Secondary Essays: Adversity vs Diversity

[MedArtist]

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So I haven't had too much adversity or diversity in my life until I joined Amercorps NCCC. I was wondering if it would be seen negatively to write these two essays centered around this life event but approaching each differently?

Ex:

Adversity - speak to the difficulties of moving away from friends, family, home and into a new environment knowing no one, overcoming fear of the unknown, improving social communication in stressful environments, etc.

Diversity - speak about encountering teammates from a variety of abusive and impoverished backgrounds and my work with children in an isolated k-12 school.

Thanks for your opinions and thoughts!

 

[hoihaie]

I thought diversity should be about how YOU would contribute to the diversity, not the diversities you encountered.

That doesn't sound like adversity at all. Plenty of people do that for college or even worse.

 

[MedArtist]

What are we, if not a culmination of our experiences?

I had a pretty bland childhood, and most of the true struggles I had are not appropriate for secondaries from my research on the subject.

Still wondering if it would be negative to write both essays centered around the same subject.

 

[hoihaie]

What are we, if not a culmination of our experiences?

I had a pretty bland childhood, and most of the true struggles I had are not appropriate for secondaries from my research on the subject.

Still wondering if it would be negative to write both essays centered around the same subject.

I don't think it's negative, but the way you're describing how you are approaching it doesn't seem that attractive.

 

[mehc012]

I thought diversity should be about how YOU would contribute to the diversity, not the diversities you encountered.

That doesn't sound like adversity at all. Plenty of people do that for college or even worse.

You'd be surprised...a lot of people have not even encountered diversity. They have never had to truly confront and interact with people whose backgrounds differed from their own.

I think that it is perfectly reasonable to talk about your familiarity with a range of backgrounds as a diversity essay. After all, the point is to demonstrate that you could lend/understand an alternate perspective, right?

 

[Benighted]

I have experienced very little adversity in my life and I don't want to exaggerate some bs about a relatively insignificant challenge that didn't have too much of an influence on my life.

Does anyone know how people in my situation should approach this secondary question?

 

[dbeast]

Put them together and you can write about Dadversity.

Does that count as a dad joke?

 

[MedArtist]

Perhaps you can speak to someone in your family / a friend struggling with something and your response/ support / reflection on it?

I have experienced very little adversity in my life and I don't want to exaggerate some bs about a relatively insignificant challenge that didn't have too much of an influence on my life.

Does anyone know how people in my situation should approach this secondary question?

 

[nwts]

@MedArtist and @Benighted - For both of your situations pertaining to adversity, I feel like it might be good to indicate in some way that you realize that your experience of adversity (whatever you end up putting) is not huge in the grand scheme of things. I am not an adcom, so I could be totally wrong on this, but I feel like talking about some minor experience of adversity without acknowledging that it isn't some giant, nearly insurmountable obstacle could likely come off as being out of touch with reality and self-pitying. It can be a hard question because some people, myself included, haven't really faced huge adversity. While we have to say something because they asked us the question and it isn't optional, I think it's still extremely important not to look like a person with a silver spoon in his/her mouth complaining about how hard his/her life is while ignoring the much more significant struggles of others.

As far as your question about diversity, I'm thinking of putting something similar to your proposed answer since many of my extracurriculars involve working with individuals who are very different from myself. I feel that I can't talk about how I, myself contribute to diversity because I'm in the majority in just about every way one could be. I am not a URM. I am not socioeconomically disadvantaged. I am not a non-traditional student. I am not an LGBTQ individual. I practice a religion that is very common in this country. I was raised in a traditional household. I feel like trying to make up some weak reason why I still qualify as a unique sort of person without getting into subjectives like personality traits could come off as being ignorant of the lives and situations of people who are members of minorities.

Please take all my opinions with a grain of salt. I am no authority on this matter, so I could very well be wrong.