Well today I finally finished my application to the University of Minnesota's nursing program. It was kind of a lengthy process due to the requirements and my procrastination. The most difficult part of the application that I found to be quite challenging for some strange reason was the essay section. I had to write about life experiences such as volunteer work, create a resume, and also write a one page essay on what in my experiences prepares me to work with a broad array of people and situations... I felt a lot of pressure from this requirement because I believe that the essays will make or break the application/acceptance. So I went to town. I got the resume out of the way that was very easy.
Then I began with the essay. It was really weird to reflect back on my life and try and answer the prompt to the best of my ability. Different cheesy things were coming to mind to write about but nothing seemed to be worthy of the University standards. Then I remember a course that I am currently enrolled in Human Relations Education with Dr. Bussler. One requirement in the course is to participate in some type of service learning in particular with a group of people that we don't feel comfortable with. For instance, in class we had to rank which group we felt the most comfortable with to the least comfortable. The groups included: race, ability, gender, sexual orientation, class, age, and religion. I felt very encouraged with this assignment. It makes each student step out of our comfort-zones and look within ourselves. Anyway I chose race and class for my service learning experience. I attended the service learning conference at MSU and signed up for the Theresa House. Which is an amazing organization that provides an emergency shelter for families and single women, which gives particular attention to refugees and immigrants.
I decided that my experiences with the Theresa House would be my best answer to the applications question. It was actually very difficult to limit what I had to say. Hopefully the University of Minnesota will appreciate my honesty and experience. I just finished the entire application just before class and its ready to be mailed off.
The MSU nursing application process is much different. The acceptance is based on GPA alone, no experience is necessay, no resume, and no volunteer work. After finishing the U of M's application process I believe that my making these options open for releasing other personal experience and information better reflects the individuals applying.