A Moment when Literacy Helped Me Achieve an Objective

Growing up to be a first-generation college student was a special moment in my life. Even though I had numerous challenges during my first months in college, I considered it a great achievement. At the end of my high-school education, I had to attend a two-year diploma program to prepare for my Bachelor’s Degree course. In my senior year, I began scrolling down the possible community colleges that I could attend, especially those which offered programs that I was interested in. Among the requirements was that I had to present my credentials and provide an admission essay which would be used to gauge my ability to academically succeed in the institution. While I had all the required certifications and documents, I had to produce a well-articulated admission essay, choosing a topic from a list of three options provided by the college. The information was available at the college’s admission section on the website.

Developing a 500-word essay on the topic “The Future is Green” seemed quite easy at first. However, the topic was very broad, and I had to find the best possible options to narrow down my discussion. In this type of academic writing, emphasis was put on the quality of research done, and how well the concepts covered were cited and referenced. While writing the essay, the candidates were expected to cite all the information and produce original content. All the papers were to be subjected to a thorough plagiarism scan through the Turnitin tool. My knowledge of paper formatting skills and writing techniques was, indeed valuable in writing this essay. As a first-generation college student, I had nobody to consult. The essay was to be submitted within twenty-four hours of selecting the prompt option to write on.

After choosing the topic, I developed an outline for the essay. This was necessary in ensuring that the whole paper was based on a single concept. The outline was comprised of an introduction with a thesis statement, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion, which re-stated the thesis statement. This outline was based on a narrowed down concept of “The Future is Green.” In my essay, I chose to focus on the issue of green energy in the automobiles industry. Given the extent of carbon emissions emanating from the combustion engines, I argued for the need to adopt solar-powered cars. Even though it was easy to find main points to support my thesis, structuring paragraphs to meet the college’s expectations was an uphill task for me.

Planning an essay is the most important part of writing. Without a workable plan and layout, it becomes challenging to conveniently organize thoughts and ideas into well-articulated concepts. By developing a clear essay plan and undertaking critical research into the concepts to be discussed, I realized that the keywords in each sentence perfectly fit. The essay was also brief, but very persuasive on the reasons to adopt solar-powered auto engines. I submitted the essay within six hours, having edited and proofread it entirely. The college was to provide feedback in no more than five working days. Even though I had not written such an essay before, I was confident in the content that I developed. The only part I was unsure about was the level of similarity that would be detected by Turnitin.

Writing an essay, whether informative, narrative, argumentative or persuasive, can be a challenging task. The reason I am in the university today is because I was accepted by the community college and completed my diploma course. Even though my academic credentials met the minimum requirements to be accepted, the essay was a main criterion used by the institution to turn away unqualified applicants. Three days after submitting the admission essay, I received an email with a “Congratulations!!” title, providing me with next steps for going through the admission process. In many ways, I considered this to be a special moment of my life. In my nuclear family, nobody had ever been to college. Even though I had distant relatives that had joined prestigious colleges and universities, I could not easily obtain the right information from them. When in high school, I made it part of my academic and career objective to surpass the high school education level that was so far the highest record in my family.

My literacy skills enable me to successful achieve my interim goal of joining a college of my choice and pursuing a career of my dream to advanced levels. The admission essay stood between me and the college registration, and I had to give it my best in order to get accepted. Writing can sometimes be challenging, but with proper planning and research, it is easy to develop high-quality content that also records high originality indices. I was not surprised that my essay had zero per-cent similarity when scanned via Turnitin. I had cited all the borrowed concepts and referenced the information on a separate resources’ page. Indeed, literacy is power!