California College of the Arts Essay

[stressedfromIB]

Hi, I'm applying to California College of the Arts and the deadline is this week! I don't know how to approach their application essay honestly. I'm majoring in Industrial Design. This is what the essay has to include:

A one to two-page essay must accompany your application. Your essay should address the major influences on your decision to pursue art, architecture, design, or writing. It should also address how you see yourself contributing to the CCA community, specifically with respect to the college's values, summarized below:

CCA understands the import role of artists, designers, architects, and writes in solving social, cultural, environmental, and economic problems. The educational experience we provide supports the following values:

• Cultivating intellectual curiosity, risk taking, collaboration, innovation, compassion and integrity.
• Fostering social justice and community engagement.
• Promoting diversity on our campus.

Can anyone just tell me briefly how to approach it, or any guidelines.

Thank you!

[Sandwich]

Don't get frightened by the fact it's an unknown quantity and just read the instructions, is my advice. It's all laid out plainly for you there as to what they want you to write.

- Why did you decide to pursue art, architecture & design and what/who were your influences?

- How do you think you can contribute to the CCA community in terms of:

• Cultivating intellectual curiosity, risk taking, collaboration, innovation, compassion and integrity.
• Fostering social justice and community engagement.
• Promoting diversity on our campus.

So just give examples from your life up until now where you have done some of those things. What have you done to promote diversity? When have you taken a risk? When have you innovated? Do you have integrity? How many wounded kittens have you gathered up and compassionately nursed back to health in the dead of night? Obviously not the last one, but you see what I mean, I hope.

Basically you just need to write something that makes it sound like you've done some of those things, backed up by solid evidence so it's not just you going "believe me, I am a diverse person". If you've not actually done some of that stuff, provided it doesn't sound really unnatural and like a checklist then if you've some spare space at the end of your essay you can maybe slot in your ambitions for doing those things. Really, whatever sounds good.

With this sort of essay it is actually very simple to see what they want, you've just got to take a deep breath and break it down into little chunks that are more approachable. Just try to keep a personal tone and a style that is natural to you throughout as much as possible, because this is your chance to show them YOU as a person.

We have actually just started up a brand new service on this site to help with college essays etc. so if you want some crits and advice on your essay from people who know what they're talking about, then you're welcome to ask for some feedback and we'll do our best to help you perfect it:

http://www.ibsurvival.com/forum/66-pscollege-essayscv-help-service/

All the best!