Question # 4 Describe a personal challenge or obstacle and why you view it as such. How have you dealt with it? What have you learned from it? (300 word maximum)
Looking at the phrasing of this you may begin wondering “Isn’t this question similar to essay question # 3? Yes, it does seem to be but it is not. Essay # 3 asks you to recount a time “in your career when you were frustrated or disappointed” whereas this question requires you to “describe a personal challenge or obstacle” which is different from a career frustration.
In order to choose content for this question, you should reflect on a situation from your personal life when you were faced with a challenge or obstacle. It does not matter if you were able to overcome that barrier completely. The key here is what struggles you faced, how you navigated through them, what lessons you learned in the process, and how meaningful those leanings are in your life. Some examples of the struggle can be an illness of you or your close family member, or a family emergency or a layoff of the only earning member of the family etc.
Be honest in providing details of your story, how you felt, what you did, what you said etc. These vivid details of your story would reveal your character traits.
Looking at the phrasing of this you may begin wondering “Isn’t this question similar to essay question # 3? Yes, it does seem to be but it is not. Essay # 3 asks you to recount a time “in your career when you were frustrated or disappointed” whereas this question requires you to “describe a personal challenge or obstacle” which is different from a career frustration.
In order to choose content for this question, you should reflect on a situation from your personal life when you were faced with a challenge or obstacle. It does not matter if you were able to overcome that barrier completely. The key here is what struggles you faced, how you navigated through them, what lessons you learned in the process, and how meaningful those leanings are in your life. Some examples of the struggle can be an illness of you or your close family member, or a family emergency or a layoff of the only earning member of the family etc.
Be honest in providing details of your story, how you felt, what you did, what you said etc. These vivid details of your story would reveal your character traits.
