Sample Essay

Note: This essay appears unedited for instructional purposes. Essays edited by EssayEdge are dramatically improved. For samples of EssayEdge editing, please click here.

A tale from your childhood can pique the reader's interest along with underscoring the earnestness of your intended academic pursuits, as this essay illustrates.

My interest in photojournalism began when I was nine years old. After a couple of years of collecting baseball picture-cards and accumulating more than ten-thousand treasured images, my interest in acquiring posed mug shots and static faces decreased, so I liquidated my assets and discovered a new hobby: reading the sports sections of my father's newspapers. I became captivated by the genuine, timely and action-packed pictures of the 1964 Phillies appearing regularly in the Philadelphia Daily News and Inquirer. A short time later, I began a nightly ritual of clipping and collecting the grainy black-and-white photos accompanying detailed descriptions of our home team's performances.

In 1979, I resumed the practice of clipping tear-sheets, when my byline started appearing under photos and short concert reviews published in several South Philadelphia community newspapers. After some success selling articles and pictures to local, small circulation publications, I enrolled in college, determined to pursue a career in photojournalism, and became the only member of my family to graduate from an academic institution of higher education when I received a BFA in documentary photography. Although I am extremely satisfied with my current employment as a photographer for a world-renowned eye hospital and will continue to write articles and to photograph events on a free-lance basis, I would also eventually like to teach. With my previous experience in photojournalism, travel, politics, medicine, sports and entertainment, and as the overseer of our department's medical photography internship program, I feel that I will make a significant contribution to the learning environment.

Note: This essay appears unedited for instructional purposes. Essays edited by EssayEdge are dramatically improved. For samples of EssayEdge editing, please click here.

Graduate School Essay and Personal Statement Editing Services

Get the EssayEdge Advantage

Our customers say:

  • 97% say we improved their chance of admissions
  • 82% are admitted to their top-choice schools