I am the Son of Immigrants

     Since elementary school, I've heard all about these "college essays". They were the type of words that would float around in conversations of the adults and the older kids. When they would say "how are your college essays coming along?", it always struck me as some sort of grand project that you had to prepare your whole entire life for. I was under the impression that for a college essay, you had to write the most beautiful, life-shattering research piece that would unearth a new idea that hasn't been seen before.

    In 2021, my older cousin graduated from a high school in Indiana, and was admitted to the University of Michigan. Being one of the first in our extended family to go to such a prestiguous college, naturally people wanted to know how he did it. When he explained that his essay was titled "Son of Immigrants", that's when my idea of a college essay changed. I wondered to myself, 'millions of people are sons of immigrants, how is he more impressive than all the rest?'. 

    It wasn't until this week in class, when going over the idea of the pith that I realized that I was right. The college essay is one big research paper, but the research has already been done. We've spent the past 18 years of our life doing the research, and all we are asked to do now is to write about the tiniest fraction of it. We are supposed to write about the pith, the driving characteristic of what shapes our life.