Diversity essay brainstorming.

[stew_md]

Hello all,

I am currently brainstorming topics for diversity essay/what would you contribute to our class prompts and would like to hear what you think.

Here are some topics that I’ve considered:

1. growing up in a low income household in an urban area with steeply increasing rates of homelessness. My mother was the only money-earner in the family and she put herself back through school to earn more money for our family as a nurse. Seeing my neighborhood change and increased number of homeless folks as more and more appartment buildings were built and steep increases in housing costs occured. I’m thinking about elaborating on how this motivated me to volunteer at a homeless shelter and inform my interests in medicine.

2. growing up overweight, how I was treated as a person. When I was in college, I went through a weightloss journey and lost over 100 lbs and totally changed my lifestyle. I learned tons about nutrition, exercise and how lifestyle affects health and wellbeing. I’m thinking about elaborating on how these changes guide my day to day life and inform my interests in medicine. (maybe this is better for adversity essay?)

3. Being mixed race. I am white and hispanic and have never really felt tied to any specific culture or ethnic background, this made it hard for me to fit in with many groups of people throughout my life. Learning how to come to terms with my identity and where I fit in with my peers. Elaborating on how over time I learned to create my own “personal-culture” and to follow my interests.

Let me know what you think and thanks in advance!

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[Mr.Smile12]

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[deleted929944]

elaborating on how this motivated me to volunteer at a homeless shelter and inform my interests in medicine.

So like every other low income applicant.

growing up overweight, how I was treated as a person.

So like the average American.

Being mixed race.

So pretty much like many Americans in this "boiling pot."

Comes down to storytelling. Which one can you make most compelling?

 

[JAK2-STAT3]

So like the average American.

Not the average medical student though. There was a post here recently regarding being the only overweight person in the class. My med school class of over 100 has maybe 2 people who could be considered obese and a handful more who could be considered overweight. It is striking compared to the general population (and even to the professional school students at my school). While the reasons for this are complex I believe much of it can be attributed to people growing up in wealthy households where access to healthy food was a non-issue.

 

[stew_md]

Not the average medical student though. There was a post here recently regarding being the only overweight person in the class. My med school class of over 100 has maybe 2 people who could be considered obese and a handful more who could be considered overweight. It is striking compared to the general population (and even to the professional school students at my school). While the reasons for this are complex I believe much of it can be attributed to people growing up in wealthy households where access to healthy food was a non-issue.

I completely agree. I think I've decided that this will be my challenge/adversity essay topic. Personally, growing up I just ate whatever my parents put in front of me and they were not the healthiest themselves. It wasn't until I graduated high school that I learned about nutrition and basic thermodynamics, and had a bit more autonomy that I was able to make a change and lose the weight. My parents really didn't know about this stuff either and ate intuitively their whole lives in combination with not having the money to support a nutritionally dense and healthy diet.

 

[stew_md]

So like every other low income applicant.


So like the average American.


So pretty much like many Americans in this "boiling pot."

Comes down to storytelling. Which one can you make most compelling?

I hear what you're saying. At the end of the day, I feel like most applicants are not really unique. Most of us have gone through similar things compared to previous generations of applicants. I just need a way to convey some of the central aspects of who I am through one of these stories.

 

[deleted929944]

I hear what you're saying. At the end of the day, I feel like most applicants are not really unique. Most of us have gone through similar things compared to previous generations of applicants. I just need a way to convey some of the central aspects of who I am through one of these stories.

Like I said, "Which one can you make most compelling?"

 

[Baller27]

I completely agree. I think I've decided that this will be my challenge/adversity essay topic. Personally, growing up I just ate whatever my parents put in front of me and they were not the healthiest themselves. It wasn't until I graduated high school that I learned about nutrition and basic thermodynamics, and had a bit more autonomy that I was able to make a change and lose the weight. My parents really didn't know about this stuff either and ate intuitively their whole lives in combination with not having the money to support a nutritionally dense and healthy diet.

For schools that only have a diversity essay couldn't you adapt the weight loss essay too? Or not really

 

[Mr.Smile12]

How do you connect your options to "contributing to the class"? That's the important part of the prompt. Why should others/peers care about what you learned in each case?