Essay Examples and Eleven Tips for Writing UT-Austin “Which activity are you most proud of and why?”
My hidden talent is achieving the top score on basketball arcade machines. Photo from Kyoto, Japan.
UT-Austin released a new supplement for Fall 2025 that asks applicants in 300 words to, quote, “Think of all the activities — both in and outside of school — that you have been involved with during high school. Which one are you most proud of and why?”
I’ve published this in the spring of 2025, and it’s possible they may change the supplement for Fall 2026 and future application cycles. Still, this post is relevant for similar topics at other universities, such as “Describe a leadership commitment” or “Discuss your favorite extracurricular.” Consider these eleven tips for writing your Proud supplement.
The easiest way to reach me is by email kevin@texadmissions.com and to complete this questionnaire for a free email admissions assessment and to discuss pricing and services.
1. Understand the UT-Austin Proud supplement question and don’t read it too literally
In general, your college essays are an opportunity to share and develop four, five, six, or seven dimensions of your interests, commitments, and goals. The content should drive what experiences you choose to write about, not the college essay questions themselves. Essay questions are invitations to write, not boxes intended to constrain or contracts to fulfill.
I call this Proud supplement the “miscellaneous or potpourri” essay because it can be the home for something that’s meaningful to you but might not fill an entire Common App Main Essay or fit into your Major short answer. Your topic can cover just about anything, as I’ll share later in this video.
However, don’t get caught up in the language of “most proud of.” When the topic was released, I didn’t even anticipate this being a concern until one of my clients disappeared for a few weeks when each of their three UT essays was almost finished. Their parents shared later that they had tremendous anxiety that the chosen theme for their Proud essay wasn’t the thing they were literally most proud of. Then they totally reconfigured all of their essays into a much less optimal and inferior configuration.
I think their concern was that UT could somehow read their mind or otherwise know that there was something they might be more proud of, or that it felt dishonest or something. I still can’t quite grasp their logic; this kind of reaction only happened once. I figure, though, that if they experienced this misinterpretation, many other students out there might also read the question too literally. Nevertheless, this is a reminder that college admissions gatekeepers and reviewers are not omniscient gods. The question is merely an invitation to share another dimension of your interests and character.
A more optimal way to read the question is as part of a broader argument about why you deserve a space at UT and in your first-choice major. One thing I help my clients with is identifying the handful of things, broadly speaking, that they want to discuss and then figuring out the most tactical configuration of how to file them under and develop in each of the prompts.
Since this Proud question is so broad, in theory, almost any potential Proud essay could also be the Common App Main Essay, the UT Major short answer, or in response to one of the Honors program prompts. That’s why I call it the miscellaneous essay – it can be a home for content that doesn’t quite fit elsewhere.
2. A unique Proud topic is not the goal – aim for personal and concrete
Another mistake students make is believing they must choose a unique topic. However, uniqueness is not the goal of this or any college essay. In an applicant pool of over 90,000, it’s essentially impossible to have an experience or commitment that is singularly unique or something that your reviewer has never seen before.
Trying to write unique college essays on only one topic will almost certainly add stress and second-guessing rather than providing clarity. Uniqueness as a guiding value often leads to suboptimal topic choices where you leave a substantial commitment undeveloped in favor of something random that doesn’t relate to your major or your overall story. Instead, I recommend that your goal is to write a Proud supplement and other universities that are personal and specific to you.
Although there might be thousands of band section leaders across the state, hundreds of NHS presidents, or dozens of top-ranked robotics teams, the key is providing personal details and anecdotes that develop how and why you’ve pursued your experiences. Examples include times you’ve received or given mentorship, roles and responsibilities for specific events or competitions, favorite teachers, notable memories, the origin story of your chosen activity, and so on.
There are no cliché college essay topics, only cliché styles and cringey delivery. So, don’t shy away from topics that might be common for your reviewers to see.
3. Choose only one activity or commitment and develop it fully
For many years, UT had a similar supplemental topic that asked students to discuss notable leadership or extracurricular experiences. Back then, I recommended that students could write about one, two, and no more than three activities for their 300-word supplement. The idea was to have enough space to sufficiently develop each one, and writing about four or more topics wouldn’t leave enough space.
That same advice applies to the Common App Main Essay where it’s a good idea to focus on a few things rather than overextending yourself by attempting to discuss many experiences. You need to avoid moving too fast and hurrying through many experiences.
This new Proud topic explicitly asks the applicant to write about a single activity. Content-wise, it’s essential to share how and why you’ve pursued your preferred activity. Developing how you pursue your activity means it's something you do in your free time, for its own sake, or because it develops skills you enjoy. Explaining why helps provide your motivations and attitude.
You can develop how you’ve deepened your experiences over time, like being an organization member to treasurer to vice president. Other examples include a tutoring service that started as one-on-one and expanded to groups, and then hiring other tutors before perhaps eventually opening a physical storefront.
You can also share the background context of how you came into the experience or activity. Did you have a notable mentor? An older sibling? A chance encounter or a serendipitous experience? Did you leave a previous activity to make room for one you’re more proud of?
Consider developing mini anecdotes and examples that illustrate your points and provide context to your commitments. For example, if you write an essay about tutoring, write paragraph about a particular student you’ve worked with by name or by pseudonym. You probably don’t have space for a full-blown story like in your Common App Main Essay, but it’s essential to write concrete content that is personal to you and to avoid vague, impersonal, or abstract ideas.
4. Minimize overlap with other essay questions
UT requires three essays for regular admission, the Common App Main Essay and two supplements. That means whatever you write in the Main Essay shouldn’t also be your Proud short answer, so if robotics appears in one essay, it’s probably suboptimal to dedicate another regular admission essay to the same topic.
For STEM applicants, consider writing this essay about a non-STEM interest or activity if your Common App Main Essay already dives deep into commitments and interests. Since your Major short answer must be about your STEM academic interests, this Proud supplement offers an opportunity to develop a non-STEM experience. Many of my STEM clients create art, play in the band, sing in the choir, or have a hobby they do for their own sake. The Proud supplement can provide a spot for these miscellaneous experiences that also demonstrate that there is more to you than math, science, and coding. My non-STEM clients might have deep STEM interests unrelated to their future major.
5. An exception to the previous advice is that your Proud supplement could “internally link” your entire application by referring directly to something you wrote elsewhere
In rare exceptions, my clients might have very deliberate and tactical reasons for having moderate content overlap between submissions. For example, a Journalism applicant dedicated their Main Essay to moving from Dallas to the Northeast in their junior year while discussing early childhood experiences growing up in London and Paris. Their Proud supplement detailed French-English bilingualism and completing an exchange program in Bordeaux. Then, their Major short answer illustrated volunteering at a summer camp for Chinese and Russian students who didn’t speak English. They also discussed writing for the school newspaper. Her essays connected to broader themes around cross-cultural experiences, adapting to new environments, and developing storytelling skills. Still, they minimized explicit overlap, and each essay provided new dimensions not covered elsewhere.
6. Consider selecting a topic that relates to your first-choice major
The previous advice for STEM applicants, in particular, is that you could consider sharing a non-STEM experience. However, many students are singularly focused on a narrow range of activities. It’s okay for the content distribution of your overall application to be 90 to 100% STEM-related. That means your Proud supplement could relate to your first-choice major to reinforce further why you have the skills and aptitude to succeed in rigorous UT classes. Still, you should minimize overlap, so this essay should always provide a new dimension to your application.
7. Your commitment can be something on the resume or off of it
A common question and concern that applicants have is what topic to choose. Just about anything can work for this essay, and don’t shy away from developing an experience or commitment from your resume.
However, a very common mistake students make throughout their essays is rarely or never developing examples from their resume commitments. They have the incorrect belief that resumes speak for themselves and don’t require the support of essays. A more optimal way to think about this is your resume and transcript are a record of what you have done, and the essays complement the resume and transcript by sharing how and why you’ve pursued and deepened your commitments.
So, one straightforward way to reframe this question is not to focus on “what you’re most proud of” but to pick your most significant or impressive commitment. Then, you can dedicate this essay to developing it more fully. Another possibility is to pick something that isn’t on your resume at all but is central to your identity and interests.
I had clients write this essay on any number of themes and experiences, including but not limited to: leadership, volunteering, in-school extracurriculars, independent projects, internships, research experiences, AP Research and Seminar projects, hosting community events, competition extracurriculars like DECA, HOSA, and robotics, band or choir, visual art, religious and identity organizations, cultural hobbies like Indian classical dance or singing, tutoring, giving and receiving mentorship, work experience, and operating a small business.
As I mentioned earlier, there are no cliché topics, only cliché writing styles.
8. You can also share about a family obligation
The essay prompt on UT’s admissions page provides, in parentheses, an invitation to write about an aspect of the environment in which you were raised or the context of your living situation. Some students have obligations at home that require caring for grandparents or special needs siblings. Others are older siblings who help with childcare or babysitting for younger ones. Some students work jobs to help pay the bills or live in a rural setting that requires caring for pets, livestock, or a farm. These obligations that give students pride often interfere with or limit their academic or extracurricular opportunities. So, one way to approach the Proud short answer is as if it were a special circumstances essay.
9. Most supplements will utilize a “stick to the facts” approach rather than creative writing
I’ve already written about what to write about. This piece of advice touches briefly on the style.
It’s almost always more optimal to write directly about how and why you’ve pursued your experiences rather than using storytelling or rhetorical devices more suited for the longer Common App Main Essay. Save your creative writing inclinations for that longer essay.
In perhaps ten percent of my Fall 2025 clients, they shared mini-stories as if it were a kind of Main Essay. Still, in most instances, this approach isn’t optimal because it spends precious words on unnecessary descriptors or rhetorical flairs. That means if you take a storytelling approach in your Main Essay and a “stick to the facts” approach in the two 300-word supplements, there is stylistic balance among your overall application. Sticking to the facts is also what I suggest when writing most of the UT Honors program supplements.
10. Your Proud supplement doesn’t require a typical introduction or conclusion, or benefit from transition sentences
Especially in your supplements, it’s essential to write economically. That means your supplements need to be as information-dense as possible.
Every sentence should provide new information, including the opening and closing ones. It’s rare to need transitions beyond moreover, first, second, however, regardless, nevertheless, or finally.
There is rarely enough space for a lengthy scene-setting introduction more appropriate for the Common App. Supplements tempt students to provide lingering introductions, which we should avoid. It’s not uncommon for me to receive supplemental first drafts in which over half the words are introductions and conclusions, leaving only a few sentences of concrete details about the actual experience.
I recommend beginning your supplement without preamble. For example, you could write, “I serve as the National Honor Society President responsible for coordinating seven officers and meetings for 120 members.” Then, spend a few sentences detailing how you’ve organized events, implemented special projects, or coordinated with other student organizations or your school’s administration.
It’s also almost always preferable for essays to simply end. You don’t need a “let me sum up what I’ve just told you” sentence or two.
Consider adding new information in your final sentence by identifying a relevant student organization: “I hope to continue service-leadership at UT by joining the Orange Jackets,” or “my younger brother will take ownership of the organization after the current seniors and I graduate. That way, it continues for the younger grades.”
11. Finally, you don’t need to tie the activity you’re most proud of into any UT opportunities or resources
Previous versions of this UT supplemental question explicitly asked students to tie their experience into how they will contribute to UT inside and outside of the classroom. That language is deliberately removed from this “what are you most proud of” formulation. That means your Proud supplement should mostly or entirely share content specific to you. However, you have the option to include a single sentence of a relevant UT opportunity to suggest how you might continue your commitment after arriving on campus.
UT-Austin Proud Supplement Essay Example: Restaurant Work Experience
I mopped up under the final table and drained the dirty water. I pulled my phone out of my skin-tight jeans and checked the time—two minutes before midnight. But the Final Boss awaited me: taking out the trash. I opened the lobby trash cabinet, and the most bulging and stinky bag I’d ever seen awaited me. I held my breath and hoisted it over my shoulder. A mild strain tweaked my lower back as I power-walked a hundred yards to the dumpster. Juices leaked from the bottom and onto my calves.
My manager, Sanchez, taught me to swing the bag from the lower body like a hammer throw so the momentum carried it over the dumpster’s lip. I leaned back and flopped it short of the dumpster’s gaping maw. The bag weighed too much, and on my second attempt, the bottom collapsed. Leftover pita, harissa chicken, and pickled onion drenched in our new tahini Caesar sauce soaked my kicks and clothes. I picked up everything with my bare hands. An hour later, my fuming mom asked what happened as she drove me home.
Only some shifts at Cava are as eventful or frustrating as that evening. Working a real job builds my character because I tend to be reserved, but serving customers forces me to interact. I’ve become lifelong friends with coworkers ten years older than me. Cesar, our grill cook, only speaks Spanish, so I taught him basic English words when we talked. I also have more compassion for the workers at busy Chipotles and the labor required to make each batch of cilantro lime rice and grilled chicken. I feel proud to work hard at an occasionally dirty job to build my character and step outside my comfort zone.
UT-Austin Proud Supplement Essay Example: Multiculutral Upbringing
I’m thankful to grow up in a multilingual home. I speak Hindi with my extended family and occasionally ‘Hinglish’ at home with my parents. Frequent trips to India and watching Bollywood help me connect with my language and culture. However, I love learning languages in general. I completed many Duolingo German lessons before our family holiday to Switzerland, and I’ve recently learned the Korean alphabet and basic Arabic phrases.
Nevertheless, my deepest commitment is to Spanish. I enjoyed Spanish 1 in eighth grade, thanks to Mrs. Indira, who gave me the confidence to continue despite taking classes on Zoom during COVID. But my Spanish 2 teacher didn’t speak much English, nor did they know how to teach. Most of the class involved kooky conspiracy theories. Still, I continued with Spanish 3 when the language instantly clicked. Señor Obernal is one of the most passionate and funny teachers I’ve ever had. I appreciate how every conjugation and grammar exception has a logical reason. Spanish feels like a puzzle with perfectly fitting pieces, whereas English, Arabic, or German seems riddled with illogical anomalies—“This is just how it is.”
Despite its notorious workload and difficulty, I continued with IB Spanish HL junior year because of Señor Obernal. My final project was an eight-minute presentation of the Puerto Rico travel itinerary. It was my longest-ever speech in Spanish, and rather than memorizing the script, I delivered it conversationally. I’m most proud because my family and I followed the same itinerary that summer. We visited every place I’d researched, and talking with locals helped us connect to the culture more deeply, even though the Puerto Rican dialect is quite distinct. I’m continuing with Spanish 5 and intend to minor in Spanish. I hope to study abroad at the McCombs exchange with ITESM Queretaro, Mexico.
UT-Austin Proud Supplement Essay Example: CS Tutoring
During the summer before junior year, I interned at LearnLee. I taught coding to an elementary schooler, Travis, by developing a lesson plan that started with problem-solving exercises and thinking programmatically. We made simple games in Scratch like Flappy Bird and a Maze Game to learn programming fundamentals like variables and conditionals before progressing to lists and loops while programming Rock-Paper-Scissors in Python—Travis dreams of coding his own RPG someday.
I deepened my commitment by teaching children ages 5-7 years creative writing and ages 10-12 reading comprehension. I encouraged my students to attempt the problem first before nudging them in the right direction if they became stuck. That helped me elicit their buy-in while providing constructive feedback.
I progressed to managing groups of more than 50 K-3rd graders at the Leander Crossover Camp with two other volunteers. I learned quickly that large groups require more than teaching, like comforting crying kids, breaking up fights, and strictly enforcing the No-Phones policy. I preferred hosting small groups for science experiments, like making a paper helicopter to demonstrate gravity and air pressure. However, the program’s lack of structure and counselors made for a challenging three-week volunteering commitment.
Finally, in Driftwood Elementary School’s STEAM Day, I taught 30 fifth graders the basics of drone aviation. By the end, they could dictate precise movements, direction, and speed using the CoDrone software. I also gave the initial presentations to the children and delegated roles to the other volunteers, drawing on my LearnLee experiences. Afterward, I co-managed a lava lamp stand, showing children how to make lava lamps using water, oil, food coloring, and Alka-Seltzer. I taught children about the associated science concepts like density and chemical reactions. I’m proud to have stuck with teaching younger students and expanded my commitments over time.
UT-Austin Proud Supplement Essay Example: Food Bank Volunteer
I started volunteering at the Houston Food Bank (HFB) in 2021 to earn the Presidential Volunteer Service Award. I assumed sorting food into different boxes and plucking rotten sweet potatoes would be mundane tasks I could complete alone. During my first shifts, I completed basic tasks like packing emergency relief boxes and sorting sanitation items, but after a few months, I interacted more with the other volunteers. I showed newcomers what to do when they felt unsure or gently corrected them if they misplaced items or discarded pallets and boxes incorrectly. Although it’s one hour from my house, I’ve continued volunteering for four summers, even after receiving my Presidential award. I feel proud to stick with my commitments and give back to my community.
I also invited my friends from AP Language, Larry, Parag, Jackson, and Calvin, to join me. Our class assignment required us to create a documentary, and we conducted interviews at HFB to illustrate the impact of food banks on volunteers and beneficiaries. Our favorite interview was when a volunteer said how, even though she doesn’t directly benefit from volunteering, she still feels rewarded by doing good for the community and interacting with clients.
Sorting donations can feel abstract since you don’t always see the people receiving the items or their families at home. For example, one beneficiary shared with me that a single mother couldn’t afford to provide healthy meals for her and her two kids, even with a job. Moreover, a volunteer shared how going to the food bank gives her a sense of fulfillment while helping her cope with her struggle to find a job and family issues. Our teacher, Mrs. Matthews, encouraged us to submit our documentary to our district’s film festival, and we received first out of 11 schools.
UT-Austin Proud Supplement Essay Example: Work Experience/Women’s Empowerment
I work at Lifetime Cafe, which is inside a luxury gym that’s more like a country club. I like my job because it gives me independence and a paycheck. At first, I thought it would be straightforward because I’m conscientious and an extrovert. However, I quickly realized it was an experience unlike any other because the wealthy guests were demanding. During my interview, my manager explained, “If you have a bad experience at one part of the gym, like the cafe, members will blame the gym as a whole.”
However, one thing I don’t tolerate is gender-based discrimination. Male members harass me daily and ask for my number. They’ve yelled at me from outside the cafe a few times and distracted me from my job. Dealing with them is difficult because a “customer is always right” and “we cannot afford negative reviews” attitude means management is unwilling to address harassment.
Additionally, since the staff is more than 80% men, my female coworkers and I aren’t included or are condescended to. One day, after working for a few weeks, I forgot to give a member a table number. My 40-year-old male coworker sneered, “Do you even know how to do it?” He ignored me instead of listening to my answer and tediously showed me how. I patiently tried to explain myself to him without effect.
Instead of passively allowing workplace discrimination to continue, I became an Inclusion Ambassador to implement changes in the Cafe. I wear a specific shirt indicating my role so coworkers and members can come to me with discrimination-based problems. Currently, I am planning monthly inclusion events and attending a women’s affinity group, and I feel proud to make my workplace a more welcoming environment.
UT-Austin Proud Supplement Essay Example: City-School Partnership Council
Although my most demanding time commitment in high school is drill team, especially mentoring teammates and assisting my directors, my proudest achievement is serving in my town’s Strategic Planning Committee (SPC) during my Junior year.
SPC comprises parents, teachers, counselors, and principals from every level and school in ABC ISD. Four seniors, one other junior, and I represented thousands of elementary and high school students. The district superintendent reached out to me directly with an invitation to join. We have meetings throughout the school year that require me to miss classes. I brought a unique perspective because I attended our project-based-learning high school, New DEF, for freshman year before transferring to ABC High.
As a committee, we addressed issues in our schools and developed plans to fix them. My specific group targeted student stress and mental well-being. Parents and school staff agreed this is one of our community's most significant issues. I voiced for stronger interpersonal relations between staff and students, including counselors and teachers. During a time of mourning, I benefited from closer relationships and smaller class sizes at New DEF. Knowing you have people at school who care about you makes a world of difference. We worked on our plan throughout the year before handing it off to a different group to implement our proposal.
At the end of the school year, we were presented with all of the different ways our plans had been implemented and were already helping students, such as classroom bonding and higher counselor engagement. Students felt more supported at our schools. Knowing that my voice and my work could help students of all ages felt incredibly special.
UT-Austin Proud Supplement Essay Example: ML and Data Science Research
I’m most proud of my research pursuits. Over the previous summer, I conducted original research on AI through CCIR’s Data-Driven Astronomy: Machine Learning and Statistics for Modern Astronomy. I learned how terabytes of data produced by modern telescopes record millions of astronomical objects every night. I created machine learning algorithms in Python to classify, model, and characterize images and astronomical datasets to identify and classify stars and quasars. My findings suggested that the Random Forest algorithm was marginally more accurate than Logistic Regression and Support Vector Classifier.
I further explored my AI interests by completing the Veritas AI Fellowship research program. I created original research that trained different reinforcement learning AI algorithms to fly drones and compared their performances and latencies. My findings highlight the existence of trade-offs between the duration of policy training, the agent's performance, and the latency associated with policy execution. I’ve continued preparing my paper for publication after the program’s conclusion.
I’ve enjoyed these initial research experiences because receiving direction from a professor and an experienced researcher helped guide my inquiry in a structured way. Participating in the CCIR and Veritas AI research program increased my knowledge of how to use, develop, and compare the performance of different machine learning algorithms. Beyond the technical knowledge, these experiences helped me improve my problem-solving and critical-thinking skills.
Recently, I became specifically interested in AI image recognition technology and continued participating in CCIR through their one-on-one research program. I'm conducting original research on deep learning-based monocular depth estimation, a computer vision task of inferring the relative depth of objects from a flat image. I'm developing and training a deep learning model to perform accurate depth estimation and generalize across diverse environments, lighting conditions, textures, and occlusions.
UT-Austin Proud Supplement Essay Example: Study Abroad
I applied for and completed a three-week Spanish immersion program in Seville and Madrid. My Seville host mom, Isabel, was 82 years old. She cooked me homemade meals like traditional spanish tortillas, paella, and empanadas. Since she’d never lived outside of Spain and spoke no English, I used my inadequate classroom Spanish to try and communicate.
The first few days were difficult, but I adjusted to her Castellano accent and became more familiar with the neighborhood. Isabel and I lived a block from the Plaza de España, and many days after school, we explored and ate at different restaurants. We loved being outdoors, so her pointing out hidden landmarks and showing me narrow alleys helped us overcome the language barrier.
During the school week, I took daily classes at a local Spanish school. Meeting Spanish teachers who adjusted how they spoke and practicing with Spanish students my age increased my confidence. We also collaborated on a project where the Spanish students and I compared and contrasted American cultures and habits.
I loved being abroad, so this summer, I completed a Fashion Design program at the Paris College of Art. I enjoyed making new friends from Switzerland, Australia, Mexico, Scotland, Sweden, and India. Although everyone knew some English, cultural differences and occasional misunderstandings made us laugh. Nevertheless, we bonded over our shared interests in garments and attending invite-only shows from Rick Owens and Christian Dior. We drew different couture models and photographed attendees and their elegant outfits. The range from dystopian and post-apocalyptic menswear to draped florals covered in bows amazed me.
Living with an elderly Spanish host mom and completing a program with cosmopolitan classmates deepens my appreciation for cultures, languages, and styles. I feel proud about going beyond my comfort zone and grateful for these unique opportunities.
UT-Austin Proud Supplement Essay Example: Culture and Religion Leadership
We moved from Pennsylvania to North Houston when I was in sixth grade. We previously lived 45 minutes from the Hindu Temple, so we rarely visited. However, the North Houston Hindu Temple was much closer. It has provided a community of family and friends with a convenient way to connect with our culture. My parents enrolled me in their Tamil School Program to teach speaking, reading, and writing. My parents speak Tamil at home, and although my sister and I understood it, we didn’t feel comfortable speaking it. We couldn’t read or write.
Our first step required learning the alphabet’s 247 letters. We learned new words and read simple tests to complete end-of-year exams. After the first year, I competed in a speaking competition and placed 2nd. COVID cut short my second year, and I restarted classes for two years from eighth grade to reach what I imagined to be a conversational level.
The summer before sophomore year, we visited our extended family in India for the first time in five years. Previously, I called them to wish them happy birthdays and on the holidays, but our conversations rarely progressed beyond what I ate for breakfast. I hoped to speak clearly with my grandparents, and although I tried to hold conversations, I mixed in English words that confused them or made them hold back laughter.
When we returned, I became the Temple Youth Club Treasurer. I helped with activities during meetings and planned events like cookie decorating during Valentine’s Day and an overnight lock-in at the temple, where we played a Jeopardy game related to Indian culture. I assisted with our most significant holidays, Diwali and Holi. I continue practicing more complex Tamil conversations with my family. I’m proud of my efforts to connect with my heritage, language, and culture.
UT-Austin Proud Supplement Essay Example: Fundraising
Twenty door knocks into fundraising for the pediatric cancer fundraiser, Angels Among Us, I’d had enough of people slamming their doors in my face. Fewer than half opened their doors.
I wondered, “Am I knocking wrong or something? They could at least listen to a couple of sentences.”
I joined Angels Among Us to support my friends, but I started to lose hope when I couldn’t have conversations, let alone solicit donations. Walking up to a white brick house, I prepared myself for another rejection. Instead, an older East Asian man opened the door. As I recited the pitch, his eyebrows furrowed, and he paused. “My grandson was diagnosed with leukemia a few months ago, and I spent a lot of money on his treatment. I don’t have enough money to help out, sorry.”
After expressing my sympathy, I thanked him for his time and walked away. It felt like a minor success since at least he opened the door and talked to me. When I began walking to the next house, I heard him shout. I returned to his home, and he handed me a dollar bill and said, “I’m sorry I cannot give more, but in our culture, giving even a little can count.”
I placed the dollar inside the envelope and thanked him. He continued, “Thank you for doing this. Not many kids your age would spend their free time raising money for charity.”
His kindness encouraged me to continue knocking in subsequent weeks, and a few more people answered. I discarded the script and spoke from my heart, eventually earning more donations. I attended additional events and felt proud to contribute a little bit to a worthy cause. I hope to join Texas THON and continue fundraising for pediatric cancer patients.
UT-Austin Proud Supplement Essay Example: STEM Club Founder
The great eclipse of April 2024, while dark for most people, was my Space Club’s turn to shine - literally! We made glow-in-the-dark bracelets and keychains to celebrate viewing the eclipse during the middle of the school day. Around forty of us meet every two weeks to swap stories about shuttle launches, TV shows, and trivia questions like what food astronauts can eat in space.
I met Owen during my sophomore year at the Board Game Club, who encouraged me to create a similar community around outer space. I wasn’t sure if I could balance running my own club, especially with my unforgiving IB course load and extracurriculars. I found a sponsor in my junior year and completed the necessary paperwork to establish the Space Club intended for non-STEM students and activities. The night before our first meeting, I posted a box of Costco cookies on Instagram to entice people to join. Thankfully, more than five people showed up, so we could continue subsequent meetings.
Space Club’s target audience isn’t the space fanatic who conducts astronomy research but average students who enjoy listening to Neil DeGrasse Tyson's podcasts. Since freshman year, my grades and courses have nudged me into academic clubs. Although I enjoy my STEM commitments, they feel like an extension of school rather than having fun for its own sake.
Many classmates and friends shared similar feelings about feeling a little burned out from STEM courses and ECs, so each meeting features a fun activity like making marshmallow constellations and painting our own eclipse glasses. Making crafts and eating tasty snacks reminds us of the nostalgia and relatively stress-free life of being a kid. I feel proud to build a community at our large, competitive school, where we can relax and geek out without concerns for grades or recognition.