College 101
Common App 5: Accomplishment or Event
The Prompt
Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.
The Essay
Intro
I did not emigrate to this country from some far-off land. I don't live in an ethnic enclave that still treasures the values of the old country. I don't practice an "exotic" faith, nor is my community particularly tight-knit. I am a regular suburban teenager from the United States. Though my culture is not necessarily unique, that doesn't mean we don't have adulthood ceremonies.
There is no definitive point at which someone is considered an adult. It's more a gradual process of milestones: graduations, the addition of rights, more responsibilities and so on. The most important of these, for me, was getting a driver's license.
On the face of it, that might not seem like something all that important, but it has become one of the most important rites in our culture to indicate adulthood. Getting my license, and afterwards access to a car, has done more to push me towards responsibility before or since.
Body
Look at the facts. A car is two tons of metal, usually hurtling along at between thirty to sixty miles an hour, which is more than enough to kill someone. It's become a cliché of sorts, but only because it's true. When you're driving, you're operating a lethal weapon. I don't have any sort of dark origin story about why I feel this way. Seeing enough statistics was enough to convince me.
My home state now trusts me to go zooming around in one of these things. While some people might think adulthood should come first, this was a measure of trust. When someone trusts you, you don't want to let them down. My state said I was grown up enough to operate a weapon. I better prove them right.
A car isn't just a weapon. It's also an incredibly complex machine that seems to do whatever it can to fall apart. My parents couldn't afford to get me a car, but I can now use one of the two—the older of the two, because my parents are also smart people who want to hedge their bets. I am supposed to take care of this thing.
Because it's old, the car does have its share of quirks and it likes to break in new and exciting ways. Sometimes it's harder to steer. Sometimes it comes to a shuddering stop. I learned that the quickest way to avoid a breakdown when I was in the middle of something else was maintenance. A car is, essentially, almost a pet. An extremely important pet you have to take care of or it goes to the vet and costs money you don't have.
Feeding this pet is also expensive. Gas prices are up over three dollars, and though I've heard legends that it was once under a dollar a gallon, I don't believe it. I had to get my first job so that I would be able to pay for the gas I use to drive around. This made me construct my first budget, analyze my travel times, and really figure out if going someplace was worth it.
Conclusion
Most people think of driving as a gateway to freedom, and it is. It's also a host of new responsibilities. That is what adulthood is: the combination of these two concepts. While driving a car doesn't carry any spiritual significance in our culture, it's the perfect example of what we value.
Perhaps most importantly, driving isn't the end of my maturation. There are still other steps: graduation, college, voting, and so on. At each one, I'm sure I'll have the same response I had to driving. That's because adulthood is a journey rather than a destination. We become incrementally older, allowed to do more, but compelled to take care of more.
At least I'll be able to get there behind a wheel.
Why This Essay Works
This is a student who doesn't have any obvious answer to the question, and instead of letting that frighten them away from it, they embrace the mundaneness of their answer. It's very common to think of a place with a different culture as having "more" culture than one's own, but this isn't true. Sometimes it just takes a critical eye to examine one's own culture.
The student does an excellent job of laying out the three main reasons a car carries the responsibility of adulthood. It's dangerous, it has to be maintained, and it's expensive. They explain the point behind each one, using a delicate touch to keep from being too somber.
The writer also employs a little bit of humor, but it's only the slightest bit. In this way, there's little chance of a joke sinking the entire thing. Humor is best used in a light touch, to keep the reader's attention, but never taking away from the thesis.