s jobs: lifeguard, babysitter for his nieces and nephews, tutor, art teacher for elementary students
• Raphael’s hobbies and interests: watching old movies, volunteering at the library, creating original jewelry from natural objects
• Raphael’s awards and accolades: he won a writing contest in 11th grade, his friends come to him for advice, he has earned high grades in all of his classes
• Raphael’s major life events: parents divorced when he was 6 years old, he started a new school in junior high, his aunt passed away when he was 14 years old

From this short list, Raphael can begin to draw out themes that he can use to create a detailed picture of who he is. He has found himself in teaching roles with his jobs. He has a love for the arts as evidenced by his hobbies. He is a good communicator evidenced by his awards and accolades, and relationships are an important part of his life. Raphael can use those themes—and details from his experiences—to craft his story as someone who has demonstrated an interest in connecting with and helping others by sharing his expertise and experience.

Recognizing the themes in your life helps you to describe how you've become the person you are now, and helps you to understand who you will become.

"For me, becoming isn't about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn't end" —former First Lady Michelle Obama , Becoming (2018)

Analysis Question

In what ways is your academic journey in high school shaping your personal narrative? Describe how the following experiences are helping you “become":

• The classes that you are taking
• The activities you participate in as part of school (e.g., sports, performing arts, etc.)
• The learning that you are doing outside of school (e.g., community language class)

In what ways are your personal experiences shaping your story? Describe how the following experiences are helping you “become”:

• Major life events
• Favorite activities
• Awards and accomplishments
• Jobs or volunteer work
• 3 Brooks, K.(2010). You majored in what? Plume.

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• Academic Skills
• Reading, writing and referencing

Writing a great essay

This resource covers key considerations when writing an essay.

While reading a student’s essay, markers will ask themselves questions such as:

• Does this essay directly address the set task?
• Does it present a strong, supported position?
• Does it use relevant sources appropriately?
• Is the expression clear, and the style appropriate?
• Is the essay organised coherently? Is there a clear introduction, body and conclusion?

You can use these questions to reflect on your own writing. Here are six top tips to help you address these criteria.

1. Analyse the question

Student essays are responses to specific questions. As an essay must address the question directly, your first step should be to analyse the question. Make sure you know exactly what is being asked of you.

Generally, essay questions contain three component parts:

• Content terms: Key concepts that are specific to the task
• Limiting terms: The scope that the topic focuses on
• Directive terms: What you need to do in relation to the content, e.g. discuss, analyse, define, compare, evaluate.

Look at the following essay question:

Discuss the importance of light in Gothic architecture.

• Content terms: Gothic architecture
• Limiting terms: the importance of light. If you discussed some other feature of Gothic architecture, for example spires or arches, you would be deviating from what is required. This essay question is limited to a discussion of light. Likewise, it asks you to write about the importance of light – not, for example, to discuss how light enters Gothic churches.
• Directive term: discuss. This term asks you to take a broad approach to the variety of ways in which light may be important for Gothic architecture. You should introduce and consider different ideas and opinions that you have met in academic literature on this topic, citing them appropriately .

For a more complex question, you can highlight the key words and break it down into a series of sub-questions to make sure you answer all parts of the task. Consider the following question (from Arts):

To what extent can the American Revolution be understood as a revolution ‘from below’? Why did working people become involved and with what aims in mind?

The key words here are American Revolution and revolution ‘from below’. This is a view that you would need to respond to in this essay. This response must focus on the aims and motivations of working people in the revolution, as stated in the second question.

2. Define your argument

As you plan and prepare to write the essay, you must consider what your argument is going to be. This means taking an informed position or point of view on the topic presented in the question, then defining and presenting a specific argument.

Consider these two argument statements:

The architectural use of light in Gothic cathedrals physically embodied the significance of light in medieval theology.

In the Gothic cathedral of Cologne, light served to accentuate the authority and ritual centrality of the priest.

Statements like these define an essay’s argument. They give coherence by providing an overarching theme and position towards which the entire essay is directed.

3. Use evidence, reasoning and scholarship

To convince your audience of your argument, you must use evidence and reasoning, which involves referring to and evaluating relevant scholarship.

• Evidence provides concrete information to support your claim. It typically consists of specific examples, facts, quotations, statistics and illustrations.
• Reasoning connects the evidence to your argument. Rather than citing evidence like a shopping list, you need to evaluate the evidence and show how it supports your argument.
• Scholarship is used to show how your argument relates to what has been written on the topic (citing specific works). Scholarship can be used as part of your evidence and reasoning to support your argument.

4. Organise a coherent essay

An essay has three basic components - introduction, body and conclusion.

The purpose of an introduction is to introduce your essay. It typically presents information in the following order:

• A general statement about the topic that provides context for your argument
• A thesis statement showing your argument. You can use explicit lead-ins, such as ‘This essay argues that...’
• A ‘road map’ of the essay, telling the reader how it is going to present and develop your argument.

Example introduction

"To what extent can the American Revolution be understood as a revolution ‘from below’? Why did working people become involved and with what aims in mind?"

Introduction*

Historians generally concentrate on the twenty-year period between 1763 and 1783 as the period which constitutes the American Revolution [This sentence sets the general context of the period] . However, when considering the involvement of working people, or people from below, in the revolution it is important to make a distinction between the pre-revolutionary period 1763-1774 and the revolutionary period 1774-1788, marked by the establishment of the continental Congress(1) [This sentence defines the key term from below and gives more context to the argument that follows] . This paper will argue that the nature and aims of the actions of working people are difficult to assess as it changed according to each phase [This is the thesis statement] . The pre-revolutionary period was characterised by opposition to Britain’s authority. During this period the aims and actions of the working people were more conservative as they responded to grievances related to taxes and scarce land, issues which directly affected them. However, examination of activities such as the organisation of crowd action and town meetings, pamphlet writing, formal communications to Britain of American grievances and physical action in the streets, demonstrates that their aims and actions became more revolutionary after 1775 [These sentences give the ‘road map’ or overview of the content of the essay] .

The body of the essay develops and elaborates your argument. It does this by presenting a reasoned case supported by evidence from relevant scholarship. Its shape corresponds to the overview that you provided in your introduction.

The body of your essay should be written in paragraphs. Each body paragraph should develop one main idea that supports your argument. To learn how to structure a paragraph, look at the page developing clarity and focus in academic writing .

Your conclusion should not offer any new material. Your evidence and argumentation should have been made clear to the reader in the body of the essay.

Use the conclusion to briefly restate the main argumentative position and provide a short summary of the themes discussed. In addition, also consider telling your reader:

• What the significance of your findings, or the implications of your conclusion, might be
• Whether there are other factors which need to be looked at, but which were outside the scope of the essay
• How your topic links to the wider context (‘bigger picture’) in your discipline.

Do not simply repeat yourself in this section. A conclusion which merely summarises is repetitive and reduces the impact of your paper.

Example conclusion

Conclusion*.

Although, to a large extent, the working class were mainly those in the forefront of crowd action and they also led the revolts against wealthy plantation farmers, the American Revolution was not a class struggle [This is a statement of the concluding position of the essay]. Working people participated because the issues directly affected them – the threat posed by powerful landowners and the tyranny Britain represented. Whereas the aims and actions of the working classes were more concerned with resistance to British rule during the pre-revolutionary period, they became more revolutionary in nature after 1775 when the tension with Britain escalated [These sentences restate the key argument]. With this shift, a change in ideas occurred. In terms of considering the Revolution as a whole range of activities such as organising riots, communicating to Britain, attendance at town hall meetings and pamphlet writing, a difficulty emerges in that all classes were involved. Therefore, it is impossible to assess the extent to which a single group such as working people contributed to the American Revolution [These sentences give final thoughts on the topic].

5. Write clearly

An essay that makes good, evidence-supported points will only receive a high grade if it is written clearly. Clarity is produced through careful revision and editing, which can turn a good essay into an excellent one.

When you edit your essay, try to view it with fresh eyes – almost as if someone else had written it.

Ask yourself the following questions:

Overall structure

• Have you clearly stated your argument in your introduction?
• Does the actual structure correspond to the ‘road map’ set out in your introduction?
• Have you clearly indicated how your main points support your argument?
• Have you clearly signposted the transitions between each of your main points for your reader?
• Does each paragraph introduce one main idea?
• Does every sentence in the paragraph support that main idea?
• Does each paragraph display relevant evidence and reasoning?
• Does each paragraph logically follow on from the one before it?
• Is each sentence grammatically complete?
• Is the spelling correct?
• Is the link between sentences clear to your readers?
• Have you avoided redundancy and repetition?

See more about editing on our  editing your writing page.

6. Cite sources and evidence

Finally, check your citations to make sure that they are accurate and complete. Some faculties require you to use a specific citation style (e.g. APA) while others may allow you to choose a preferred one. Whatever style you use, you must follow its guidelines correctly and consistently. You can use Recite, the University of Melbourne style guide, to check your citations.

Further resources

• Germov, J. (2011). Get great marks for your essays, reports and presentations (3rd ed.). NSW: Allen and Unwin.
• Using English for Academic Purposes: A guide for students in Higher Education [online]. Retrieved January 2020 from http://www.uefap.com
• Williams, J.M. & Colomb, G. G. (2010) Style: Lessons in clarity and grace. 10th ed. New York: Longman.

* Example introduction and conclusion adapted from a student paper.

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Home / Resources / Tips for Academic Success

Tips for Academic Success

Want to improve your study skills, get better grades, or get more out of your education? The following tips are a good start.

• Think about what matters to you. What moves you. Discover a secret of motivation: Find a passion in learning. Make your life in the classroom, as well as outside of it (e.g., hobbies, clubs, sports, leadership roles), meaningful to you. What do you want to experience and accomplish in your life, and how will your time at UCSC help you reach your dreams?
• Set realistic day-to-day goals. Reward yourself for accomplishing them. Work on one thing at a time and follow it through to completion. Break larger tasks (such as writing a research paper) into smaller ones (such as writing an outline, reading a couple articles), and tackle one part at a time, with breaks in between. During breaks, get up and stretch, take a short walk, eat a snack, drink some water. When you accomplish a task, give yourself a small but meaningful reward (e.g., 20 minutes online, a cookie, a 15-minute chat with a friend).
• Know and use your campus resources. Your college academic advisor, major advisor, Learning Support Services, and the Disability Resource Center (DRC) are great places to start with any academic questions or concerns. There are a ton of other Academic Support Resources on campus to help you!
• Get to know your professors and TAs. Putting in that extra effort to go to office hours and talk to your faculty can make the difference between an average education and a great one. Feeing intimidated or embarassed is a common reason students avoid approaching faculty, but don't let that stand in your way. Maybe you'll find a mentor in one of your teachers, and you'll also be laying the groundwork for having relationships with faculty you could ask for letters of reference (e.g., if you apply to graduate school) that you might need in the future.
• Be an active learner who understands your individual learning style. Be active in your studies—using several different approaches to learning and studying (e.g., reading, taking notes, making outlines, using flash cards, forming a study group) improves retention and performance. Do you have a strong preference for visual information? Try making charts and diagrams when you study, or watch a supplementary video. Do you learn better by actively doing? Challenge yourself to tackle those extra math problems.
• Learn to organize and manage your time. This is a tough one for many, but the rewards of good time management are worth it! In organizing the tasks you have to do for the day or maybe for the week, try making a grid that groups tasks into most and least important and those with the soonest and latest deadline; start with the most important tasks with the shortest deadline, then complete important tasks with a longer deadline and less-important tasks with short deadlines. Don't forget to plan for meals, exercise, and sleep—vital components of well-being. Invest in a calendar app or planner so you don't forget important tasks and events. Set alarms if you tend to forget to look at your planner. Be honest with yourself about how you spend your time, and look at ways of cutting back on time-wasters. Try this 16-minute online Student Success Time Management Workshop .
• Find ways to manage stress. Everyone gets stressed sometimes. Finding ways to manage stress is an important part of success in college—and life in general. Cover the basics first: If you are not eating well, getting enough sleep, and exercising or if you are abusing alcohol or other drugs, it will be harder to manage stress. Learn to prioritize and say no sometimes so you don't get overextended. Find exercise routines or classes (perhaps through OPERS ) that you enjoy, and get friends to go with you to help you stay motivated. If you have sleep problems, try using an app such as CBT-i Coach ( iTunes , Android ). Play music, create a blog, read a novel, go on a hike, make a collage. Do something relaxing like deep breathing, meditation, or yoga. Check out our self-help page for more stress management tips and tools.
• Get involved with opportunities to learn outside the classroom. Education doesn't just happen in the classroom. Find out about options for service learning, field studies, and internships that offer real-life experience. This is especially rewarding if you prefer a more "hands on" learning style. Discover the diverse array of student organizations on campus. There’s something for everyone, or if you don't see one you like, become a co-signer and start your own org!
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How to Write the “Overcoming Challenges” Essay + Examples

What’s covered:.

• What is the Overcoming Challenges Essay?
• Real Overcoming Challenges Essay Prompts
• How to Choose a Topic
• Writing Tips

Overcoming Challenges Essay Examples

• Where to Get Your Essay Edited

While any college essay can be intimidating, the Overcoming Challenges prompt often worries students the most. Those students who’ve been lucky enough not to experience trauma tend to assume they have nothing worth saying. On the other hand, students who’ve overcome larger obstacles may be hesitant to talk about them.

Regardless of your particular circumstances, there are steps you can take to make the essay writing process simpler. Here are our top tips for writing the overcoming challenges essay successfully.

What is the “Overcoming Challenges” Essay?

The overcoming challenges prompt shows up frequently in both main application essays (like the Common App) and supplemental essays. Because supplemental essays allow students to provide schools with additional information, applicants should be sure that the subject matter they choose to write about differs from what’s in their main essay.

Students often assume the overcoming challenges essay requires them to detail past traumas. While you can certainly write about an experience that’s had a profound effect on your life, it’s important to remember that colleges aren’t evaluating students based on the seriousness of the obstacle they overcame.

On the contrary, the goal of this essay is to show admissions officers that you have the intelligence and fortitude to handle any challenges that come your way. After all, college serves as an introduction to adult life, and schools want to know that the students they admit are up to the task. 

Real “Overcoming Challenges” Essay Prompts

To help you understand what the “Overcoming Challenges” essay looks like, here are a couple sample prompts.

Currently, the Common Application asks students to answer the following prompt in 650 words or less:

“The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?”

For the past several years, MIT has prompted students to write 200 to 250 words on the following:

“Tell us about the most significant challenge you’ve faced or something important that didn’t go according to plan. How did you manage the situation?”

In both cases, the prompts explicitly ask for your response to the challenge. The event itself isn’t as important as how it pushed you to grow.

How to Choose a Topic for an Essay on Overcoming Challenges

When it comes to finding the best topic for your overcoming challenges essays, there’s no right answer. The word “challenge” is ambiguous and could be used to reference a wide range of situations from prevailing over a bully to getting over your lifelong stage fright to appear in a school musical. Here are some suggestions to keep in mind when selecting an essay subject.

1. Avoid trivial or common topics

While there aren’t many hard-and-fast rules for choosing an essay topic, students should avoid overdone topics.

These include:

• Working hard in a challenging class
• Overcoming a sports injury
• Moving schools or immigrating to the US
• Tragedy (divorce, death, abuse)

Admissions officers have read numerous essays on the subject, so it’s harder for you to stand out (see our full list of cliché college essay topics to avoid ). If events like these were truly formative to you, you can still choose to write about them, but you’ll need to be as personal as possible. 

It’s also ideal if you have a less traditional storyline for a cliché topic; for example, if your sports injury led you to discover a new passion, that would be a more unique story than detailing how you overcame your injury and got back in the game.

Similarly, students may not want to write about an obstacle that admissions committees could perceive as low stakes, such as getting a B on a test, or getting into a small fight with a friend. The goal of this essay is to illustrate how you respond to adversity, so the topic you pick should’ve been at least impactful on your personal growth.

2. Pick challenges that demonstrate qualities you want to highlight

Students often mistakenly assume they need to have experienced exceptional circumstances like poverty, an abusive parent, or cancer to write a good essay. The truth is that the best topics will allow you to highlight specific personal qualities and share more about who you are. The essay should be less about the challenge itself, and more about how you responded to it.

Ask yourself what personality traits you want to emphasize, and see what’s missing in your application. Maybe you want to highlight your adaptability, for example, but that isn’t clearly expressed in your application. In this case, you might write about a challenge that put your adaptability to the test, or shaped you to become more adaptable.

Here are some examples of good topics we’ve seen over the years:

• Not having a coach for a sports team and becoming one yourself
• Helping a parent through a serious health issue
• Trying to get the school track dedicated to a coach
• Having to switch your Model UN position last-minute

Tips for Writing an Essay About Overcoming Challenges

Once you’ve selected a topic for your essays, it’s time to sit down and write. For best results, make sure your essay focuses on your efforts to tackle an obstacle rather than the problem itself. Additionally, you could avoid essay writing pitfalls by doing the following:

1. Choose an original essay structure

If you want your overcoming challenges essay to attract attention, aim to break away from more traditional structures. Most of these essays start by describing an unsuccessful attempt at a goal and then explain the steps the writer took to master the challenge. 

You can stand out by choosing a challenge you’re still working on overcoming, or focus on a mental or emotional challenge that spans multiple activities or events. For example, you might discuss your fear of public speaking and how that impacted your ability to coach your brother’s Little League team and run for Student Council. 

You can also choose a challenge that can be narrated in the moment, such as being put on the spot to teach a yoga class. These challenges can make particularly engaging essays, as you get to experience the writer’s thoughts and emotions as they unfold.

Keep in mind that you don’t necessarily need to have succeeded in your goal for this essay. Maybe you ran for an election and lost, or maybe you proposed a measure to the school board that wasn’t passed. It’s still possible to write a strong essay about topics like these as long as you focus on your personal growth. In fact, these may make for even stronger essays since they are more unconventional topics.

2. Focus on the internal

When writing about past experiences, you may be tempted to spend too much time describing specific people and events. With an Overcoming Challenges essay though, the goal is to focus on your thoughts and feelings.

For example, rather than detail all the steps you took to become a better public speaker, use the majority of your essay to describe your mental state as you embarked on the journey to achieving your goals. Were you excited, scared, anxious, or hopeful? Don’t be afraid to let the reader in on your innermost emotions and thoughts during this process.

3. Share what you learned 

An Overcoming Challenges essay should leave the reader with a clear understanding of what you learned on your journey, be it physical, mental, or emotional. There’s no need to explicitly say “this experience taught me X,” but your essay should at least implicitly share any lessons you learned. This can be done through your actions and in-the-moment reflections. Remember that the goal is to show admissions committees why your experiences make you a great candidate for admission. 

Was I no longer the beloved daughter of nature, whisperer of trees? Knee-high rubber boots, camouflage, bug spray—I wore the g arb and perfume of a proud wild woman, yet there I was, hunched over the pathetic pile of stubborn sticks, utterly stumped, on the verge of tears. As a child, I had considered myself a kind of rustic princess, a cradler of spiders and centipedes, who was serenaded by mourning doves and chickadees, who could glide through tick-infested meadows and emerge Lyme-free. I knew the cracks of the earth like the scars on my own rough palms. Yet here I was, ten years later, incapable of performing the most fundamental outdoor task: I could not, for the life of me, start a fire. 

Furiously I rubbed the twigs together—rubbed and rubbed until shreds of skin flaked from my fingers. No smoke. The twigs were too young, too sticky-green; I tossed them away with a shower of curses, and began tearing through the underbrush in search of a more flammable collection. My efforts were fruitless. Livid, I bit a rejected twig, determined to prove that the forest had spurned me, offering only young, wet bones that would never burn. But the wood cracked like carrots between my teeth—old, brittle, and bitter. Roaring and nursing my aching palms, I retreated to the tent, where I sulked and awaited the jeers of my family. 

Rattling their empty worm cans and reeking of fat fish, my brother and cousins swaggered into the campsite. Immediately, they noticed the minor stick massacre by the fire pit and called to me, their deep voices already sharp with contempt. 

“Where’s the fire, Princess Clara?” they taunted. “Having some trouble?” They prodded me with the ends of the chewed branches and, with a few effortless scrapes of wood on rock, sparked a red and roaring flame. My face burned long after I left the fire pit. The camp stank of salmon and shame. 

In the tent, I pondered my failure. Was I so dainty? Was I that incapable? I thought of my hands, how calloused and capable they had been, how tender and smooth they had become. It had been years since I’d kneaded mud between my fingers; instead of scaling a white pine, I’d practiced scales on my piano, my hands softening into those of a musician—fleshy and sensitive. And I’d gotten glasses, having grown horrifically nearsighted; long nights of dim lighting and thick books had done this. I couldn’t remember the last time I had lain down on a hill, barefaced, and seen the stars without having to squint. Crawling along the edge of the tent, a spider confirmed my transformation—he disgusted me, and I felt an overwhelming urge to squash him. 

Yet, I realized I hadn’t really changed—I had only shifted perspective. I still eagerly explored new worlds, but through poems and prose rather than pastures and puddles. I’d grown to prefer the boom of a bass over that of a bullfrog, learned to coax a different kind of fire from wood, having developed a burn for writing rhymes and scrawling hypotheses. 

That night, I stayed up late with my journal and wrote about the spider I had decided not to kill. I had tolerated him just barely, only shrieking when he jumped—it helped to watch him decorate the corners of the tent with his delicate webs, knowing that he couldn’t start fires, either. When the night grew cold and the embers died, my words still smoked—my hands burned from all that scrawling—and even when I fell asleep, the ideas kept sparking—I was on fire, always on fire.

This essay is an excellent example because the writer turns an everyday challenge—starting a fire—into an exploration of her identity. The writer was once “a kind of rustic princess, a cradler of spiders and centipedes,” but has since traded her love of the outdoors for a love of music, writing, and reading. 

The story begins in media res , or in the middle of the action, allowing readers to feel as if we’re there with the writer. One of the essay’s biggest strengths is its use of imagery. We can easily visualize the writer’s childhood and the present day. For instance, she states that she “rubbed and rubbed [the twigs] until shreds of skin flaked from my fingers.”

The writing has an extremely literary quality, particularly with its wordplay. The writer reappropriates words and meanings, and even appeals to the senses: “My face burned long after I left the fire pit. The camp stank of salmon and shame.” She later uses a parallelism to cleverly juxtapose her changed interests: “instead of scaling a white pine, I’d practiced scales on my piano.”

One of the essay’s main areas of improvement is its overemphasis on the “story” and lack of emphasis on the reflection. The second to last paragraph about changing perspective is crucial to the essay, as it ties the anecdote to larger lessons in the writer’s life. She states that she hasn’t changed, but has only shifted perspective. Yet, we don’t get a good sense of where this realization comes from and how it impacts her life going forward. 

The end of the essay offers a satisfying return to the fire imagery, and highlights the writer’s passion—the one thing that has remained constant in her life.

“Getting beat is one thing – it’s part of competing – but I want no part in losing.” Coach Rob Stark’s motto never fails to remind me of his encouragement on early-morning bus rides to track meets around the state. I’ve always appreciated the phrase, but an experience last June helped me understand its more profound, universal meaning.

Stark, as we affectionately call him, has coached track at my high school for 25 years. His care, dedication, and emphasis on developing good character has left an enduring impact on me and hundreds of other students. Not only did he help me discover my talent and love for running, but he also taught me the importance of commitment and discipline and to approach every endeavor with the passion and intensity that I bring to running. When I learned a neighboring high school had dedicated their track to a longtime coach, I felt that Stark deserved similar honors.

Our school district’s board of education indicated they would only dedicate our track to Stark if I could demonstrate that he was extraordinary. I took charge and mobilized my teammates to distribute petitions, reach out to alumni, and compile statistics on the many team and individual champions Stark had coached over the years. We received astounding support, collecting almost 3,000 signatures and pages of endorsements from across the community. With help from my teammates, I presented this evidence to the board.

They didn’t bite. 

Most members argued that dedicating the track was a low priority. Knowing that we had to act quickly to convince them of its importance, I called a team meeting where we drafted a rebuttal for the next board meeting. To my surprise, they chose me to deliver it. I was far from the best public speaker in the group, and I felt nervous about going before the unsympathetic board again. However, at that second meeting, I discovered that I enjoy articulating and arguing for something that I’m passionate about.

Public speaking resembles a cross country race. Walking to the starting line, you have to trust your training and quell your last minute doubts. When the gun fires, you can’t think too hard about anything; your performance has to be instinctual, natural, even relaxed. At the next board meeting, the podium was my starting line. As I walked up to it, familiar butterflies fluttered in my stomach. Instead of the track stretching out in front of me, I faced the vast audience of teachers, board members, and my teammates. I felt my adrenaline build, and reassured myself: I’ve put in the work, my argument is powerful and sound. As the board president told me to introduce myself, I heard, “runners set” in the back of my mind. She finished speaking, and Bang! The brief silence was the gunshot for me to begin. 

The next few minutes blurred together, but when the dust settled, I knew from the board members’ expressions and the audience’s thunderous approval that I had run quite a race. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough; the board voted down our proposal. I was disappointed, but proud of myself, my team, and our collaboration off the track. We stood up for a cause we believed in, and I overcame my worries about being a leader. Although I discovered that changing the status quo through an elected body can be a painstakingly difficult process and requires perseverance, I learned that I enjoy the challenges this effort offers. Last month, one of the school board members joked that I had become a “regular” – I now often show up to meetings to advocate for a variety of causes, including better environmental practices in cafeterias and safer equipment for athletes.

Just as Stark taught me, I worked passionately to achieve my goal. I may have been beaten when I appealed to the board, but I certainly didn’t lose, and that would have made Stark proud.

While the writer didn’t succeed in getting the track dedicated to Coach Stark, their essay is certainly successful in showing their willingness to push themselves and take initiative.

The essay opens with a quote from Coach Stark that later comes full circle at the end of the essay. We learn about Stark’s impact and the motivation for trying to get the track dedicated to him.

One of the biggest areas of improvement in the intro, however, is how the essay tells us Stark’s impact rather than showing us: His care, dedication, and emphasis on developing good character has left an enduring impact on me and hundreds of other students. Not only did he help me discover my talent and love for running, but he also taught me the importance of commitment and discipline and to approach every endeavor with the passion and intensity that I bring to running.

The writer could’ve helped us feel a stronger emotional connection to Stark if they had included examples of Stark’s qualities, rather than explicitly stating them. For example, they could’ve written something like: Stark was the kind of person who would give you gas money if you told him your parents couldn’t afford to pick you up from practice. And he actually did that—several times. At track meets, alumni regularly would come talk to him and tell him how he’d changed their lives. Before Stark, I was ambivalent about running and was on the JV team, but his encouragement motivated me to run longer and harder and eventually make varsity. Because of him, I approach every endeavor with the passion and intensity that I bring to running.

The essay goes on to explain how the writer overcame their apprehension of public speaking, and likens the process of submitting an appeal to the school board to running a race. This metaphor makes the writing more engaging and allows us to feel the student’s emotions.

While the student didn’t ultimately succeed in getting the track dedicated, we learn about their resilience and initiative: I now often show up to meetings to advocate for a variety of causes, including better environmental practices in cafeterias and safer equipment for athletes.

Overall, this essay is well-done. It demonstrates growth despite failing to meet a goal, which is a unique essay structure. The running metaphor and full-circle intro/ending also elevate the writing in this essay.

Where to Get Your Overcoming Challenges Essay Edited

The Overcoming Challenges essay is one of the trickier supplemental prompts, so it’s important to get feedback on your drafts. 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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How to write a winning scholarship essay about your academic goals

Have you ever opened up a scholarship application only to find that you have to write yet ANOTHER scholarship essay, this time about your academic goals? We get it. There’s a lot of writing involved when you’re applying! Well, we’re here to guide you through your academic goals essay, with scholarship essay tips and a template. We’ve even got a surprise for you at the end that will save you time on your scholarship applications.

1) Start brainstorming and writing as early as possible.

2) understand your current goals of where you are now, and your future goals of where you want to be., 3) stay positive., 4) keep it personal., 5) spell check., 6) be proud of your academic goals essay., what are you studying right now, what do you enjoy, what are you not-so-crazy about in your current studies, what do you want to achieve in college, what things outside of pure academics, might complement your academic goals, how will your academic goals help you achieve other goals, what has inspired these goals, how will you hold yourself accountable with your academic goals, bonus: let your academic goals influence your college class planning, it’s here your academic goals essay brainstorm template, extra bonus: apply for scholarships more easily, with going merry .

6 tips for scholarship essay success

Writing any scholarship essay takes time, thought, and energy. The earlier you start, the better!

Your goals today may change tomorrow. Think about where you are now in your high school career – what are you studying that you love? What would you like to change? What do you aim to accomplish in college? Ask yourself these questions and write down those goals.

No one is perfect – we all have our hardships and our downfalls. But think positively when it comes to your academic goals. If you didn’t do so hot in one subject, try not to include that exact phrasing in the essay, but think about how you can turn that around into a positive.

Similar to personal statements , share your story – a moment that brought you to where you are today. Especially for local scholarships, the providers want to feel like they’re supporting real people to achieve their academic dreams. So make sure you share enough personal details about where you are and where you want to be.

Using a tool like Grammarly helps check your spelling and grammar as you’re writing. Ask a friend, family member, or expert to review your academic goals essay before you submit it with your scholarship application. This will help your writing for college appear polished and professional.

You did it! You wrote it! That’s your work, and now it’s up to the scholarship providers to review and accept your application.

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Points to consider while writing your academic goals scholarship essay:

Think about your current studies in high school. If you’re a high school junior, think about what classes you’re currently taking, and what you plan to take next year as a senior. If you’re a high school senior, reflect on your last two semesters of classes. What’s your curriculum look like? You might be taking an English class, Math, a focused class, such as Sociology, maybe a World Religions course, Geography, Government and an elective such as music, art, or physical education.

We all know a high school teacher who made going to class enjoyable because of their personality – OR – we just really loved the subject (No one? Just us? Okay…it was Mr. Nixon’s Law class that made research and debating against classmates fun for us).

Capitalize on the enjoyable aspects of that class in your academic goals essay. Explain how your teacher made the class engaging in a way that helped you retain information while also enjoying the class. Consider what the ideal academic class would look like in college. Would you aim to take a similar course in college where the professor promotes engaged learning? Or would you prefer to sit in a lecture hall where you can listen, digest detailed information, write down notes, and ask questions as needed? Think about your learning style as you organize your academic goals essay.

Going back to the point of staying positive, think through a subject that you’re currently not too thrilled about, and get creative with how you can turn that into an academic goal.

Ex: Statistics was one of the most challenging subjects of my junior year curriculum. However, I know I’ll need to have sufficient knowledge of the subject to major in Psychology in college. My goal is to find a study buddy – a colleague, a tutor, someone skilled in the subject, to improve my understanding of the subject so I can later help patients understand research study statistics in the future.

It might be a 3.5 GPA. Or you might want to walk across the stage on graduation day with summa cum laude cords. Maybe you want to become president of the student government association on campus.

The great thing about college is that you’re furthering your education, and you’re growing as a person! You’re learning about yourself, how you work, how you interact, and there are so many opportunities to get involved on campus. Think about how these fits in with your academic goals by naming any organizations, department clubs, and honor societies that catch your eye.

How might your near-term academic goals help you in your future (e.g. career after college)–or how might they help others (e.g. your friends, family, future customers/patients)? Think long-term: what will your current academic goals help you achieve further down the line? Whom might that impact?

Ex: Taking 18 credits helped us knock out our required wellness course during the second semester of our freshman year of college. By sophomore year, we could focus on classes related to our major and enjoy time after class. We later graduated a semester early thanks to study habits and credits. We spent time at the on-campus career center, working through mock interviews. Then, we later landed a job soon after graduation, working for a company and helping them bring on new customers.

All of this happened as a result of creating academic goals to plan classes early and work through those credits.

Everyone finds inspiration from different outlets. Whether it’s your parents, a teacher, your guidance counselor, classmates, siblings, or even an athlete, briefly describe who inspired these goals. Heck, you might have inspired yourself to make these goals! If it wasn’t someone who inspired you, discuss what inspired you to set these goals in your academic goals essay.

Writing down goals for ourselves is great. It makes our goals seem more concrete once we talk or write about them. Now, it’s time to make those goals happen! Toward the end of your academic goals essay, you might want to explicitly state your plan for holding yourself accountable to these goals — this will seem impressive to a scholarship provider who wants to make sure their award money is going to someone who’s serious about their future.

How might you stay accountable? Maybe your best friend can text you every Wednesday to check in with you mid-week on your progress. Or maybe that’s too much, and you’ll just set a reminder on your phone to check in with yourself once a week. Or maybe you’re a real planner– and you’ve created clear milestones for the next couple years, and you’ll check in regularly to make sure you’re hitting them. Whatever it is, bringing your lofty academic goal down to concrete steps is likely to make your academic goals essay stronger. 

Don’t just think of your scholarship essay on academic goals as a chore that you complete and then never look at again. Once you’ve written it, let it help serve as your beacon as you decide what majors or classes to take, or what student organizations to join.

Then you can plan your semesters accordingly. For example:

• Jot down your goals for your class schedule, what you plan to do with your time before, after, and in between classes.
• Consider what time of day you would be most effective in taking the classes necessary to meet your academic goals. Are you a night owl or a morning person? Do you need lots of time between classes to really digest the material?
• How many classes (or credits) do you plan to take? You can take a full load of classes, usually up to 18 credits per semester depending on the school, without going over your tuition limit, to help give you a lighter load your junior and senior years. Or, you can take the standard 12 – 16 credits per semester to avoid overloading your schedule and leaving room for socializing and other activities. This may also affect your graduation year. So if part of your academic goals (or your plan for reducing tuition ) requires you to graduate early — you’ll also want to plan this out!

Ready to start brainstorming to write your essay?

Print this sheet – OR – if you want to fill out this sheet digitally, make a copy to save and edit on your device by going to File > Download > Microsoft Word, OpenDocument Format, etc.

Also, check out this helpful list of the 10 most common scholarship essay topics!

Feeling more confident about your academic goals scholarship essay? Great! 

Streamline submitting your scholarship essays with Going Merry. You’ll only need to enter your information once, and we auto-fill it to all your applications. You can even save your academic goals essay to your account, so that you can easily reuse it. How convenient is that?

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8 Steps to Academic Success

Step 1: Set Goals

Goals help to keep you going by:

• Providing direction
• Increasing your attention and focus
• Increasing your motivation and effort
• Reducing your anxiety and increasing your confidence

Develop SMART goals that are:  S pecific,  M easureable,  A chievable,  R ealistic, and  T imely

Step 2: Have a Positive Attitude

• Be positive about your ability to succeed
• Look forward to what your will learn
• Have an inquiring mind: get curious about your subjects!

Step 3: Manage Your Time

• Set a realistic schedule for yourself
• Know where your time goes (awareness is key)
• Study for 2-3 hours for every hour of class time (eg. if you have 6 hours of class per week, aim to study at least 12-18 hours per week).

Step 4: Read Textbooks & Course Readings

• Survey chapters before reading; read the chapter summary, look for  bold  and  italicized  words to indicate important concepts
• Review chapters and readings before class
• Re-read chapter and readings after class
• Make study notes

Step 5: Attend your Lectures

• Intend to learn something each class you attend
• Do assigned readings  before  class- you'll take better notes
• Ask questions: this will enhance your learning process
• Sit in the first few rows - you'll pay closer attention

Step 6: Record your Lecture Notes

• Take notes in class
• Review and edit notes after class (within 24 hours)
• Aim for 3-4 major reviews of your notes before exams
• Highlight import points, draw diagrams, make definitions

Step 7: Prepare for Exams

• Review past exams
• Make practice study questions
• Memorize definitions and formulae - try cue cards
• Know the type of exam to expect
• Eat balanced meals and sleep 8 hours per night

Step 8: Write Your Exams

• Have a positive attitude; do your best
• Arrive early with an extra pen and any necessary supplies (e.g., calculator if permitted - with fresh batteries)
• Read test questions and instructions  very clearly
• Budget your time; leave time for review
• Relax and don't forget to breathe

Where to Get More Help?

• Your instructors and program supervisors are available for help. See your instructor if you are having difficulty with course work. Your instructor may be able to review material for you, present material in another way that you find easier to understand, recommend supplementary texts or other readings, or recommend someone to tutor you. You won’t know what help is available unless you ask. Don’t wait until the last minute; get help in a timely manner. Your program supervisor can help you with things like course load, the repercussions on your program of withdrawing from a required course, and has authority to make changes to your program of study.
• The Health & Wellness Centre, can help in two ways: with health care and with personal counselling. You don’t need to miss classes to have your health needs looked after, be it a bad cold or flu, a headache or upset stomach. If family problems or other personal matters are affecting your marks, talk to a professional counsellor. It can make a big difference, as many students discover. You can see a social worker, a psychologist, a psychiatrist or a physician/counsellor, all for free. For more information visit their webpage:  www.utsc.utoronto.ca/hwc
• Workshops in using library resources and the web for academic research
• Individual appointments with a librarian to develop effective research strategies
• Computers with access to the Web, e-journals and indexes, and multimedia programs
• Research 101 webpages that provide brief information on doing library research
• Book delivery service. See their webpage at www.library.utoronto.ca/utsc
• Individual consultations
• Group workshops
• Diverse electronic resources including an online diagnostic evaluation.
• Financing your graduate or professional school education
• Paying back your student loan
• Co-op students and student loans

Good Luck with your studies!

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Adjusting to University

Kristen Lovric; Linda Clark; Anbarasu Thangavelu; and Sarah Irvine

Introduction

University will not only expand your mind, but it may also make you a little uncomfortable, challenge your identity, and at times, make you doubt your abilities. It can be transformative for you as an individual and through you, transform your communities and the nation more broadly through the development of a “love of learning for its own sake and a passion for intellectual discovery” Bradley, et al., (2008). For this transformation to happen, however, it means that we will need to be open to the transformation and allow the changes to occur. This chapter will provide you with  an understanding about types of adjustments in the first year, and what to expect of university culture and expectations. Next, your learning responsibilities as a university student and some information about what to expect in your first year will be explained. Finally, a summary of practical study experiences you may need, the challenges that you may encounter and hints about scholarship opportunities will give you the information you need to adjust to your new life as a university student.

Adjustments in the First Year

Flexibility , transition , and change are all words that describe what you will experience.  Hazard and Carter (2018) describe six adjustment areas that first-year university students experience: academic, cultural, emotional, financial, intellectual, and social. Of course, you won’t go through these adjustments all at once or even in just the first year. Some will take time, while others may not even feel like much of a transition. Let’s look briefly at these adjustments to prepare for the road ahead:

• Academic adjustment. There are no surprises here. You will most likely—depending on your own academic background—be faced with the increased demands of learning at university. This could mean that you need to spend more time learning to learn and using those strategies to master the material. Asking for help early to develop your academic skills is highly recommended to help build your confidence. This is covered in more detail in the chapter Successful Connections .
• Cultural adjustment . You will likely experience a cultural adjustment just by being at university because most campuses have their own language (modules, lectures, and tutorials, for example) and customs. You may also experience a cultural adjustment because of the diverse and multicultural environment that you will encounter.
• Emotional adjustment. Knowing that you may have good and bad days, and that you can still bounce back from the more stressful days, will help you find healthy ways of adjusting emotionally.
• Financial adjustment. Most students understand the investment they are making in their future by going to university. Even if you have most of your expenses covered, there is still an adjustment to a new way of thinking about university and living costs and how to pay for it. You may find that you think twice about spending money on entertainment or that you have improved your skills in finding discounted textbooks.
• Intellectual adjustment. Having an intellectual “a-ha!” moment is one of the most rewarding experiences of being a university student, right up there with moving across the graduation stage with a degree in hand. Prepare to be surprised when you stumble across a fascinating subject or find that a class discussion changes your life. At the very least, through your academic work, you will likely learn to think differently about the world around you and your place in it.
• Social adjustment. A new place often equals new people. At university, those new relationships can have even more meaning. Getting to know your lecturers can not only can help you learn more in your classes, but it can also help you figure out what career pathway you might want to take and how to get desired internships and jobs. Learning to reduce conflicts during group work or when living with others helps build essential workplace and life skills.

Think about what you have done so far to navigate these transitions in addition to other things you can do to make your university experience a successful one.

University Culture and Expectations

Going to university—even if you are not far from home—is a cultural experience. It comes with its own language and customs, some of which can be confusing or confounding at first. Let’s start with the language you may encounter. In most cases, there will be words that you have heard before, but they may have different meanings in a university setting. Table 2.1 has a brief list of other words that you will want to know when you hear them on campus.

Table 2.1 Common university terms, what they mean, and why you need to know.

In addition to its own language, higher education has its own way of doing things. For example, you may be familiar with what a teacher did when you were in high school, but do you know what an academic does? It certainly seems like they fulfill a similar role as teachers in high school, but in university academics’ roles are often more diverse. In addition to teaching, they may also conduct research, mentor graduate students, write and review research articles, serve on and lead campus committees, serve in regional and national organisations in their disciplines, apply for and administer grants, advise students in their major, and serve as sponsors for student organisations. If your most recent experience has been the world of work, you may find that there are more noticeable differences between those experiences and university.

Learning Is Your Responsibility

As you may now realise by reviewing the differences between high school and university, learning in university is your responsibility. Being able to stay self-motivated while studying and balancing all you have to do in your classes will be important. Taking ownership of learning will also hinge on the effort that you put into the work. Because most learning in university will take place outside of the classroom, you will need determination to get the work done. You will need to develop the ability to control your calendar to block out the time to study. You will learn more about strategies for managing your time and the tasks of university in a later chapter. Finally, a commitment to learning must include monitoring your learning, knowing not only what you have completed, but also the quality of the work you have done. Taking responsibility for your learning will take some time if you are not used to being in the driver’s seat. However, if you have any difficulty making this adjustment, you can and should reach out for help along the way.

What to Expect During the First Year

While you may not experience every transition within your first year, there are rhythms to each semester of the first year and each year you are in university. Knowing what to expect each month or week can better prepare you to take advantage of the times that you have more confidence, and weather  the times that seem challenging. Review the table on First-Year University Student Milestones (see Table 2.2 ). There will be milestones each semester you are in university, but these will serve as an introduction to what you should expect in terms of the rhythms of the semester.

Table 2.2 Example overview of a semester and what you may be doing/experiencing in your first semester.

A table is one way to communicate information about a semester, but it is not the only way. Some students may relate better to images with text. For example, Table 2.2 could also be represented as a learning map, highlighting the important ideas and their sequence (see Figure 2.2 ).

Practical Study Experiences

Some universities may also require all students to participate in additional experiences beyond their regular coursework. Ask your university about details specific to your major or institution. One common practical study experience universities arrange for students is a placement. Placements are a type of fieldwork specifically required of students from courses such as engineering, nursing, human services, paramedicine and education. Placements may take place in hospitals, nursing homes, mental health facilities, schools or in the field. They provide students with the opportunity to practice skills that cannot be learnt in a regular classroom. During placements, students will interact with real staff, students and/or patients. Because they are new to the discipline, students participating in placements are more closely supervised by experienced professionals than those in other types of work experience. Thus, placements function very much like a real-world classroom and progress to more independent work through the degree. Before undertaking placements, students will need to complete certain coursework and background checks.

Placement for education students is a specific type of fieldwork undertaken by students who plan to teach in early childhood, primary or high school levels. Education students are often required to complete student teaching placements to obtain a teaching registration in their state. Students must often complete core education coursework prior to placement and must complete a background check prior to placement in a school setting. During their placement experience, students are usually paired one-on-one with an experienced teacher and have the opportunity to observe that teacher, get to know the students, understand the classroom culture, and participate in lessons as a teaching assistant as needed or appropriate. Students studying other fields such as health also have a placement component. All of this additional workload and need to plan for the next semester can seem overwhelming, but if you plan ahead and use what you learn from this chapter and the rest of the book, you will be able to get through it more easily. Your university or faculty will likely have a dedicated team or staff member who can help you with placement and be your contact if you have any questions.

Common Challenges in the First Year

It seems fitting to follow up the expectations for the first year and practical study experiences with a list of common challenges that university students encounter along the way to a degree. If you experience any—or even all—of these, the important point here is that you are not alone and that you can overcome them by using your resources. Many university students have felt like this before, and they have survived and even thrived despite them because they were able to identify a strategy or resource that they could use to help themselves. At some point in your academic career, you may do one or more of the following:

• Feel like an imposter. Students who experience imposter syndrome are worried that they don’t belong, and that someone will “expose them for being a fake.” This feeling is common but trust the professionals. You do have what it takes to succeed.
• Worry about making a mistake. While students who worry about making a mistake tend to avoid situations where they may fail, students should instead embrace the process of learning, which includes—is even dependent on—making mistakes. The more you practice courage in these situations and focus on what you are going to learn from failing, the more confident you become about your abilities.
• Try to manage everything yourself. There will be times when you are overwhelmed by everything. This is when you will need to ask for and allow others to help you.
• Ignore your mental and physical health needs. If you feel you are on an emotional rollercoaster and you cannot find time to take care of yourself, then you have most likely ignored some part of your mental and physical wellbeing. What you need to do to stay healthy should be non-negotiable. Your sleep, eating habits, exercise, and stress-reducing activities should be your highest priorities.
• Forget to enjoy the experience. Whether you are 18 years old and living on campus or 48 years old starting back to university after taking a break to work and raise a family, be sure to take the time to remind yourself of the joy that learning can bring.

Grants and Scholarships

  Grants and scholarships are some things that can assist students with some of the financial challenges faced at university. Grants and scholarships are free money you can use to pay for university. Unlike loans, you never have to pay back a grant or a scholarship. While some grants and scholarships are based on a student’s academic record, many are given to average students based on their major, ethnic background, gender, religion, or other factors. It is worthwhile investigating what options are out there.

Private organisation grants and scholarships

A wide variety of grants and scholarships and are awarded by foundations, civic groups, companies, religious groups, professional organisations, and charities. Your university scholarships office can help you find these opportunities.

Employer grants and scholarships

Many employers also offer free money to help employees go to school. A common work benefit is a tuition reimbursement program, where employers will pay students extra money to cover the cost of tuition once they’ve earned a passing grade in a university class. Check to see whether your employer offers any kind of educational support.

While university will expand your mind, adjusting to university may also make you a little uncomfortable, challenge your identity, and at times, make you doubt your abilities. This chapter has provided you with an overview about the types of adjustments you may need to make as you transition to university life. Some of the tips outlined may also assist you with a few of the challenges faced at university.

• There are six adjustment areas that first-year university students experience: academic, cultural, emotional, financial, intellectual, and social.
• Going to university is a cultural experience, even if you are not far from home.
• Learning in university is your responsibility. You will need to develop the ability to control your calendar to block out the time to study.
• Knowing what to expect each month or week can better prepare you to take advantage of the times that you have more confidence and weather through the times that seem challenging.
• Some universities may require all students to participate in additional experiences beyond their regular coursework.
• Common challenges that university students encounter include feeling like an imposter, worrying about making a mistake, trying to manage everything yourself, ignoring mental and physical health needs, and forgetting to enjoy the experience.
• Grants and scholarships are some things that can assist students with some of the financial challenges faced at university.

Bradley, D., Noonan, P., Nugent, H., & Scales, B. (2008). Review of Australian Higher Education: Final Report. Canberra: Australian Government

Hazard, L., & Carter, S. (2018). A framework for helping families understand the college transition. E-Source for College Transitions, 16 (1), 13-15.

Academic Success Copyright © 2021 by Kristen Lovric; Linda Clark; Anbarasu Thangavelu; and Sarah Irvine is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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What I’ve Learned From My Students’ College Essays

The genre is often maligned for being formulaic and melodramatic, but it’s more important than you think.

By Nell Freudenberger

Most high school seniors approach the college essay with dread. Either their upbringing hasn’t supplied them with several hundred words of adversity, or worse, they’re afraid that packaging the genuine trauma they’ve experienced is the only way to secure their future. The college counselor at the Brooklyn high school where I’m a writing tutor advises against trauma porn. “Keep it brief , ” she says, “and show how you rose above it.”

I started volunteering in New York City schools in my 20s, before I had kids of my own. At the time, I liked hanging out with teenagers, whom I sometimes had more interesting conversations with than I did my peers. Often I worked with students who spoke English as a second language or who used slang in their writing, and at first I was hung up on grammar. Should I correct any deviation from “standard English” to appeal to some Wizard of Oz behind the curtains of a college admissions office? Or should I encourage students to write the way they speak, in pursuit of an authentic voice, that most elusive of literary qualities?

In fact, I was missing the point. One of many lessons the students have taught me is to let the story dictate the voice of the essay. A few years ago, I worked with a boy who claimed to have nothing to write about. His life had been ordinary, he said; nothing had happened to him. I asked if he wanted to try writing about a family member, his favorite school subject, a summer job? He glanced at his phone, his posture and expression suggesting that he’d rather be anywhere but in front of a computer with me. “Hobbies?” I suggested, without much hope. He gave me a shy glance. “I like to box,” he said.

I’ve had this experience with reluctant writers again and again — when a topic clicks with a student, an essay can unfurl spontaneously. Of course the primary goal of a college essay is to help its author get an education that leads to a career. Changes in testing policies and financial aid have made applying to college more confusing than ever, but essays have remained basically the same. I would argue that they’re much more than an onerous task or rote exercise, and that unlike standardized tests they are infinitely variable and sometimes beautiful. College essays also provide an opportunity to learn precision, clarity and the process of working toward the truth through multiple revisions.

When a topic clicks with a student, an essay can unfurl spontaneously.

Even if writing doesn’t end up being fundamental to their future professions, students learn to choose language carefully and to be suspicious of the first words that come to mind. Especially now, as college students shoulder so much of the country’s ethical responsibility for war with their protest movement, essay writing teaches prospective students an increasingly urgent lesson: that choosing their own words over ready-made phrases is the only reliable way to ensure they’re thinking for themselves.

Teenagers are ideal writers for several reasons. They’re usually free of preconceptions about writing, and they tend not to use self-consciously ‘‘literary’’ language. They’re allergic to hypocrisy and are generally unfiltered: They overshare, ask personal questions and call you out for microaggressions as well as less egregious (but still mortifying) verbal errors, such as referring to weed as ‘‘pot.’’ Most important, they have yet to put down their best stories in a finished form.

I can imagine an essay taking a risk and distinguishing itself formally — a poem or a one-act play — but most kids use a more straightforward model: a hook followed by a narrative built around “small moments” that lead to a concluding lesson or aspiration for the future. I never get tired of working with students on these essays because each one is different, and the short, rigid form sometimes makes an emotional story even more powerful. Before I read Javier Zamora’s wrenching “Solito,” I worked with a student who had been transported by a coyote into the U.S. and was reunited with his mother in the parking lot of a big-box store. I don’t remember whether this essay focused on specific skills or coping mechanisms that he gained from his ordeal. I remember only the bliss of the parent-and-child reunion in that uninspiring setting. If I were making a case to an admissions officer, I would suggest that simply being able to convey that experience demonstrates the kind of resilience that any college should admire.

The essays that have stayed with me over the years don’t follow a pattern. There are some narratives on very predictable topics — living up to the expectations of immigrant parents, or suffering from depression in 2020 — that are moving because of the attention with which the student describes the experience. One girl determined to become an engineer while watching her father build furniture from scraps after work; a boy, grieving for his mother during lockdown, began taking pictures of the sky.

If, as Lorrie Moore said, “a short story is a love affair; a novel is a marriage,” what is a college essay? Every once in a while I sit down next to a student and start reading, and I have to suppress my excitement, because there on the Google Doc in front of me is a real writer’s voice. One of the first students I ever worked with wrote about falling in love with another girl in dance class, the absolute magic of watching her move and the terror in the conflict between her feelings and the instruction of her religious middle school. She made me think that college essays are less like love than limerence: one-sided, obsessive, idiosyncratic but profound, the first draft of the most personal story their writers will ever tell.

Nell Freudenberger’s novel “The Limits” was published by Knopf last month. She volunteers through the PEN America Writers in the Schools program.

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How to Write a “How Will This Scholarship Help You Achieve Your Goals” Essay

Zach Skillings is the Scholarships360 Newsletter Editor. He specializes in college admissions and strives to answer important questions about higher education. When he’s not contributing to Scholarships360, Zach writes about travel, music, film, and culture. His work has been published in Our State Magazine, Ladygunn Magazine, The Nocturnal Times, and The Lexington Dispatch. Zach graduated from Elon University with a degree in Cinema and Television Arts.

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Caitlyn Cole is a college access professional with a decade of experience in non-profit program and project management for college readiness and access organizations.

Maria Geiger is Director of Content at Scholarships360. She is a former online educational technology instructor and adjunct writing instructor. In addition to education reform, Maria’s interests include viewpoint diversity, blended/flipped learning, digital communication, and integrating media/web tools into the curriculum to better facilitate student engagement. Maria earned both a B.A. and an M.A. in English Literature from Monmouth University, an M. Ed. in Education from Monmouth University, and a Virtual Online Teaching Certificate (VOLT) from the University of Pennsylvania.

When applying for scholarships, you may be asked to write an essay describing why you’re the right candidate for the award. One of the most common prompts for this type of essay is “how will this scholarship help you achieve your goals?” In this guide, we’ll talk about how you can put together an outstanding essay and win the scholarship of your dreams. 

Also see: Top writing and essay scholarships

Tips for writing a scholarship essay

There’s more than one way to write an essay like this, but an effective response usually does the following things: 

• Clearly defines your goals and how you plan to achieve them
• Provides some background context on your goals 
• Explains why you are a quality candidate for the scholarship 
• Close your essay in an effective way 

As long as you touch on these three areas, feel free to structure your essay however you see fit. Let’s talk about how you can address each of these components and put together a stellar essay. 

1. Define your goals 

Scholarship providers want to hear about your vision for your future self and how you plan to get there. As such, you should write about what you want out of your college education and beyond. It’s totally okay if you’re undecided about your major or career path since most scholarship providers won’t expect your plan to be set in stone at this point. However, you should still point to the fields of study or professions you’re considering right now. When talking about your plan for the future, explain how the specific scholarship is a key part of your path forward. And don’t forget to let your passion shine through when writing about your goals!

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2. provide background context .

Your essay should not only outline your goals, but explain how you arrived at them as well. One of the best ways to do this is by sharing a personal story. You may even want to lead with a personal story to immediately grab the attention of your reader. For this type of essay, you should share an anecdote that’s relevant to the scholarship you’re applying for. 

If you’re applying for an engineering scholarship , for instance, you could describe how your love of engineering was sparked by your involvement in robotics club. Students pursuing art scholarships may talk about the most meaningful project they’ve ever created. Whatever the case may be, find a way to connect your background to your goals and the scholarship. You’re much more likely to stand out when you demonstrate who you are and what you care about. 

Don’t miss: What’s the best scholarship essay format?

3. Make a case for yourself

Now that you’ve outlined your goals and the inspiration behind them, it’s time to explain why you’re the perfect candidate for this scholarship. Tie everything together by describing how the scholarship is a crucial piece of the puzzle. The goal here is to sell yourself while avoiding coming across as boastful or arrogant. Try to strike a tone that’s self-assured but also appreciative. You want to convey your gratitude and respect for the scholarship, while also demonstrating why you’re the right candidate for the award. 

If the scholarship is specific to a certain college or university, it helps to weave in your excitement for the school. Talk about unique aspects of the school such as courses that interest you or faculty members you’d like to work with. Ultimately, you want to do everything you can to leave a lasting impression on your reader. 

4. Close your essay in a memorable way

It was important to grab your reader’s attention in the beginning of your essay response, now it’s time to close your essay in a memorable way! This can be done in different ways, including ending it the way you began it, asking a rhetorical question, or summarizing your previous points in one tidy paragraph. Ultimately, it is up to you to decide what format is the best to end your essay in order to leave a lasting mark on your reader. 

Closing your essay in a catchy and memorable way will allow your scholarship response to be well liked and remembered. This can help significantly increase your chances of being selected for a scholarship! Therefore, be sure to brainstorm before writing your essay in order to make sure it flows nicely and you finish your essay with a bang! Learn how to end your scholarship essay in five steps and leave a lasting impression on whoever reads it! 

Also see: How to write an essay about yourself

Remember, an effective scholarship essay answers three main questions:

Questions to consider.

• What are your goals for your college education and career? 
• What life experiences led you to arrive at these goals? 

By answering those three questions, you can write a compelling “how will this scholarship help you achieve your goals” essay and put yourself in contention for the scholarship. Just make sure your essay is free of spelling and grammatical mistakes. It’s a good idea to have a teacher or mentor read over your essay before submitting. Good luck!

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Key Takeaways

• An effective essay response includes defining your goals, providing background context, making a case for yourself, and concluding your essay in a memorable way
• Leading with a personal story is a great way to immediately grab the attention of your reader
• It is important to highlight how the scholarship will help you personally reach your goals and succeed 
• Be sure to end your essay in a memorable way to help increase your chances of being selected for the scholarship

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Crimson Education Celebrates a Decade of Student Success

How It Began

Our Student Outcomes

Decision To Enter The Arena

The Crimson Education Revolution

How it all began.

I am incredibly excited to announce our 10 year anniversary celebration at Crimson Education.

When I was 14, growing up in New Zealand, I sat on a train next to a boy called Ben who had just gotten into Yale. He told me about applying overseas and the potential it had to transform my life. I listened intently and quickly realized, this was it: this was the path I needed to go on. I spent much of my high school years challenging myself across academics, extracurriculars, leadership and beyond to be the best student I could be.

I should say that I could never have imagined how Crimson would rapidly grow on the world stage, but honestly, I could see it, and we are now only scratching the surface. To me, it was obvious that there was so much ambition, potential and talent in so many students that was being extinguished, undermined or distorted by the current access to resources and mentorship all over the world.

Our central belief at Crimson is that there are millions of possibilities for how a student’s early life might play out. Our job is to make sure we put our students on the highest octane, most intense, most rewarding, most challenging path possible out of those millions of pathways so they can explode onto the world stage.

Crimson’s model has taken that early hodge-podge of tutors and mentors I surrounded myself with and turbocharged it to a remarkable level of personalization. Students around the world leveraging Crimson seamlessly draw on teams of the world’s smartest mentors, unique admissions data, research materials, and expert insights from the best universities and companies on the planet .

Our Obsession with Student Outcomes

The last 10 years of education adventures have been defined by an obsessive focus on our students. Today, Crimson sends more students to the Ivy League, Oxford, Cambridge, and the world’s best universities like Duke, Stanford, MIT, and Caltech than any other organization on the planet. In virtually every major admissions country, Crimson’s students dominate with their acceptances , from America to Singapore to Australia to England to China and beyond. 

They have gained admission into programs including Rhodes Scholarship, MIT PhD, Harvard Medical School, Harvard Business School, Stanford Business School, the Schwarzman Scholarship, and Y-Combinator One has already sold a company to Amazon Web Services and another was recently elected as a politician in the New Zealand National Government. It is incredible that many of these students from our earliest years of Crimson are now “adulting” and competing in the world’s best job markets. Crimson has grown exponentially and the waves of Crimson kids hitting the international job markets are surging. 

It is easy to look at a blur of the best universities and companies on the planet and forget that each and every single one of these pathways translates to an individual student who has walked a path of extreme ambition, hustle, intensity and focus to achieve these extraordinary results. 

Celebrating A Decade Of Student Success | Crimson Education - 10 Years Of Student Success

The Decision to Enter the Arena

The journey to excellence for our students isn’t easy. To the contrary, it is often gut-wrenching and difficult. The journey is stressful, at times agonizing, and requires immense personal sacrifice. Many of our students have some sleepless nights and experience the giddy highs and the stomach-churning lows that come with putting yourself out to be judged and assessed by others. 

Theodore Roosevelt described in his famous quote “the man in the arena” .

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

- theodore roosevelt.

Our Crimson students for a decade have been in the arena. They have ventured into the most competitive processes in the world and fought for opportunities: in medical schools, on Wall Street, in front of venture capitalists, in political campaigns, for social change, in front of the admissions committees of the most selective universities on the planet.

It is easy to disengage and say you don’t want to try and compete. It is easy to throw in the towel. Our Crimson students emerge from every corner of the world, from every socioeconomic background and with every kind of ambition and they stand in the arena.

I think about a young student Jade Sceats. She grew up in Kerikeri, New Zealand. She attended a public school with the challenged local curriculum NCEA. A fire was burning in her belly. She loved computer science and dreamed of unleashing her talents on the world stage. She took a courageous risk to jump into a fledgling online school, Crimson Global Academy initially as a part-time student.

After loving the intensity of the academics and the focus on global achievement, she joined full-time as one of the first 5 students. Fast forward to 2024, young Jade had been accepted into Princeton, Columbia and won a major scholarship to Vanderbilt. She has worked with intensity and fire for her whole schooling adventure and at many junctures, taken the path less traveled and now is set to thrive on the world stage.

Our People Make All the Difference

Crimson’s remarkable accomplishments and student success would never have been possible without the legends on our team who have worked intensively to support the ambitions of these students.

From our incredible co-founders Sharndre Kushor and Fangzhou Jiang who brought Crimson to life , to our passionate student success managers like Bethany Watson , to our remarkable strategists, the best in the world, who guide our kids to their wildest ambitions like Bob Fan and Abbigail Colwyn .

Our early academic advisors such as Peter Kim, Guy Wallace and James Lee expanded our services and our heroic early country managers such as Soraya Behesti, Andrew Wooten, and Ed Matsuda brought Crimson totally global and and helped pave pathways for students from all corners of the world to gain acceptances to the most elite institutions .

Our engineering and product teams developed a proprietary technology platform that has revolutionized the application process and enabled our students to access an array of unique services, teams of specialists, and actionable data with thousands of successful common apps and profiles at their fingertips.

I could truly go on for hours expressing my gratitude and awe for the people here at Crimson who continually innovate in this field and obsess over the ways we can accelerate our students’ outcomes.

It has taken an epic and extraordinary team to build Crimson into the company we have today and we are just getting started. Our online high school, Crimson Global Academy , is just this year graduating our first co-hort of high school seniors and they are off to incredible universities such as Harvard, Stanford and MIT.

Over 80% of global IB students chose to study on our platform this year.

Our global admissions service just closed this recent application year with an industry record of prestigious offers; we now have 981 all-time Ivy admits, 1594 Ivy Plus, and 6230 to the US top 50 .

We are revolutionizing education. Our approach is rooted in a deep-seated belief that education must be as dynamic and diverse as the students it serves . Aspiration should not be limited by geography or by access to information.

Our students get access to world-class tutors and mentors anywhere in the world, take classes at their own pace, learn asynchronously, and study based on their individual capabilities rather than age. And we will continue to inspire our students to dream big and be prepared to compete on the world stage.

Thank you for celebrating with us and here’s to our very bright future!

Jamie Beaton

About the Author

Jamie Beaton is the Co-founder and CEO of Crimson Education. With degrees from Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, Yale, and Tsinghua, Jamie is an educational innovator passionate about helping students reach their academic potential. He co-founded Crimson after gaining admission to 25 of the world's top universities. Under his leadership, Crimson has become the world's most successful university admissions consultancy, helping thousands gain entry into the Ivy League and other elite institutions.

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From left to right: Rajeev Ram of MIT; Brandon Hurlbut, a co-founder of Boundary Stone Partners; and Stanford’s Yi Cui and Sally Benson discuss challenges and innovations in transforming the grid. (Image credit: Saul Bromberger)

How do we transition to clean energy with enough speed and scale to prevent the most extreme impacts of climate change? This question loomed large for many of the speakers and participants at the Stanford Forum on the Science of Energy Transition , held on campus April 10 for an audience of students and invited guests.

To stabilize global temperatures, we need to find ways to reduce and remove our carbon emissions from Earth’s atmosphere by tens of gigatons every single year. By comparison, gas-powered vehicles in the U.S. together produce about a gigaton of carbon dioxide emissions each year.

Many of the speakers agreed action over the next few decades is critical, and addressing climate change will require coordinated efforts across the scientific community, climate technology innovators, government, the private sector, and others to transition the world’s $100 trillion economy to clean energy.

The forum, co-hosted by the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and Stanford Management Company , convened experts to explore challenges and opportunities to transform the power grid, rethink renewable fuels, remove greenhouse gases from our atmosphere, and address energy issues in tandem with other sustainability concerns.

The forum served as a powerful example of how Stanford leaders are educating changemakers in energy and facilitating connections that will help bring insights from scientific research to decisions that will affect global sustainability.

“Today, the energy transition will require us to forge new pathways, but we can’t just blindly strike out. That will lead us down too many dead ends, and time is of the essence. Instead, the paths we choose must be informed by science,” said Robert Wallace, the chief executive officer of Stanford Management Company.

Consider speed and scale from the get-go

Decarbonizing global energy production is a tall order. That’s before you consider the rising demand for energy as countries develop and look for opportunities to increase mobility, communication, security, and economic prosperity, multiple speakers said.

U.S. clean energy projects are on hold due to bottlenecks in the process for permitting new transmission lines and grid interconnections. The queue of projects waiting for approval by transmission operators would effectively triple the size of our generating resource, said Rajeev Ram , a professor of electrical engineering at MIT. Removing some of those logistical barriers through AI, modeling, and software tools can help accelerate the timeline for projects that could provide clean energy to the grid, said Ram.

Yi Cui , the director of Stanford’s Sustainability Accelerator , is one of the leading experts developing batteries for renewable energy storage. Scholars in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability – which celebrated its first anniversary in September – have embraced a core philosophy of thinking about scale at the beginning of the design process, which is a good sign, Cui said.

For example, the relative scarcity of some elements – such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel – in current battery designs could limit their potential for large-scale production at low cost. Cui emphasized that scientists could focus on designing battery materials based on more widely available minerals, like zinc, manganese, and iron .

“We need to figure out for each of these technologies what is already going on at the gigaton-scale – like natural cycles, like agriculture – and see what we can do to tweak it in the right way so that you can create a market and use market mechanisms to scale it,” said Arun Majumdar , the inaugural dean of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.

Others highlighted the importance of driving down costs for companies and consumers. If innovators can eliminate the green premium – the cost of choosing a clean energy technology over a traditional source – for their products, they will be competitive in the market.

Meanwhile, incentives like subsidies for renewable energy will need to be supplemented with policies that actively discourage use of carbon-intensive resources. “If we’re serious about addressing climate change, we’ve got to have a price on carbon,” whether through direct pricing per ton or indirectly through regulation, said Majumdar.

Powered by electrons versus molecules

The grid is essentially a system of wires that transports electrons from power plants to consumers. However, grid electrification will only get us about halfway to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, noted Sally Benson , the Precourt Family Professor, who moderated one of the panels.

Eighty percent of global energy comes from fossil fuels. Much of this comes in the form of liquid fossil fuels for transportation – cars, planes, ships, and some trains. The challenges of developing batteries and grid storage capable of providing electricity without interruption could limit electrification of some parts of the transportation sector. Instead, renewable fuels like hydrogen, biofuels, and fuels made primarily from captured carbon dioxide may help reduce carbon emissions from heavy-duty transportation.

“Our challenge is to think that the future is electrification, but that doesn’t mean that electrons are going to do everything for us directly,” said Anthony Kovscek , the Keleen and Carlton Beal Professor in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.

Hydrogen could help bridge the gap to carbon neutrality, said Eric Toone , managing director and technical lead at Breakthrough Energy Ventures.

“Hydrogen is pure, reactive chemical energy. If you have enough hydrogen, you can do anything,” he said.

Zara Summers is the chief science officer at LanzaTech. (Image credit: Saul Bromberger)

Zara Summers is the chief science officer at LanzaTech, a company that makes chemicals and fuels from carbon dioxide captured from factories and other industrial sources.

LanzaTech has been working to develop ethanol alternatives that make use of carbon from municipal waste or industrial emissions. These alternatives could serve as effective drop-in replacements for liquid fuels like gasoline, with the added benefit of easy adoption by the public and ability to tap into existing supply chains, but many current economic incentives specifically benefit corn-based ethanol.

“If you’re going to go big, you have to be at cost parity or better. But, you also have to fight against policy that’s written with a solution in mind, not an outcome,” said Summers. She highlighted how designing policies that are flexible and adaptable to new innovations will help bring solutions to scale.

Science as the bedrock

In addition to the challenge of rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the forum also explored solutions for removing historic carbon emissions from the atmosphere. During a panel on greenhouse gas removal strategies , speakers turned the focus to more low-tech solutions: carbon cycles in nature. For example, Benson enthusiastically described enhanced weathering, which builds on a naturally occurring process where rain interacts with certain rocks to form a mild acid. This acid then reacts with carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to form solid compounds that permanently store carbon.

Chris Field , the director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment , cited research published last month which found that adding crushed basalt rocks for enhanced weathering could increase productivity and soil health on croplands .

“It really highlights where you can potentially accomplish these big co-benefits that can make something that’s a real challenge logistically or financially come into the realm of possibility,” said Field.

The energy transition touches all of the major social-environmental systems. A final panel brought together experts on freshwater, oceans and aquatic foods, and agricultural technology to explore cultivating resilience amid climate pressures. “Agriculture sits at the very center of many of the pressures that we’re putting on Earth’s systems,” said Jim Leape , co-director of the Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions .

Arun Majumdar and Steven Chu discussed energy efficiency, nuclear fusion, national security, and more during a fireside chat. (Image credit: Saul Bromberger)

During a fireside chat, Majumdar discussed emerging trends in clean energy with Steven Chu , the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences . They mentioned the “low-hanging fruit” of energy efficiency, the future of nuclear fusion, and balancing the energy transition with national and economic security. Nevertheless, Chu brought the conversation back to the critical role of new inventions.

“As a physicist, when I stand back and look at things: What really changed the world? New materials are actually what changed the world,” said Chu, a former U.S. Secretary of Energy who embodies the impact of science-based decision-making in energy systems as the first scientist to hold a Cabinet position.

From the steam engine and the agricultural revolution to semiconductors and nuclear fission, leaps forward in technology have enabled global-scale changes and development. Highlighting the vision for the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, Majumdar noted that when research institutions like Stanford collaborate with public and private entities, they can serve as a place where scholars can serve as incubators for translating novel ideas into impact.

Yi Cui is also the Fortinet Founders Professor and a professor of materials science and engineering in the School of Engineering . He is a professor of energy science and engineering in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, a professor, by courtesy, of chemistry in the School of Humanities and Sciences, and a professor in the Photon Science Directorate. Cui is also a senior fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy , and the institute’s immediate past director, and a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.

Arun Majumdar is the Chester Naramore Dean of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, the Jay Precourt Provostial Chair Professor, and a senior fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy. He is also a professor of mechanical engineering and, by courtesy, of materials science and engineering in the School of Engineering, and a professor in the Photon Science Directorate. He is a senior fellow, by courtesy, at the Hoover Institution.

Sally Benson is the Precourt Family Professor in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, where she is a professor of energy science and engineering; a senior fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy; and a senior fellow at the Woods Institute.

Anthony Kovcsek is a professor of energy science and engineering, and a senior fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy.

Chris Field is also the Melvin and Joan Lane Professor in Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies in the School of Humanities and Sciences; the Perry L. McCarty Director of the Woods Institute; a professor of Earth system science in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability; and a senior fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy.

Jim Leape is the William and Eva Price Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute and a professor, by courtesy, of oceans.

Steven Chu is a Nobel laureate and a professor of energy science and engineering in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. He is also a professor of molecular and cellular physiology at Stanford Medicine and of physics in the School of Humanities and Sciences.