Barnard College Application Essays

“There is a one percent chance of rain,” my camp counselors told us as we packed for our overnight. We threw in just what we needed, leaving our raincoats behind. The next day, after a trek through the beautiful Yosemite backcountry, it began to rain,…

“This Jedi is female, so she’s not as smart.” The young man, Max, chortled this to his scene partner as our improvised Star Wars play came racing towards its climax. I stood backstage, suddenly feeling jarred. My character throughout the play had been a hero,…

Behind the camera’s shutter, I am never calm or collected. I am, more often than not, trying to figure out my next shot, my eyes darting from my subject to the light source to a detail of the scene. However, I am perfectly content. When…

Reshma Saujani, the founder of Girls Who Code, awed me when I first met her at Fashion Institute of Technology. Originally a politician who became the first Indian American woman to run for Congress, Mrs. Saujani had no technological skills to create an organization about…

There’s something oddly comforting about sitting in an airplane and barreling through the sky at 37,000 feet. Granted, the food could be better and the seats a little bigger, but I’ve never been able to find a place quite like this one. When I’m up…

The soft reminder of warm light, the neat rows of novels and biographies and volumes of poetry against mahogany shelves back to back in a literary continuum… I walk further into Barnes and Noble. Swim in circles around the small brown tables in the center,…

I wish I could do it all but I’m no superwoman; I’m just an ordinary girl with 24 hours a day. Deciding to write and direct for DramaFest, an intra-school Drama competition, meant sacrificing other clashing commitments including leading in Orientation and dancing for a…