NYU Admission Essay

Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York

Over the past 18 years since leaving High School I’ve had numerous jobs. I’ve been a manual laborer, a barista at a coffee shop, a cab driver, a courier, a dispatcher, a barback, a doorman, a cable guy, a stagehand, a delivery driver, a pedi-cabber, a pizza delivery driver, a lighting tech, a security guard and I even had a very short stint as corrections officer (not recommended). They were all jobs, a means to an end, nothing more. They’ve all come and gone leaving me nothing but pain in my body, regrets, strange stories and an assortment of odd skills that don’t lend themselves to the pursuit of my passion or the security of my future. My passion, the only thing that has been a constant in my adult life has been my love of books and my desire to one day be able to call myself a writer.

In the past I was willing to sacrifice my present for a paycheck and the obscure promise of “experience” while mindlessly going through the routines of my various jobs trying, often in vain, to keep my passion for books and writing alive in a compartmentalized area of my life. Work, I’ve found, attempts to insidiously invade every aspect of my life working its way through my very essence like a virus, demanding constant attention and crowding everything else out, leaving me little if any, time or energy to pursue other things.
In thinking about all of this and how I’d like to live my life in the future I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s necessary to have my passion in line with my work, otherwise it’s a daily battle to keep it alive, a battle that too often seems to be lost to an onslaught of obscure periphery demands and obligations related to “keeping afloat”.

So to try and keep my passion from being swept away under a never ending tidal wave of meaningless work I’ve decided to make literature and writing the focus of my life from this point on. The first step to this, I feel, is going back to school where I plan on finishing my BA then obtaining an MFA in writing, after which I’d like to teach to further my understanding of the written word and hopefully build a pension for the day that I won’t even be able to pick up a broom. By doing this I hope to keep literature and writing at the core of my life and not relegated to the distant sidelines as it has been in the past, as well provide some sort of security for the future.

I also understand the difficulty in going back to school as an adult. There are time, monetary and relationship constraints that have to be navigated. This is why I’ve chosen The Paul McGhee School of NYU, as the school is built around the understanding of the unique difficulties that adult students face, and is geared towards helping them succeed.

I’m very excited about the prospect of going back to school and pursuing my passion. I hope that you’ll give me the opportunity.

postscript - I got accepted. I just can't afford that shit.

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