A Life’s Fable From a Small Memory Stick: College Admission Essay Sample

Recently, a seemingly small, insignificant memory stick changed my attitudes about the world and myself. The power of this small device was unleashed; all my aspirations for college were stored on the memory drive, but due to a moment's lapse, the device was stolen and my hard work vanished. Instead of wallowing and dwelling on the devastation and feeling despondent forever, I decided to review the problem and my situation at hand, and standing up, faced life again.

The memory stick was my lifeline for over a year it housed my college essays, my college plan calendar, my resume, my senior project research paper, my biology paper, and as the school webmaster, vital HTML codes. All of the stolen items reflected countless hours of my time, effort and dedication. Initially, I was devastated by the loss. I could not believe the fact that I was so outrageously careless, to the point of leaving my most prized possession and, in turn, myself vulnerable. This personal devastation acquired new dimensions when a cascade of depressing thoughts flooded through my head thoughts regarding the viciousness of the society, and the potential for violent, avaricious human nature. I felt a sense of betrayal due to this theft. I could not understand how society could produce someone so heartless in nature, because I could never conceive of taking anything that belonged to another person. For me, the guilt involved would be unbearablee.

While dwelling on the negative impacts of the loss, I realized that my reaction to this incident could mark my passage into adulthood. If I wailed like a child, the resolution of this problem would elude me, and my 12 years of college aspirations would vanish. The memory stick would be forever in someone else's hand, and all my months of hard work would be lost. But I had a vital choice to make either feeling depressed and discouraged forever, or learning to become a more mature problem solver. I chose the latter, and summoned the courage to rewrite the college essays and makeup the lost work.

The human heart, as W.F. Wright remarks, is "the larger darkness, a darkness in which lies the potential for evil and for good." The loss of this memory stick tested my emotional maturity, and it had lasting impacts for me both philosophically and practically. I used this significant personal experience to write a letter to the editor in the school newspaper. As a victim of the human's heart of darkness, I encouraged everyone to make the right choices, the choice that will bring out the good side of human heart, the choice that will celebrate virtue over vice, friendship over selfishness. Most importantly, I finally understood the importance of taking care of myself and thinking about myself not as a robotic perfectionist, but as a human being. I'm not and will not be perfect, and my life will be marked by periodic reprehensible mistakes and disappointments. The key is to let the sorrow pass and to learn from the mistake and, in this case, I learned first-hand the golden importance of backing up computer files in multiple places. Backing up is no more a boring rhetoric teachers and parents use to scare students. I know that this little lesson, albeit a harsh one, has changed me forever.