College Essay - Rough Draft

[Ender]

I have this AVID assignment due soon, so I thought I would share it here, and see if you guys could offer any tips...

[Perseus]

First paragraph: Better intro would be nice; here are the other mistakes in bold fix'd -
My ultimate goal is to be working in the amazing profession of law enforcement as a canine handler. Alongside my primary career, I also have a major interest in graphic and web design. I have already started stepping onto/ into(whichever one you prefer) the path to successfully lead me to these careers.

Second paragraph, same as before -
To begin with(sounds better), I have worked hard to maintain grades that colleges and professions such as the ones I desire would look for. (This sentence I had to read a couple of times) I'm not saying straight A's, because we all make mistakes now and then, but I do the work and make a strong effort. I take pride in the classes I take,(Comma splice) and push myself harder by taking AP and honors courses. I hope to also begin taking dual enrollment classes through Edison State College by my junior year in high school, so I can get some of the basic classes out of the way, (Another comma splice) and jump right into the advanced material when I graduate from high school and enroll in college.

Paragraph three -
Continuing on, I have begun to step towards the professions of my choice by looking into specific education courses, local programs, and even more. For example, I have already received my Microsoft Office Specialist 2007 (MOS 2007) certifications in Word, Powerpoint, and Outlook, three major components for working as part of a large organization, such as a law enforcement agency, (Comma splice) or a design agency. I'm currently in the process of obtaining my Adobe Photoshop CS4 certification, to help me towards my design career. I have taken all of these opportunities the moment they became available at my school, because I knew that they would have a positive impact on my future.

Paragraph four - Moving along, for the past two years (beginning in January of 2009) I have been an Explorer with the Lee County Sheriff's Office (Lee County, FL), and taking on many leadership roles and special assignments, such as inventory management, detail coordinator, squad supervisor, and more to help me do better when I jump into my career of law enforcement. Through this program, I have learned many leadership skills, and have received a lot of training in several aspects of (one too many spaces betwixt of and law, lol) law enforcement.

Paragraph five -
To conclude, I feel I would be a huge asset to Edison State College because I am a dedicated worker, (comma splice - use a semi colon; it'll say to them you know what you're doing :P) I push myself to achieve more, and I take extra measures to make sure that I am on the right path to ensure I will have a positive future. To me, being a part of your college would further me even more in life.

These are all the mistakes I've found; I hope this helps.

[Ender]

Thanks Jake, I really appreciate it :)

[Perseus]

Thanks Jake, I really appreciate it :)

No problem. I'm glad to help.

[Ender]

Going to start the final draft tomorrow, any other comments?

[Perseus]

Going to start the final draft tomorrow, any other comments?

Think of something else besides "moving along". It just looks out of place.

[Ender]

Rough Draft #2 :)

[Perseus]

I feel as thought you didn't look at my corrections because I still see a lot of them.

[Ender]

i retyped it yesterday in class, and didnt have access to VT to look at yours :/ Just my peer and teacher edits.

[Mzor203]

A couple things:

First off, it's a lot better to be confident in your abilities when working on something like this.

Stuff like this:

I have worked hard to maintain grades that colleges and professions such as the ones I desire would look for. I'm not saying straight A's, because we all make mistakes now and then, but I do the work and make a strong effort.

If I was a college admissions person, that would flip warning bells. Everyone knows you're human. Everyone knows you're going to make mistakes once in a while. Putting into this form makes it sound like you're trying to justify those mistakes instead of learning from them. So just leave it out. Tell them that you are a good worker, tell them that they take pride in your work. You sound more confident leaving out the "Well I make mistakes sometimes" part, and it doesn't hurt anything because it's one of those things that's understood anyway.

Secondly, and this may be a little bit bigger of a job: Your whole essay is not taking a proactive, more aggressive approach to its contents.

"I have worked hard during my life."
As compared to "During my life I have worked hard."

The second sounds more active.

Find a way to get it out of the passive tense throughout the essay. You may have planned for it to be like it is now, you may have not. I notice whenever I'm writing essays I always end up slipping into the passive tense for one reason or another.

An example of a passage I've re-written to sound a little bit better:

I feel that I would be a great asset to Edison State College due to many of my life experiences. These range from personal and professional work experiences to various training and certification programs. During my life, I've worked hard to better attributes and skills with the goal of working in law enforcement as a canine handler. Graphics and web design are also major interests of mine, and I have already taken steps towards becoming successful in these areas.

This can honestly be refined even further, but a couple of things I've rally noticed:

First, you need to vary sentence structure a bit more. You have a lot of places where compound sentences would flow a lot better, and you're not taking advantage of those.

Second, you have adjectives which really don't need to be there. Originally you had the sentence: "My ultimate goal being to work in the amazing profession of law enforcement as a canine handler."

It may be amazing, but you're trying to take a professional approach to this and generally that means adjectives that don't really need to be there should go. If you must express that you are passionate about it, say that specifically. It's a little more convincing.

Give the whole thing another pass over. Add any extra information that you think will be of value to the whole thing, then post it here. I'll give it a really thorough go-over and come back with a pretty good draft for others to give a look-over.

My mother is an English major so I know what I'm doing here. :p