Meaningful Leadership Experience: College Admission Essay Sample

Nearly 80 million members strong, “Gen Y” or the “Millennials” are defined by experts as those born roughly between 1978 and 2000. My generation has been shaped by events like the Columbine Massacre and September 11th, stirred by technological advances in cable television, internet and cell phones and has witnessed new cultural phenomena such as reality television, Starbucks and Facebook. While Gen Y expert, life coach and author, Christine Hassler, claims that my generation has “a sense of entitlement, a need for validation, difficulty in really discerning what to do because [our] whole lives were managed,” she also notes that Millennials are “creative, global-minded, socially conscious, and extremely committed to doing meaningful work.” Though my generation does have its pitfalls, I’ve embraced these positive attributes by contributing to causes that are close to my heart. Through my leadership position on the Tuesday’s Children Junior Board, I have been able to take a generation-defining moment, lend a handful of my Gen-Y traits and give back to my hometown and New York City.

As is the case with most New Yorkers, I will never forget the timeline of events on September 11, 2001. Ten years later, I remember the look on my biology teacher’s face as we listened to the latest on the classroom radio. I can hear my mother’s voice through a pay phone confirming that my father and aunt had escaped the Financial District prior to the Towers’ collapse. And then, I recall sitting in my neighbor’s backyard the following day and waiting with their family for an update on their father, who would be forever lost within the rubble. He was one of a dozen residents from our small town whose car sat parked in the same spot at the local train station, for months following the attack, never making his familiar commute home that night.

In the days following the attack, my hometown banded together and formed Tuesday’s Children to financially support those affected by the day’s events. Recently, the group has passed responsibility on to the next generation by establishing the Tuesday’s Children Junior Board and challenging the team to drive awareness at the attacks’ ten-year anniversary. Together, the group planned, fundraised for and executed “Rise Up Downtown.” With over 450 young professionals in attendance, the commemorative benefit gave Gen-Y New Yorkers an opportunity to start giving back to their community.

Together with my co-chair, I led the silent auction portion of the evening which, along with ticket sales, raised over $85,000 for the organization. From soliciting vendor donations to organizing the listings and encouraging raffle purchases at the event, I had the opportunity to utilize a number of skills, primarily which were fostered in school and at work, and put them toward a meaningful, community-focused initiative. The end-to-end event planning process required four months of arduous and steadfast work. As a detail-oriented executor with strong organizational and collaboration skills, I was able to work with my co-chair and event volunteers to sell close to 40 auction items. In my leadership position, I learned that pre-planning and delegating tasks is essential to executing a large-scale effort and are things that I will need to further develop as I take on new opportunities.

By leading the silent auction at our Tuesday’s Children Junior Board event, I’d like to think that I helped to affirm Hassler’s charge that my generation is committed to meaningful work. At the same time, our efforts countered her point that Millennials have difficulty in discerning what to do. As a leader on the board, I am working to turn an event that defined our generation into an opportunity for young New Yorkers to give back.