why am i here in this world essay

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Why Am I Here? Creative Essay Example

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Why am I here? That’s a tough question for me or anyone else to ask themselves and then truthfully answer. And I’ve come a long way — from China — to ask it and discover the answer.

I never thought that I would find myself at UCI, or at any college for that matter. I was not a particularly good student in middle school — I was a bad student actually. Dramas with girls and conflicts with guys began at that time, right on schedule. I struggled with myself and my parents and friends about all these problems. And that gave me a nice excuse to keep right on being a bad student during my first year of high school.

But then things abruptly changed. My parents told me I would have to finish high school in Alabama, of all places. I didn’t like the idea at all at the time, but now I realize I have my parents to thank for forcing this upon me, because that was the point at which my whole future changed: at age sixteen, I had to grow up, to sink or swim.

With the start of my American life, I faced alone the cultural shock of dealing with an entirely new kind of high-school world. I started to pay attention in class, and to go to church every weekend. I recognized how much pressure my parents felt for me to succeed, how much expectation their own world was putting on them.  The clarity of this insight made me feel reborn, and I began to face all the things that the young have to face sooner or later: that we are not put on this earth free of responsibility. We have to pull our own weight.

I’ve now spent four years of my life in the United States. As a sophomore at UCI, I’ve came a long way to be where I am today. My freshman year began in the summer of 2013. I started with the Academic English program. I’ve taken four different courses in the program in order to get to the 39 Series, which, with its essays and deadlines, really challenged me.  But all good effort is rewarded, and last quarter I finished the 39 Series and entered the 39A Series. However, I also had to take Math 2B. Mathematics is hard on English majors, and I am no exception. I spent so much time working with numbers that I only got a C- working with words.     That was a shock. I was so rattled by it that I just decided to double down and apply to retake English 39A. Unfortunately, all of those classes were full. That was a very real problem, because if I could not retake the course that quarter, my parents would have to foot the bill for another one. But as I mentioned above, all good effort is rewarded. I persisted, finally meeting Abbey an accommodating instructor who enrolled me in her class.

So, why am I here? At the most basic level, I’m here to get a better grade in the 39A Series. And I’m here to graduate with a high GPA. But more broadly, I’m here to train myself to become a better me . I’m here to become someone who will meet and uphold all the responsibilities of my family. I’m here to earn the faith that my parents had, and have, in me. I’m here to prepare for all the things I can and must prepare for before can I step into another real world — a new world where I will have to grow up, all over again, right on schedule.

All good effort is rewarded.

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Life’s Big Questions: Why Am I Here?

Shiao Chong

A question that surfaces in different forms..

Photo: Jakob Owens

What is the meaning of life? What is my purpose in life? What can I contribute to the world? Will I be remembered after I die? These questions essentially ask the same thing: Why am I here? And it is a question that surfaces in different forms through different stages in life. It may be, “What am I going to be when I grow up?” Or it may take the form of “What should my major or career be?” Or the question could even be, “Am I happy with what I have done in my life thus far?” In these varied forms, this may well be the number one question that haunts everyone’s life.

Sometimes, the question comes in moments of crisis or despair. In fact, the answers some people give to this question are cause for despair! For instance, Samuel Beckett wrote a play called Breath that lasts all of 35 seconds. It begins with a dark stage. Then you hear the sound of a newborn baby’s cry, followed by a breath being drawn slowly in. Simultaneously, the lights slowly go up on the stage to reveal a pile of garbage. Then, the breath is slowly let out and the lights go dim until the stage is in darkness again. There’s a second cry, and the play is over. Beckett’s message seems pretty clear: Life is garbage, over in a single breath. For Beckett, life is meaningless. There is no purpose to our individual lives.

Most of us, however, do not agree with Beckett. Most of us feel there is more to life than mere biological existence and survival. But the play as a metaphor is how I would like to approach the “Why am I here?” question.

William Shakespeare once wrote, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances” ( As You Like It ). Seeing ourselves as actors on a world stage playing out the script of our lives is helpful in one way—it helps us see the relevance and role of Scripture in our lives.

Every play has a story or a plot that makes sense of the series of events in the play. There’s a beginning, middle, and end to every story, usually with a conflict or tension that the characters need to resolve. Many philosophers, theologians, and psychologists today recognize the importance of narrative or story in our lives. Whether deliberately or unconsciously, we choose to tie together the different events or occurrences in our lives into a meaningful and coherent plot or story. We often look back at our history and mark certain cause and effects—if I hadn’t went to this university I wouldn’t have met my spouse, for instance, or if we hadn’t chose to move to this city our lives would be much happier, etc. Weaving all the seemingly random and different events in our lives into a story gives them meaning and purpose. All of us, therefore, live out of some big story.

God’s revelation to us in the Bible can be seen as telling us a big story that all of us can live by. It’s a big story that gives meaning to all of our lives that helps answer, “Why am I here?” Theologian N. T. Wright suggests that the Bible can be seen as a big story or play in five acts ( The New Testament and the People of God, 1992). Richard Middleton and Brian Walsh, building on Wright’s idea, divide the Bible into six acts ( Truth is Stranger Than It Used to Be, 1995). I summarize the six acts as follows:

Act 1: Creation. God creates a beautiful world in perfect harmony, unity amid diversity, loving relationships of interdependence. And God created human beings, male and female, to relate to him in loving communion and to relate to the world, as God’s representatives, in loving communion as well.

Act 2: Alienation. But this perfect world didn’t last. Human beings, seduced by the anti-god way of life, chose to play God instead of being content with their roles as humans. They broke the harmony in the world. They turned interdependent relationships into oppressive and domineering relations. By playing God to the world and to themselves, human beings distorted their proper relationships to God and to the environment. As a result, they have alienated themselves from God and the environment. Hostility, rather than love, marks all our relationships.

Act 3: Reconciliation, Part I. God, however, did not remain silent and did not choose to leave us to our own self-destructive ways. God decides to bring about reconciliation from this alienation we have created. In his reconciliation plan, God chose to invite humans to cooperate with him. God starts with one couple, Abraham and Sarah, and through them He creates the nation of Israel, whose job is to bring healing, restoration, and reconciliation to the world on God’s behalf.

Act 4: Reconciliation, Part II. In this act, God’s reconciliation plan reaches its climax. God wrote himself into the play, as it were, in the person of Jesus Christ. And Christ’s death on the cross was the ultimate act of forgiveness and reconciliation for the world.

Act 6: Renewed Creation. In the final act, God’s reconciliation project reaches its completion and the whole creation—humanity, animals, and plants—are reconciled into harmonious living again. Broken relationships are healed. Everyone is, once again, playing their proper roles in the drama of life, in loving interdependent relationships. However, this final act, in one sense, is not the end but is only the beginning.

You may have noticed that I have already touched on these themes in my previous three articles responding to the questions: who am I, where am I, and what’s wrong? You may have also noticed that I left out Act 5. This is because Act 5 is not finished. Act 5 is still being written today by us.

In the movie Dead Poets Society (1989), a controversial English Literature teacher, John Keating, shakes up a New England prep school for boys in the 1950s. One day, Keating (played by Robin Williams) quotes a Walt Whitman poem to his students: “O me! O life! . . . of the questions of these recurring; Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities filled with the foolish; What good amid these, O me, O life?” As the students listen transfixed, Keating continues, “Answer: That you are here—that life exists, and identity; That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.” As the final words sink in, Keating looks at his students and asks, “And what will your verse be?”

“That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse,” is what God invites us Christians, who live by the biblical story, to do. We are invited to contribute to the script that is the drama of, not only our individual lives, but of the world, of our human race. N. T. Wright puts it like this: suppose we discovered a previously unknown play of Shakespeare’s and the newly found manuscript is missing one act, Act 5. What could we do? One way is to get the world’s most experienced Shakespearean actors together and get them to immerse themselves into the rest of the play, Acts 1 through 6 (without 5) until it becomes second nature to them. All the play’s themes, emphases, character values, direction, vision for life or truth become embodied in these actors. With that, these actors can improvise Act 5 when they act out the play. Of course, in their improvisation, these actors would improvise the story in such a way that it remains true to the previous Acts 1 to 4 and somehow connects with the final Act 6.

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Similarly, Christians who live by the biblical story are asked to improvise in Act 5 of the cosmic drama. God has revealed to us the framework, the overall plot, the big picture of how the story goes. We need, therefore, to immerse ourselves into this story, into Acts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6, so that it becomes second nature to us. And we start improvising, contributing our verses to the play, in a manner that is true and loyal to the overall story, continuing Acts 1 to 4 and connecting with the final Act 6. In this way, we are co-writers with God of not only our own life story but of the big story of the universe.

So, to the question, “Why am I here?” there is no narrow specific answer for every individual person. There is, however, an overall big story answer in which we can each improvise within it. We have the big story of the Bible that helps us see the overall meaning of life and the overall direction that human history has taken and will take. We have clues within this biblical story that tells us what the major themes are: “Love your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul and with all your strength. Love your neighbour as yourself” (Mark 12:30–31). “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).

Other Christian actors from the past have made their contributions to Act 5, and we can learn from them. For instance, the Westminster Catechism of the seventeenth century asks, “What is the chief end of humanity?” and answers, “Our chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”

These general guidelines give us freedom to improvise, as long as our improvisation remains faithful to the big picture story, to its main themes, helped along by the insights of the Christian actors who have gone before us. Many Christians before us have contributed to God’s reconciliation efforts. For instance, think of the legacy of Mother Theresa and Martin Luther King, Jr. Or great Christian thinkers such as Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Abraham Kuyper, etc. Or thousands of others who are lesser known but equally contributed to Act 5.

So, why are you here? Well, to answer that, you will have to answer for yourself, what will your verse be?

The beauty of this, for me, is the great freedom God gives us. We are not fixed to a narrow, previously scripted role that we have to somehow decipher and act out accordingly or else our lives are “screwed up”! No, God is much more gracious than that. God gives us the freedom to improvise, to feel our way along, to make our own contributions to the big story that he has written and is writing.

In all of this, the great Master Artist God is still in full artistic control of the whole thing, as the ending, Act 6 is already written. This not only gives us freedom but also gives us relief. We are not burdened with the near impossible task of writing Act 6, of making the final chapter a reality. God has that covered. We are not asked to create heaven on earth; God will do that in his own time. Our responsibility is to be faithful and to contribute toward Act 6. Act 6 depends on God, not on us.

Despite the freedom and the relief, however, you might still feel intimidated or insignificant. You might say, what can I do? What verse can I contribute? How can anything I do be significant? Well, two of Jesus’ parables are always an encouragement to me: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches. . . . The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened” (Matthew 13:31–33).

Contributing to God’s kingdom, making verses or improvisations that connect to the renewed creation of Act 6, is like small mustard seeds or yeast, seemingly insignificant in size, yet grows into havens for birds or spreads, silently and invisibly, into all the flour. We cannot judge our lives simply by our human standards. It may seem small and insignificant to us but in God’s mysterious ways our lives are mustard seeds or yeast that grows or multiplies and make significant, if not essential, contributions to the big story.

So, do not dread the question, “Why am I here?” but embrace it with excitement, as a challenge, just as an actor takes up the challenge of improvising Act 5 in the world’s most brilliant play. But you do this not to show off, but to be faithful to the integrity of the story. In short, live your life by the biblical story, to glorify God and to enjoy God in all that you do.

• October 1, 2004

Mr. Shiao Chong is the Christian Reformed Chaplain serving at York University.

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Why Am I Here?

Why Am I Here? - The Atheistic Worldview Why I am here? Well, if God doesn't exist, that means that life must have come about through some natural impersonal, unintelligent, and ultimately purposeless process. That means we're ultimately as purposeless as the very process which brought us into existence. Life's just an accident and so are you. You can find short term reasons for living like you're here because your parents wanted to have children, etc., but ultimately you're just an accident and so are your parents. Life is one big accident. You serve no purpose, you'll cause no lasting effect, and in the grand scheme of things your life is utterly meaningless. Without a Creator in the beginning, there was nobody around to put you here on purpose which means you aren't here for a reason. It's that simple. As far as asking "what am I worth," without God we don't actually have an intrinsic value, at least not an objective one. Our worth is ultimately subjective. You might think you're worth something but someone else might think you're worthless, and as long as there's no transcendent Assessor to have the final say, no one's ultimately right or wrong. In fact, without God there's really no such thing as right or wrong. John Dewey (1859-1952), the famous 20th century atheist explained, "There is no God and there is no soul. Hence, there are no needs for the props of traditional religion. With dogma and creed excluded, then immutable truth is also dead and buried. There is no room for fixed, natural law or moral absolutes." 1 Philosophers generally agree: without an absolute God to make the rules, there is no such thing as a moral absolute; there are only preferences. You don't actually have a right to live; you just prefer not to die. Someone else on the other hand might want to kill you regardless of how you feel about it, and who is to say that they're wrong? In the absence of absolute morality, power reigns supreme; the strong survive and the weak get exploited. Thankfully most governments see it as their duty to uphold what they see as your God-given right to live, and governments also happen to be the strongest institution among men (which means they can enforce morality upon those who don't necessarily agree with your right to live). The founders of the United States of America put it well when they declared, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…" Unfortunately, some governments don't share this worldview and their people suffer terribly for it.

Why Am I Here? - The Theistic Worldview Why am I here? Well, if God does exist, that means He is ultimate reality. If He created you for a reason, that's ultimately why your here. If you're valuable to Him, that's ultimately what you're worth. What He says is right is absolutely right and what He says is wrong is absolutely wrong. We may be free moral agents with the freedom to make moral decisions, but that doesn't mean we can choose what actually is right or wrong; that just means we're capable of choosing to be right or wrong. God makes the rules. The question is: will He enforce them? Will God ever hold us accountable for our moral decisions? The prevailing instinct among the majority seems to be that, yes, God will hold us accountable. It's as if most people instinctually know that one day they're going to have to explain all the bad things they've done (which of course means that they also instinctually know that there is such a thing as moral absolutes). The point is, if God really does exist, terms like "justice," "purpose," and "morality" aren't abstract notions: God has a purpose for you (that's why He made you), He's the one who instituted morality, and in the end He'll see that justice prevails. That's a comforting thought to some, but it's terrifying to others. So don't begin by asking, "Why am I here?" Begin by asking, "Does God exist?" If He doesn't exist there's really no point in asking "why am I here?" - everything is ultimately pointless. And if He does exist, you'll discover your reason for living when you discover who He is. So begin at the beginning. Does God exist?

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Footnote: 1 Clifton Fadiman, ed., Living Philosophies: The Reflections of Some Eminent Men and Women of Our Time, New York: Simon Schuster, 1931.

• What is the purpose of life?
• What Am I Worth?
• What will happen when I die? Where will I go?
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• Is There A God?

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Why Am I Here?

Four words and a single piece of punctuation. Fourteen characters in total, including the spaces. Hardly an overwhelming piece of literary work. Not even a very long question, really. And yet those four words, and the inquisitiveness that the question mark adds to them, have incredible amounts of power.

When uttered by a genuinely curious soul, they open up an opportunity to experience existence in a way so profound, that ordinary life completely pales in comparison. Because when we genuinely ask that question of ourselves, we begin exploration into living a life of purpose . And that, opens up a new world of possibilities.

I was twenty-eight when it first dawned on me to ask the question. Later than many. Earlier than some, I suppose. But better late than never. I eventually wrote about my experiences in my first book, The Cafe on the Edge of the World. And one of the most profound learnings I’ve had in interacting with readers of that book is how alone they’ve felt as it related to that question.

Because although it’s becoming more common to engage in conversations about “purpose,” it’s not like that’s the start of most discussions. Sports, the weather, the latest breaking news…sure, you get those a lot. But purpose? Not so much.

We can find ourselves questioning if we’re the only ones wondering if there isn’t more to life than the usual day in, day out activities.

So we can find ourselves questioning if we’re the only ones wondering if there isn’t more to life than the usual day in, day out activities. Wake up, go to a job that’s just OK. Go home, have dinner, spend a little time with friends or family. Go to bed, and start the whole cycle again the next day.

It turns out though, we’re not the only ones. Not by a long shot. My books have been published in forty-two languages. They are spread among readers from incredibly different cultures, lifestyles, and ways of thinking. And when I travel to different countries and interact with readers, what I find is that despite all these differences, there are so many people sharing a common desire to live an extraordinary and meaningful life. This shows me that innate within the human experience, at least for many people, is the desire for living a life with purpose.

And technology is an incredible enabler in that regard. These days you can listen to a podcast created by someone halfway around the world. Or watch their talk on YouTube, read an article they’ve written, or maybe even speak with them. All for no cost and with the click of a button.

So knowing all that, where does one begin with their quest to live a life of purpose?

Step one is authenticity.

That question, “Why am I here?” can only really be answered by you, as it relates to your life. Others can help guide you, for sure. But if they are a good guide, what they’re really doing is asking you questions which help you find your own answers.

Step two is effort.

People have a general understanding that without effort, very little happens in life. You can’t get from your bed to the kitchen by wishing you were in the kitchen. Yet when it comes to discovering and living their life’s purpose, people can get caught in wishing mode. They spend a lot of time wishing they knew their life’s purpose, and wishing they were living in a way that felt more meaningful. But they aren’t taking steps toward identifying their purpose.

If you find yourself operating that way, here are a few suggestions to get you going.

1. Research Your Dream Life Role Models

For starters, ask yourself who is living your dream life? Come up with a list of three or four people and write down what it is about their life you admire so much. Is it the way they spend their time? The attitude or approach to life they have? The contributions they make to others? These could be people you know well, or they could be people you’ve never met, but know about.

What about their life do you find meaningful? The fact that living life the way they do makes them happy? That it makes a positive difference in the lives of others? That it breaks new thought boundaries?

Then learn everything you can about those people. Were they always living the way they are now? If not, what steps did they take to go from where they were, to where they are now? What obstacles did they encounter along the way and how did they deal with those obstacles? YouTube, biographies and Google searches are fantastic tools if you don’t personally know these people.

They will probably congratulate you, or ask how it’s going. Which is the perfect time to ask for advice. Say something like, “I’m struggling with finding what excites me.” Or, “It’s been tough to adjust my schedule to match my interests.” Or whatever else you’re struggling with. Then say something like, “I’ve always admired that about you. You seem so connected with the life you want to live and are out there living it.” Or, “You seem to be able to maintain such focus on what matters to you.”

Take the opportunity to learn from this person you admire. Do your best to listen a lot and talk little during this part of the conversation. Asking questions is great. Spending a lot of time talking about yourself isn’t.

Taking these action steps will help you leverage the experiences of others, to identify what your purpose filled life could look like.

2. Leverage Previous Meaningful Moments

Here’s another great exercise you can do in parallel to that. This one is about looking at your own life and using past experiences as guiding sources for the future life you want to live.

For this one, write down the five most meaningful moments you’ve had in the last year. This is a very top of mind exercise. Write down the first things that come to mind when you ask yourself that question. Then ask what it is about those moments that made them meaningful. Is it the people you were with, the activities you were spending your time on, the environments you were in, the impact you were having? How long did those moments last? Would you have preferred they were even longer? If so, why weren’t they longer? What would need to change in your life so they could be longer next time?

What was the frequency of those meaningful moments? Once a week, once a month, or the only time in the last five years? Who decided that frequency? Would your life feel more purpose filled if those moments happened more frequently? If so, what would need to be different in your life to make that happen?

What’s fantastic about these mind games is we start to really take strides towards understanding what joy , happiness, and a purpose filled life looks like for ourselves. We also start to challenge our mind to explore ways in which we might fill our time with more of what feels meaningful to us.

they are sitting and waiting for that dramatic moment to happen before they start taking any real steps of their own to uncover and live their purpose.

These games are also good for helping people get past what I call the “booming voice syndrome.” I’ve come across a fair number of people who are confident their life does have a purpose. They would like to know and live that purpose. They are convinced however that this purpose will only be revealed to them in a dramatic flash of revelation. The booming voice from the sky, if you will. So they are sitting and waiting for that dramatic moment to happen before they start taking any real steps of their own to uncover and live their purpose.

In my experience, there are definitely forces at play which help us live our life’s purpose. This often results in moments being created to assist us which are beyond the coincidental. And I have read of people who’ve had a “booming voice” moment, where their life path become apparent to them in a flash of insight and revelation. I’ve met far more people though, who have figured out their purpose through intention, action, and choice.

So certainly enjoy the booming voice moment if it comes to you. But in the interim, go ahead and make progress of your own.

3. Identify Your Version of a Purposeful Life

The second way I’ll share it is in likelihood of impact. If part of your life purpose is to inspire others, then the greatest way to do that is live your life’s purpose. Every inspiring biography is inspiring because the main character did something extraordinary with their life. The arenas for that extraordinary are widely varied. Art, science, sport, business, philanthropy…. What they have in common though is that the person identified their purpose, and lived it to the best of their abilities. And in doing so, they left a lasting source of inspiration for all who learned about them.

Enjoy the adventure!

John Strelecky is the author of the #1 Bestselling The Cafe on the Edge oft he World and Big Five for Life series of books. Subscribe to this blog to learn more about his works, and about discovering and living your version of an amazing life.

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What is my Purpose? Why am I Here?

August 22, 2019

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When you ask yourself “What is my Purpose?” or, “Why am I Here?” you might be wondering why you were put on this earth, or what difference you were intended to make. You might wonder what the outcome of your existence will be, what legacy you’ll leave, or what ripple effect you will cause.

It is important that we set goals, and create win/win situations for all involved; however, if we get too caught up in outcomes , we can miss the differences we made through our experiences and journeys.

Precession is the Answer to “What is My Purpose?”

Precession, as coined by Buckminster Fuller, is the effect of a body in motion on other bodies in motion. As you’re moving toward a goal you’ve set for yourself, it’s not necessarily the achievement of that goal that will make the biggest difference in the world. Instead, it’s the movements you created along the way.

To illustrate this point, think of a honey bee’s purpose. He wants to get as much nectar as possible. Nectar, nectar, nectar…that’s all he thinks about when he leaves the hive. However, that’s not the difference he makes. The difference he makes — or his purpose — is the pollen he gathers and spreads from flower to flower. That’s what’s necessary for future blooms. That’s what’s necessary for that beauty to continue, for fruit trees to bear fruit.

And so, like the honey bee, we are fulfilling our purpose with everything we do on the way to achieving our goals.

A Simple, “Purposeful” Exercise

In this podcast, I’m going to guide you through a simple exercise that will draw out your subconscious thoughts around what you want to experience…so you become more clear about the questions you’ve been asking: “What is my Purpose?” “Why am I Here?”

And what you’ll learn is sure to be eye-opening. Nearly everyone who completes this exercise has an Ah-Hah moment that stays with them for their entire life. It stays with them while they’re out in the world, or in their own homes, making choices and making differences.

You might be blessed enough to see your purpose played out in the differences you make. Or, you might never see the differences you make. Either way, it’s crucial that you understand you ARE having an effect. You ARE making a difference.

Because if you’re in motion, you’re affecting others.

After you listen to this podcast and have a better answer to the question “What is my Purpose?” I urge you to visit essenceofbeing.com/cla to learn more about how conscious and courageous leaders, just like you, are supporting one another in creating win/win situations and making differences.

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Why Am I Here?

Why are we on earth? What’s our purpose? What is the meaning of life? How do we know if this is where we’re supposed to be?

Though the Bible urges us to follow God’s plan for our lives (see  Joshua 22:5 ), discovering God’s plan can seem insurmountable. At times we wish we had a detailed road map to follow that would outline every major decision of our lives. But such a map, if it existed, would stand in the way of faith and daily dependency on God.

So what is God’s plan for you? The Bible outlines several things that reveal his plan for all his children: God desires that you love him (see  Deuteronomy 6:5 ), obey him (see  Deuteronomy 6:24 ), grow in faith (see  1 Thessalonians 4:3 ), develop gifts to serve the church (see  1 Corinthians 12:4 – 7 ), do good works for others (see  Ephesians 2:10 ), remain sexually pure (see  1 Thessalonians 4:3 ), remain free from the love of money (see  Hebrews 13:5 ) and share the good news of Jesus with others (see  Matthew 28:18 – 20 ). Though you may be seeking guidance on where the next step on your life journey should lead, you can be certain that God’s Word will never lead you away from these things.

You can discern more about God’s plan through the reading of the Bible, through the wise counsel of others and through stewardship and development of your God-given gifts. Above all else, be faithful in prayer as you present your questions to God and depend on him to direct you. He’s promised to lead you in the right direction: “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it’ ” ( Isaiah 30:21 ).

Here are some additional thoughts about God’s Plan from the Bible.

Our Identity and Purpose in Life

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.  –  2 Corinthians 5:18 – 21

In 2 Corinthians, Paul tells us what our role in the world is as Christians. We must be ambassadors for Christ on earth, showing his love for humanity as revealed in the gospel. Just as we were reconciled to God through faith in Christ, so too others can be reconciled to God as God uses us to share with them the message of reconciliation.

Following God’s plan for our lives means that we mirror the example of the apostles, sharing the Good News with others and showing them our good works by example. Just as Jesus commanded the apostles to trust in God as they became leaders of men and women, so too must we trust in God to help us do the right thing. Being Christians is about more than just going to church on Sundays — God’s plan requires Christians to be ambassadors for Christ, all seven days of the week and every day of the year. Our love for Christ should be evident in our hearts and be expressed through our words and deeds

We Were Born to Serve

Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.  –  Galatians 6:10

When we think about God’s plan for our lives, we often end up wondering about a different question entirely: What about our own plans for our lives? We fantasize about who we’re supposed to marry, what job we’re supposed to take, where we’re supposed to live, or what other elements of life we should pursue for our happiness.

What we forget is that God’s plan for us is far greater than our own. God tells us throughout the Bible that we are born to serve him. This life of service means that we must love others and attend to their needs. God calls us to be kind, tenderhearted and forgiving toward each other (see  Ephesians 4:32 ). Part of God’s plan for us is serving others in the way he’s outlined for us. Just as the Good Samaritan helped the man in need in Jesus’ parable (see  Luke 10:25 – 37 ), we too must follow Christ’s example and obediently help those who need us most.

Value People

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  –  John 3:16

While we are called to the mission of being ambassadors for Christ in this world, God’s plan for us extends far beyond what we do here on earth. He has called us to come home to his kingdom to live with him in eternity. We learn in the Gospel of John that God’s plan for us is born out of love, a love so strong that he sacrificed his only Son — Jesus Christ — in order to redeem us. Though we may worry about tomorrow — whether we’ll get a job, whether we’ll meet that special someone — God’s concern for us is much greater. God’s love for us means that his plan for us is one of eternal salvation. We have all sinned and fallen short of God’s glory (see  Romans 3:23 ), but the Holy Spirit calls us to receive God’s love and to share it with others.

Content from this article is drawn from study features in the  NIV Essentials of the Christian Faith, New Testament .

NIV Essentials of the Christian Faith, New Testament

The  NIV Essentials of the Christian Faith, New Testament  is perfect for outreach and evangelism. It includes specially written articles that give an overview of fourteen key tenets of the Christian faith, such as  Who Is God?, Why Go to Church?, What Is Faith?  and  What Is God’s Plan for Me?

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Home — Essay Samples — Education — Academic Interests — Why I Am Here

Why I Am Here

• Categories: Academic Interests Personal Goals

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Published: Sep 19, 2019

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Have you ever asked yourself this question “Why am I here”?

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For as long as I can remember, I have been wondering “Why am I here?” . When teachers at school asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, I would answer “I want to be happy” . But, this is not a job. So, as my fellow students, I went to school, and since I had good grades, I went to University to do some engineering without really knowing “Why am I here?” . Does it seem similar to you?

I struggled a lot with the lessons that I didn’t like because I didn’t see the point. I finally succeeded in having my engineering degree, yes… But, then, what? Did I have some clue then about “Why am I here”? Nope . Still no answer.

So I followed the general path, and found a job. Then, another one. I had the feeling that my life was meaningless. I spent hours looking at my screen computer, saying to myself, “there has to be something else…” . Motivation and concentration went down bit by bit, pressure and stress went up, so much that one day… I couldn’t pretend anymore . My body and my brain told me to stop . After one more year, switching back and forth between being on sick leave and going to work, I finally quit my job .

During this previous year, I had some time to wonder “Why am I here?” . I had gotten an interest into personal development few years beforehand, and as I was in a quest to discover the meaning of my life, I was interested with happiness, habits, productivity, well-being, and life purpose. I was really into it, spending hours reading books, articles, doing online training, webinars, seminars… I learnt a lot and I applied it to my life. I was in my element when doing this. And I had lots of positives results .

So when I quit my job, I decided that, yes, it was time for me to start something meaningful. I have tested numerous things in my own life, some didn’t work, and some had a really positive impact. This is why I decided to talk about my own struggles and experiences in life in order to help those who are struggling now and wondering “Why am I here?” .

It has only been 6 months since I have launched my website, but for the first time in my life, I finally know “Why I am here” . I found my path in this world and my goal is to make others find their own. But this all starts with one small yet so important thing: you have to LOVE yourself first . Everything comes from this. You have the power. You are able to do whatever you want. You are able to be whoever you want. But you have to believe in yourself. You have to trust yourself.

Life is not a bed of roses and we do struggle a lot just to survive here. Yet the purpose of life is not to “survive” but to really “live your life at the best”.

I now aim at making a difference and informing as many as I can about the fact that everything is possible. Because if “I” have succeeded in finding my place here, everyone can do the same. It won’t be easy, for sure, but the journey that will lead you to your real deserved place is full of good experiences, people and growth.

You deserve to show the world your potential because, yes, even if you don’t believe so yet, you HAVE potential, you have a really great potential. But much like the seed lost in the desert, you need the right environment to blossom. You need to move and to create these good surroundings for yourself. No one will ever do it for you. You have to be the creator of your life. If you want things to change, YOU have to change.

And I will do all that I can to help you find your special quality, your special talent and potential.

Believe in yourself, trust life and never forget about your dreams. I will bet that soon, you too will know “why you are here” .

Choose Your Test

Sat / act prep online guides and tips, how to write a perfect "why this college" essay.

College Essays

Did you think you were all done pouring out your blood, sweat, and tears in written form for your personal statement , only to be faced with the "why this college?" supplemental essay? This question might seem simple but is in fact a crucial and potentially tricky part of many college applications. What exactly is the "why us?" essay trying to understand about you? And how do you answer this question without falling into its many pitfalls or making any rookie mistakes?

In this article, I'll explain why colleges want you to be able to explain why you are applying. I'll also discuss how to generate and brainstorm topics for this question and how to make yourself sound sincere and committed. Finally, we'll go over some "why this school?" essay do s and don't s.

This article is pretty detailed, so here's a brief overview of what we'll be covering:

Why Do Colleges Want You to Write a "Why Us?" Essay?

Two types of "why this college" essay prompts, step 1: research the school, step 2: brainstorm potential essay topics, step 3: nail the execution, example of a great "why this college" essay.

College admissions officers have to read an incredible amount of student work to put together a winning class, so trust me when I say that everything they ask you to write is meaningful and important .

The purpose of the "why us?" essay goes two ways. On one hand, seeing how you answer this question gives admissions officers a sense of whether you know and value their school .

On the other hand, having to verbalize why you are applying gives you the chance to think about what you want to get out of your college experience  and whether your target schools fit your goals and aspirations.

What Colleges Get Out Of Reading Your "Why This College?" Essay

Colleges want to check three things when they read this essay.

First, they want to see that you have a sense of what makes this college different and special.

• Do you know something about the school's mission, history, or values?
• Have you thought about the school's specific approach to learning?
• Are you comfortable with the school's traditions and the overall feel of student life here?

Second, they want proof that you will be a good fit for the school.

• Where do your interests lie? Do they correspond to this school's strengths?
• Is there something about you that meshes well with some aspect of the school?
• How will you contribute to college life? How will you make your mark on campus?

And third, they want to see that this school will, in turn, be a good fit for you.

• What do you want to get out of college? Will this college be able to provide that? Will this school contribute to your future success?
• What will you take advantage of on campus (e.g., academic programs, volunteer or travel opportunities, internships, or student organizations)?
• Will you succeed academically? Does this school provide the right rigor and pace for your ideal learning environment?

What You Get Out Of Writing Your "Why This College?" Essay

Throughout this process of articulating your answers to the questions above, you will also benefit in a couple of key ways:

It Lets You Build Excitement about the School

Finding specific programs and opportunities at schools you are already happy about will give you a grounded sense of direction for when you start school . At the same time, by describing what is great about schools that are low on your list, you'll likely boost your enthusiasm for these colleges and keep yourself from feeling that they're nothing more than lackluster fallbacks.

It Helps You Ensure That You're Making the Right Choice

Writing the "why us?" essay can act as a moment of clarity. It's possible that you won't be able to come up with any reasons for applying to a particular school. If further research fails to reveal any appealing characteristics that fit with your goals and interests, this school is likely not for you.

At the end of your four years, you want to feel like this, so take your "Why This College?" essay to heart.

The "why this college?" essay is best thought of as a back-and-forth between you and the college . This means that your essay will really be answering two separate, albeit related, questions:

• "Why us?": This is where you explain what makes the school special in your eyes, what attracted you to it, and what you think you'll get out of your experience there.
• "Why you?": This is the part where you talk about why you'll fit in at the school; what qualities, skills, talents, or abilities you'll contribute to student life; and how your future will be impacted by the school and its opportunities.

Colleges usually use one of these approaches to frame this essay , meaning that your essay will lean heavier toward whichever question is favored in the prompt. For example, if the prompt is all about "why us?" you'll want to put your main focus on praising the school. If the prompt instead is mostly configured as "why you?" you'll want to dwell at length on your fit and potential.

It's good to remember that these two prompts are simply two sides of the same coin. Your reasons for wanting to apply to a particular school can be made to fit either of these questions.

For instance, say you really want the chance to learn from the world-famous Professor X. A "why us?" essay might dwell on how amazing an opportunity studying with him would be for you, and how he anchors the Telepathy department.

Meanwhile, a "why you?" essay would point out that your own academic telepathy credentials and future career goals make you an ideal student to learn from Professor X, a renowned master of the field.

Next up, I'll show you some real-life examples of what these two different approaches to the same prompt look like.

Clarifying why you want to study with a particular professor in a specific department can demonstrate to college admissions staff that you've done your research on the school.

"Why Us?" Prompts

• Why [this college]?
• Why are you interested in [this college]?
• Why is [this college] a good choice for you?
• What do you like best about [this college]?
• Why do you want to attend [this college]?

Below are some examples of actual "why us?" college essay prompts:

• Colorado College : "Describe how your personal experiences with a particular community make you a student who would benefit from Colorado College’s Block Plan."
• Tufts University : " I am applying to Tufts because… "
• Tulane University : "Describe why you are interested in joining the Tulane community. Consider your experiences, talents, and values to illustrate what you would contribute to the Tulane community if admitted." (via the Common App )
• University of Michigan : "Describe the unique qualities that attract you to the specific undergraduate College or School (including preferred admission and dual degree programs) to which you are applying at the University of Michigan. How would that curriculum support your interests?"
• Wellesley College : " When choosing a college, you are choosing an intellectual community and a place where you believe that you can live, learn, and flourish. We know that there are more than 100 reasons to choose Wellesley, but it's a good place to start. Visit the Wellesley 100 and select two items that attract, inspire, or celebrate what you would bring to our community. Have fun! Use this opportunity to reflect personally on what items appeal to you most and why. "

In a "why us?" essay, focus on the specific aspects of the school that appeal to you and how you will flourish because of those offerings.

"Why You?" Prompts

• Why are you a good match or fit for us?
• What are your interests, and how will you pursue them at [this college]?
• What do you want to study, and how will that correspond to our program?
• What or how will you contribute?
• Why you at [this college]?
• Why are you applying to [this college]?

Here are some examples of the "why you?" version of the college essay:

• Babson College : " A defining element of the Babson experience is learning and thriving in an equitable and inclusive community with a wide range of perspectives and interests. Please share something about your background, lived experiences, or viewpoint(s) that speaks to how you will contribute to and learn from Babson's collaborative community. "
• Bowdoin College : "Generations of students have found connection and meaning in Bowdoin's 'The Offer of the College.' ... Which line from the Offer resonates most with you? Optional: The Offer represents Bowdoin's values. Please reflect on the line you selected and how it has meaning to you." (via the Common App )

In a "why you?" essay, focus on how your values, interests, and motivations align with the school's offerings and how you'll contribute to campus life.

No matter how the prompt is worded, this essay is a give-and-take of what you and the college have to offer each other. Your job is to quickly zoom in on your main points and use both precision and detail to sound sincere, excited, and authentic.

How do you effectively explain the benefits you see this particular school providing for you and the contributions you will bring to the table as a student there? And how can you do this best using the small amount of space that you have (usually just one to two paragraphs)?

In this section, we'll go through the process of writing the "Why This College?" essay, step-by-step. First, I'll talk about the prep work you'll need to do. Next, we'll go through how to brainstorm good topics (and touch on what topics to avoid). I'll give you some tips on transforming your ideas and research into an actual essay. Finally, I'll take apart an actual "why us?" essay to show you why and how it works.

Before you can write about a school, you'll need to know specific things that make it stand out and appeal to you and your interests . So where do you look for these? And how do you find the details that will speak to you? Here are some ways you can learn more about a school.

In-Person Campus Visits

If you're going on college tours , you've got the perfect opportunity to gather information about the school. Bring a notepad and write down the following:

• Your tour guide's name
• One to two funny, surprising, or enthusiastic things your guide said about the school
• Any unusual features of the campus, such as buildings, sculptures, layout, history, or traditions

Try to also connect with students or faculty while you're there. If you visit a class, note which class it is and who teaches it. See whether you can briefly chat with a student (e.g., in the class you visit, around campus, or in a dining hall), and ask what they like most about the school or what has been most surprising about being there.

Don't forget to write down the answer! Trust me, you'll forget it otherwise—especially if you do this on multiple college visits.

Virtual Campus Visits

If you can't visit a campus in person, the next best thing is an online tour , either from the school's own website or from other websites, such as YOUniversityTV , CampusTours , or YouTube (search "[School Name] + tour").

You can also connect with students without visiting the campus in person . Some admissions websites list contact information for currently enrolled students you can email to ask one or two questions about what their experience of the school has been like.

Or if you know what department, sport, or activity you're interested in, you can ask the admissions office to put you in touch with a student who is involved with that particular interest.

If you can't visit a campus in person, request a video chat with admissions staff, a current student, or a faculty member to get a better sense of specific topics you might write about in your essay.

Alumni Interview

If you have an interview , ask your interviewer questions about their experience at the school and about what going to that school has done for them since graduation. As always, take notes!

College Fairs

If you have a chance to go to a college fair where your ideal college has representatives, don't just attend and pick up a brochure. Instead, e ngage the representatives in conversation, and ask them about what they think makes the school unique .  Jot down notes on any interesting details they tell you.

The College's Own Materials

Colleges publish lots and lots of different admissions materials—and all of these will be useful for your research. Here are some suggestions for what you can use. (You should be able to find all of the following resources online.)

Brochures and Course Catalogs

Read the mission statement of the school; does its educational philosophy align with yours? You should also read through its catalogs. Are there any programs, classes, departments, or activities that seem tailor-made for you in some way?

Pro Tip: These interesting features you find should be unusual in some way or different from what other schools offer. For example, being fascinated with the English department isn't going to cut it unless you can discuss its unusual focus, its world-renowned professors, or the different way it structures the major that appeals to you specifically.

Alumni Magazine

Are any professors highlighted? Does their research speak to you or connect with a project you did in high school or for an extracurricular?

Sometimes alumni magazines will highlight a college's new focus or new expansion. Does the construction of a new engineering school relate to your intended major? There might also be some columns or letters written by alumni who talk about what going to this particular school has meant to them. What stands out about their experiences?

School or Campus Newspaper

Students write about the hot issues of the day, which means that the articles will be about the best and worst things on campus . It'll also give you insight into student life, opportunities that are available to students, activities you can do off campus, and so on.

The College's Social Media

Your ideal school is most likely on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, and other social media. Follow the school to see what it's posting about.  Are there any exciting new campus developments? Professors in the news? Interesting events, clubs, or activities?

The Internet

Wikipedia is a great resource for learning basic details about a college's history, traditions, and values. I also recommend looking for forums on College Confidential that specifically deal with the school you're researching.

Another option is to search on Google for interesting phrases, such as "What students really think about [School Name]" or "[School Name] student forum." This will help you get detailed points of view, comments about specific programs or courses, and insight into real student life.

So what should you do now that you've completed a bunch of research? Answer: use it to develop connection points between you and your dream school. These connections will be the skeleton of your "why this college?" essay.

Find the Gems in Your Research

You have on hand all kinds of information, from your own personal experiences on campus and your conversations with people affiliated with your ideal school to what you've learned from campus publications and tidbits gleaned from the web.

Now, it's time to sift through all of your notes to find the three to five things that really speak to you. Link what you've learned about the school to how you can plug into this school's life, approach, and environment. That way, no matter whether your school's prompt is more heavily focused on the "why us?" or "why you?" part of the give-and-take, you'll have an entry point into the essay.

But what should these three to five things be? What should you keep in mind when you're looking for the gem that will become your topic?

Here are some words of wisdom from Calvin Wise , director of recruitment and former associate director of admissions at Johns Hopkins University (emphasis mine):

" Focus on what makes us unique and why that interests you. Do your research, and articulate a multidimensional connection to the specific college or university. We do not want broad statements (the brick pathways and historic buildings are beautiful) or a rehash of the information on our website (College X offers a strong liberal arts curriculum). All institutions have similarities. We want you to talk about our differences. "

Time to find that diamond, amethyst, opal, tourmaline, or amber in the rough.

Check Your Gems for Color and Clarity

When I say "check your gems," I mean make sure that each of the three to five things you've found is something your ideal school has that other schools don't have.

This something should be seen from your own perspective. The point isn't to generically praise the school but instead to go into detail about why it's so great for you that they have this thing.

This something you find should be meaningful to the school and specific to you. For example, if you focus on academics (e.g., courses, instructors, opportunities, or educational philosophy), find a way to link them either to your previous work or to your future aspirations.

This something should not be shallow and nonspecific. Want to live in a city? Every city has more than one college in it. Find a way to explain why this specific college in this specific city calls to you. Like pretty architecture? Many schools are beautiful, so dwell on why this particular place feels unlike any other. Like good weather, beach, skiing, or some other geographical attribute? There are many schools located near these places, and they know that people enjoy sunbathing. Either build a deeper connection or skip these as reasons.

Convert Your Gems into Essay Topics

Every "why this college?" essay is going to answer both the "why us?" and the "why you?" parts of the back-and-forth equation. But depending on which way your target school has worded its prompt, you'll lean more heavily on that part . This is why I'm going to split this brainstorming into two parts—to go with the "why us?" and "why you?" types of questions.

Of course, since they are both sides of the same coin, you can always easily flip each of these ideas around to have it work well for the other type of prompt . For example, a "why us?" essay might talk about how interesting the XYZ interdisciplinary project is and how it fits well with your senior project.

By contrast, a "why you?" essay would take the same idea but flip it to say that you've learned through your senior project how you deeply value an interdisciplinary approach to academics, making you a great fit for this school and its commitment to such work, as evidenced by project XYZ.

Describing how project XYZ demonstrates your investment in a particular course of study that then happens to align with a specific program at the university is an effective approach to the "why you?" essay.

Possible "Why Us?" Topics

• How a particular program of study, internship requirement, or volunteer connection will help further your specific career goals .
• The school's interesting approach to your future major (if you know what that will be) or a major that combines several disciplines that appeal to you and fit with your current academic work and interests.
• How the school handles financial aid and the infrastructure setup for low-income students and what that means for you in terms of opening doors.
• A story about how you became interested in the school (if you learned about it in an interesting way). For example, did the institution host a high school contest you took part in? Did you attend an art exhibit or stage performance there that you enjoyed and that your own artistic work aligns with?
• How you overcame an initial disinterest in the school (be sure to minimize this first negative impression). Did you do more research? Interact with someone on campus? Learn about the school's commitment to the community? Learn about interesting research being done there?
• A positive interaction you had with current students, faculty, or staff, as long as this is more than just, "Everyone I met was really nice."
• An experience you had while on a campus tour. Was there a super-passionate tour guide? Any information that surprised you? Did something happen to transform your idea about the school or campus life (in a good way)?
• Interesting interdisciplinary work going on at the university and how that connects with your academic interests, career goals, or previous high school work.
• The history of the school —but only if it's meaningful to you in some way. Has the school always been committed to fostering minority, first-generation, or immigrant students? Was it founded by someone you admire? Did it take an unpopular (but, to you, morally correct) stance at some crucial moment in history?
• An amazing professor you can't wait to learn from. Is there a chemistry professor whose current research meshes with a science fair project you did? A professor who's a renowned scholar on your favorite literary or artistic period or genre? A professor whose book on economics finally made you understand the most recent financial crisis?
• A class that sounds fascinating , especially if it's in a field you want to major in.
• A facility or piece of equipment you can't wait to work in or with  and that doesn't exist in many other places. Is there a specialty library with rare medieval manuscripts? Is there an observatory?
• A required curriculum that appeals to you because it provides a solid grounding in the classics, shakes up the traditional canon, connects all the students on campus in one intellectual project, or is taught in a unique way.

If the school can boast a cutting-edge laboratory where you dream of conducting research, that would be a strong focus for a "Why Us?" essay.

Possible "Why You?" Topics

• Do you want to continue a project you worked on in high school? Talk about how or where in the current course, club, and program offerings this work would fit in. Why will you be a good addition to the team?
• Have you always been involved in a community service project that's already being done on campus? Write about integrating life on campus with events in the surrounding community.
• Do you plan to keep performing in the arts, playing music, working on the newspaper, or engaging in something else you were seriously committed to in high school? Discuss how excited you are to join that existing organization.
• Are you the perfect person to take advantage of an internship program (e.g., because you have already worked in this field, were exposed to it through your parents, or have completed academic work that gives you some experience with it)?
• Are you the ideal candidate for a study abroad opportunity (e.g., because you can speak the language of the country, it's a place where you've worked or studied before, or your career goals are international in some respect)?
• Are you a stand-out match for an undergraduate research project (e.g., because you'll major in this field, you've always wanted to work with this professor, or you want to pursue research as a career option)?
• Is there something you were deeply involved with that doesn't currently exist on campus? Offer to start a club for it. And I mean a club; you aren't going to magically create a new academic department or even a new academic course, so don't try offering that. If you do write about this, make double (and even triple) sure that the school doesn't already have a club, course, or program for this interest.
• What are some of the programs or activities you plan to get involved with on campus , and what unique qualities will you bring to them?
• Make this a mini version of a personal statement you never wrote.  Use this essay as another chance to show a few more of the skills, talents, or passions that don't appear in your actual college essay. What's the runner-up interest that you didn't write about? What opportunity, program, or offering at the school lines up with it?

One way to impress admissions staff in a "Why You?" essay is to discuss your fascination with a particular topic in a specific discipline, such as kinetic sculpture, and how you want to pursue that passion (e.g., as a studio art major).

Possible Topics for a College That's Not Your First Choice

• If you're writing about a school you're not completely psyched about, one way to sidestep the issue is to focus on what getting this degree will do for you in the future . How do you see yourself changing existing systems, helping others, or otherwise succeeding?
• Alternatively, discuss what the school values academically, socially, environmentally, or philosophically and how this connects with what you also care about . Does it have a vegan, organic, and cruelty-free cafeteria? A relationship with a local farm or garden? De-emphasized fraternity involvement? Strong commitment to environmental issues? Lots of opportunities to contribute to the community surrounding the school? Active inclusion and a sense of belonging for various underrepresented groups?
• Try to find at least one or two features you're excited about for each of the schools on your list. If you can't think of a single reason why this would be a good place for you to go, maybe you shouldn't be applying there!

Topics to Avoid in Your Essay

• Don't write about general characteristics, such as a school's location (or the weather in that location), reputation, or student body size. For example, anyone applying to the Webb Institute , which has just about 100 students , should by all means talk about having a preference for tiny, close-knit communities. By contrast, schools in sunny climates know that people enjoy good weather, but if you can't connect the outdoors with the college itself, think of something else to say.
• Don't talk about your sports fandom. Saying, "I can see myself in crimson and white/blue and orange/[some color] and [some other color]" is both overused and not a persuasive reason for wanting to go to a particular college. After all, you could cheer for a team without going to the school! Unless you're an athlete, you're an aspiring mascot performer, or you have a truly one-of-a-kind story to tell about your link to the team, opt for a different track.
• Don't copy descriptions from the college's website to tell admissions officers how great their institution is. They don't want to hear praise; they want to hear how you connect with their school. So if something on the college brochure speaks to you, explain why this specific detail matters to you and how your past experiences, academic work, extracurricular interests, or hobbies relate to that detail.
• Don't use college rankings as a reason you want to go to a school. Of course prestige matters, but schools that are ranked right next to each other on the list are at about the same level of prestige. What makes you choose one over the other?
• If you decide to write about a future major, don't just talk about what you want to study and why . Make sure that you also explain why you want to study this thing at this particular school . What do they do differently from other colleges?
• Don't wax poetic about the school's pretty campus. "From the moment I stepped on your campus, I knew it was the place for me" is another cliché—and another way to say basically nothing about why you actually want to go to this particular school. Lots of schools are pretty, and many are pretty in the exact same way.

Pop quiz: This pretty gothic building is on what college campus? Yes, that's right—it could be anywhere.

When you've put together the ideas that will make up your answer to the "why us?" question, it's time to build them into a memorable essay. Here are some tips for doing that successfully:

• Jump right in. The essay is short, so there's no need for an introduction or conclusion. Spend the first paragraph delving into your best one or two reasons for applying. Then, use the second paragraph to go into slightly less detail about reasons 2 (or 3) through 5.
• To thine own self be true. Write in your own voice, and be sincere about what you're saying. Believe me—the reader can tell when you mean it and when you're just blathering!
• Details, details, details. Show the school that you've done your research. Are there any classes, professors, clubs, or activities you're excited about at the school? Be specific (e.g., "I'm fascinated by the work Dr. Jenny Johnson has done with interactive sound installations").
• If you plan on attending if admitted, say so. Colleges care about the numbers of acceptances deeply, so it might help to know you're a sure thing. But don't write this if you don't mean it!
• Don't cut and paste the same essay for every school. At least once, you'll most likely forget to change the school name or some other telling detail. You also don't want to have too much vague, cookie-cutter reasoning, or else you'll start to sound bland and forgettable.

For more tips, check out our step-by-step essay-writing advice .

Avoid cookie-cutter responses to "why this college?" essay prompts. Instead, provide an essay that's personalized to that particular institution.

At this point, it'll be helpful to take a look at a "why us?" essay that works and figure out what the author did to create a meaningful answer to this challenging question.

Here is a "Why Tufts?" essay from James Gregoire '19 for Tufts University :

It was on my official visit with the cross country team that I realized Tufts was the perfect school for me. Our topics of conversation ranged from Asian geography to efficient movement patterns, and everyone spoke enthusiastically about what they were involved in on campus. I really related with the guys I met, and I think they represent the passion that Tufts' students have. I can pursue my dream of being a successful entrepreneur by joining the Tufts Entrepreneurs Society, pursuing an Entrepreneurial Leadership minor, and taking part in an up-and-coming computer science program.

Here are some of the main reasons this essay is so effective:

• Interaction with current students. James writes about hanging out with the cross-country team and sounds excited about meeting them.
• "I'm a great fit." He uses the conversation with the cross-country team members to talk about his own good fit here ("I really related with the guys I met").
• Why the school is special. James also uses the conversation as a way to show that he enjoys the variety of opportunities Tufts offers (their fun conversation covers Asian geography, movement patterns, and other things they "were involved with on campus").
• Taking advantage of this specialness. James doesn't just list things Tufts offers but also explains which of them are of specific value to him. He's interested in being an entrepreneur, so the Tufts Entrepreneurs Society and the Entrepreneurial Leadership courses appeal to him.
• Awareness of what the school is up to. Finally, James shows that he's aware of the latest Tufts developments when he mentions the new computer science program.

The Bottom Line: Writing a Great "Why This College?" Essay

• Proof that you understand what makes this college different and special
• Evidence that you'll be a good fit at this school
• Evidence that this college will, in turn, be a good fit for you

The prompt may be phrased in one of two ways: "Why us?" or "Why you?" But these are sides of the same coin and will be addressed in your essay regardless of the prompt style.

Writing the perfect "why this school?" essay requires you to first research the specific qualities and characteristics of this school that appeal to you. You can find this information by doing any or all of the following:

• Visiting campuses in person or virtually to interact with current students and faculty
• Posing questions to your college interviewer or to representatives at college fairs
• Reading the college's own materials , such as its brochures, official website, alumni magazine, campus newspaper, and social media
• Looking at other websites that talk about the school

To find a topic to write about for your essay, find the three to five things that really speak to you about the school , and then link each of them to yourself, your interests, your goals, or your strengths.

Avoid using clichés that could be true for any school, such as architecture, geography, weather, or sports fandom. Instead, focus on the details that differentiate your intended school from all the others .

What's Next?

Are you also working on your personal statement? If you're using the Common App, check out our complete breakdown of the Common App prompts and learn how to pick the best prompt for you .

If you're applying to a University of California school, we've got an in-depth article on how to write effective UC personal statements .

And if you're submitting ApplyTexas applications, read our helpful guide on how to approach the many different ApplyTexas essay prompts .

Struggling with the college application process as a whole? Our expert guides teach you how to ask for recommendations , how to write about extracurriculars , and how to research colleges .

Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education.

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“Why Am I Here?” – Understanding your Purpose

by Jerry Robinson | Christian Living , The Weekly Word | 6 comments

 “Why am I here?”

It is one of the most fundamental questions asked by every person who has ever walked the earth. It is a question that has baffled mankind since the beginning of time. After all, you and I played no role in our own existence. None of us requested to be born into this world. One day we simply appeared on this earth. So it is only natural to ponder: Why am I here ?

In fact, it is not a stretch to say that mankind instinctively realizes that the answer to this question is important. Interestingly, each one of us has already answered this question. Whether we realize it or not, our current path in life has been chosen based upon our own unique answer to this question.

I would even go a step further and suggest to you that the answer to this question not only determines your future on this earth, both also in the hereafter.

The Bible demystifies the purpose of our existence by revealing the origins of humanity. According to the New Testament, every person that exists was created by God, “through” and “for” Jesus Christ.

Put simply, every person and everything was created by God’s purpose, and for His purpose.

In addition, the Bible tells us that God crafted each one of us by His own hand:

“You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.” (Psalms 139:13-16)

Today, your life rests in the same loving hands that created you.

“In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.” (Job 12:10)

Friend, you have been placed on this earth for a very specific purpose. Obviously, I don’t know you. But I do know that if you are struggling to find meaning in your life, you should consider this question: If your life truly had no purpose or meaning, why would you feel the need to search for one? The search for meaning resides deep within every human being. We intuitively know that there is something greater than ourselves within the universe.

God chose to bring you into existence as a part of His own eternal will. You have an eternal purpose!

Your purpose exists in the mind and will of God. Discovering your life’s purpose will come as you search the mind and will of God through prayer and consistent Bible reading. Search for Him with all of your heart, mind, and soul. He is near and waiting for you to find Him.

How will you know when you have found your life’s purpose? You will know when you find it in Him.

“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” (Revelation 4:11)

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Home » Why Am I Here? Tough Question, Simple Answer

Why Am I Here? Tough Question, Simple Answer

• July 16, 2021

One of the most asked questions people ask themselves is, “Why am I here?”

Even asking yourself this question gives a hint toward the answer. In fact, “why am I here” answers itself.

To get to the question’s simplicity, we must pull back some layers of complexity.

I can just give you the answer now (or you can scroll down), but it won’t be accepted without first pulling back these layers.

Understanding your Why

It’s important that you understand why you’re asking this. The reason is that you may not really want the answer to this question, but to many other questions.

For now, let’s explore the two main reasons you may ask, “Why am I here?”

The first is out of pure curiosity. In this way, the answer does not really matter. It’s a question asked at the moment and then let go of in the next.

Surprisingly, when you let go of questions, answers come much faster as opposed to always asking questions.

And since you’re reading this article, chances are you still have questions.

The second main reason you may ask why you are here comes from a not-so-loving place.

Chances are you are bored with life, find it unfulfilling, and/or completely overwhelmed by it.

You want out!

This is not to be confused with wanting to die, you just want out of your current way of living.

Who would blame you? Not loving life is not living.

It’s kind of like undying…you aren’t dying, yet you won’t live.

But the fact that you’re asking this question is HUGE.

Asking, “Why am I here” shows signs of life and that you’re ready for change.

Embrace it and ask yourself again why you are here.

Then let the question go completely knowing deep down you’ll find your answer (hint: it’s below).

Where is “here”?

The “here” in the question is one of the most misunderstood parts because even you as the asker don’t really know what you’re asking.

For example, “here” could mean on earth, in this town, in this relationship, at this job, in this conversation, on this website, in this body, in this skin, at this party, in this time, etc.

You could think you’re asking for one of the above mentioned, but you’re really asking for another one of the above mentioned.

I know…it makes us humans sound confused. This is also true, which is why you understand what I’m pointing out.

But JClay, doesn’t “confused” mean that you don’t understand? Exactly. 😁

Back to “here”.

The first step in understanding why you are here is to know the “here” that you’re asking about.

If you want some extra credit, you can play the “Where’s here?” game. It’s where you ask yourself, “Where am I?”

You’ll probably start with the room that you are in and eventually escalate to your planet. After that, it starts to get tricky, but it’s a good awareness exercise to realize that you aren’t where you think you are.

So if you do play the “Where’s here?” game, try to go as far as you can.

And then of course ask yourself again, “Why am I here?” with the new awareness of where you think here is.

Who is “I” or who are you?

If your brain isn’t tingling yet, it’s about to.

Let’s talk the “I” aka your I-dentity aka your Individuality aka your I-dea of yourself.

Before I go too in-depth, ask yourself right now who you are.

Did answers come up like your name, profession, race, class, etc?

Let’s say you let go completely of your past, all of it. Who are you right now in this moment?

Your sex may have come into play. But are you just flesh? If so, you would’ve died with the millions of cells that died from your body today.

Go deeper. Who are you? And with the knowledge that you’re not a body , what are you?

Photo by Alida Bonifaz

If you were anything like me, you may have thought that you were your thoughts and emotions?

The problem, however, is that thoughts and emotions come and go, and you always seem to remain even when they’re gone.

So you’re not a body, you’re not your thoughts, and you’re not your emotions. What the heck are you?

Don’t say your past either. If you did, go listen to this song right now.

Since your past is gone while you are here, then we can conclude that you’re not your past either.

What you truly are

Let us now answer the questions, “Who am I?” and “What am I?”

Everything you perceive outside of yourself seems to have meaning.

What may not yet be realized is that you gave it all the meaning that it has.

This explains why some of your friends may like partying while you do not (or vice versa).

It’s because it has no meaning to you, or you place no value in it.

You are what gives value to the valueless.

In order to give value, you must be valuable.

In this, your identity is shared with all. You’ve given value to that you want to value and thus your own perceived value is reflected back to you.

You are not apart from anything. In other words, you are one with everything.

This is why mindset is everything.

That which you believe about a person or thing will be made real to you because you gave realness to it through your thoughts. You “realized” it.

Everyone is not ready to accept responsibility for their own thoughts. But once you do, you’ll see that life was always everything you thought it would be.

So what’s your purpose? Whatever you’ve done on purpose. 😁

The answer to, “Why am I here?”

To answer once and for all, “Why am I here”, let’s restate the big reveal from above.

You are not apart from anything…you are one with everything.

You believe that you are a separate being, but the truth is that you are one with all existence.

By asking yourself why you are here, you are siding with the false notion that you could be separate. And so in this asking, you are denying yourself yourself.

To ask, “Why am I here?” is to already have the answer.

The “I” is “here” because you’ve attempted to separate yourself from reality by asking a question that is not possible.

The idea of separateness is the cause of all despair and fear.

“Why am I here?” You are not, well at least not how you believe yourself to be.

You are not a body or thing.

You are not a thought or emotion.

To say that you are anything is to place a limit on yourself and what you are can only be described as limitless. Yet the word “limitless” is just a symbol and cannot represent the totality of what you are.

You exist beyond all existence. You cannot be separate from your Creator just as your creations cannot be separate from you.

Author’s Notes

I know. It got a little deep. Some may not even understand it right now.

It’s ok.

You will eventually.

I’ve even made this album to help you along.

It takes you step-by-step through the undoing of false ideas you have of yourself so that you may tap into your limitless potential.

And best of all, you can chill out and vibe to it from start to finish.

It’s title IAMNOBODY, IAMSOMEONE .

FOUND THIS HELPFUL? PLEASE CONSIDER SHARING 💕

• Tags: being , beliefs , mindset , oneness , purpose

2 thoughts on “ Why Am I Here? Tough Question, Simple Answer ”

Great perspective. What’s your purpose “whatever you’ve done on purpose”. Now that’s worth stating over and over again. To no fault of yours, I still have the same question. Before I came to this world in this body I must have had a purpose for it. Your points speak to the moment in this present time rather than the beginning of my time, which I believe was in spirit. Before I came to this earth, I purposely made a decision in spirit for some odd reason to come here. Lol.

But either way, you made several great points that no other has touched for me.

Hey Roxs, thanks! To address that, the answer is the same. In this moment you are making the world (future and past). An example is when you find yourself in the middle of a dream. You make a backstory for the scenario and determine where this path will lead you.

This present moment, in reality, is no different. Like most people, whenever they meet someone new, they size the person up (give them a past) and thus give that person a future based on that past.

For example, a man in dusty clothes approaches you at a gas station. The assumption may be, “this guy is homeless and going to ask for money.” That’s both past and future.

As an experiment, try this next time you meet someone new. Say to yourself, “I don’t know anything about this person, but I know this conversation will be filled with useful wisdom.” Now you’ve kept your attention in this moment freeing yourself from any past burdens while leaving the possibility for unlimited potential, which is why you are here.

So what story of your past and future will you give yourself right now? 😁

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How to Write a Stellar “Why This College?” Essay + Examples

What’s covered:, sample “why this college” prompts, faqs about the “why this college” essay.

• Common Mistakes to Avoid

Good “Why This College?” Essay Examples

• Brainstorming for this Essay
• Outlining Your Essay
• Where to Get Your Essay Edited

One of the most common college essay supplements will ask you to answer the question: “Why This College?” These essays are looking to see whether you’re a good fit for the campus community, and whether the college is a good fit for you and your goals. 

In this post, we’ll show you a couple examples of these prompts, go over good and bad sample responses, and break down how to ensure yours is one of the good ones. 

Let’s start by taking a look at real prompts that fit under the “Why This College?” archetype: 

Tufts: Which aspects of the Tufts undergraduate experience prompt your application? In short, ‘Why Tufts?’ (150 words)

Northwestern: Other parts of your application give us a sense for how you might contribute to Northwestern. But we also want to consider how Northwestern will contribute to your interests and goals. Help us understand what aspects of Northwestern appeal most to you, and how you’ll make use of specific resources and opportunities here. (300 words)

As you can see, these prompts are basically asking why you want to attend the school in question. Northwestern spells it out even further, and specifically asks how you’ll use their resources to achieve your goals.

Both prompts have word counts that are much shorter than that of the Common App, which is typical of supplemental essays. These two word counts are pretty representative, and you can expect the “Why This College?” essay length to be 100-400 words on average. That’s not a lot of space for a pretty important question, so it’s especially vital to use the word count wisely.

What are colleges looking for in the “Why Us” essay?

Colleges want to admit students who will not only enroll (to protect their yield), but also thrive on their campus. They ask this question to see whether you’re truly interested in the school and whether it’s the right place for you. You can write a strong response by citing specific ways the college can support your goals, as well as demonstrating your enthusiasm.

Which colleges have a “Why This College?” essay?

This is one of the most popular supplements among colleges. Here is a selection of top schools that ask this question:

• Northwestern
• Boston University
• University of Michigan

Check out our essay guides for these schools for more in-depth advice on how to write these essays.

What kind of writing style should I use?

This is a straightforward question that generally has a short word count, so you don’t need to use a narrative form at all. You can simply explain what you like about the school and why, but try to use varied sentence structure and organize the essay around your major goals. 

You can start your essay with a story if you want, however. For example, if you visited campus and experienced a really interesting course, or sat in on a meeting of a club you liked, this can make for a strong anecdote to begin your essay. Just make sure that whatever story you tell has some substance, and isn’t just a narration of how nice it was to walk around campus.

Can I copy and paste my essay for other schools?

Absolutely not. If your essay is general enough to apply to other schools, you know you need to rewrite it. The resources you mention should be highly specific to the college you’re writing about.

Common Mistakes When Writing the “Why This College?” Essay

The most common mistake students make is listing generic characteristics that could apply to any school. This negatively impacts your application, since it sends the message that you didn’t do your research, and aren’t truly interested in the school.

Here’s an example of something NOT to list in your “Why this college essay.” We’ll take the example of Tufts since we shared the prompt in the beginning.

What NOT to write: I’m applying to Tufts because of its low student to faculty ratio, the strong math department, and its prime location in Medford, just a hop away from Boston. When I visited campus, the school already felt like home.

This example is bad because many schools have low student to faculty ratios and strong math departments. There are also a ton of schools in or near Boston, many of which have low student to faculty ratios and great math departments too, such as Boston College, Harvard, Northeastern, Boston University, etc. If your statements can apply to other schools, that’s definitely not a good sign (avoid things like location, weather, size, and ranking).

The student also uses an emotional appeal with the line “it felt like home,” which might sound nice, but it has no substance and can be written for any school. You should definitely avoid making any statements like these.

This example shows that the student really hasn’t thought much about their fit with Tufts, and that it probably isn’t their top choice. This will impact your application negatively, especially since Tufts is known for taking applicants’ demonstrated interest more seriously than other schools . So, if you show that you show little interest through your essay, you may end up waitlisted or rejected, even if your stats are excellent.

Another thing that this example gets wrong is that it doesn’t describe the student’s goals or interests at all. It’s important to not only talk about why you picked the school, but also how exactly those aspects will help you grow. Remember, this kind of prompt is two-fold: in addition to explaining why the school is a good fit for you, you want to show why you, out of the many thousands of applicants they get each year, are a good fit for them.

To summarize, the main mistakes to avoid are:

• Citing generic aspects of the school (location, weather, size, and ranking)
• Using empty emotional appeals
• Not describing your goals and interests

Now that we know what a bad example might look like, here’s an example of a rewrite to part of the Tufts essay:

What TO write: As a potential Applied Mathematics major, I hope to gain the tools to model political behavior. I’m especially interested in elections, and am looking forward to taking the course “Mathematics of Social Choice,” as the centerpiece of Social Choice Theory is voting. I would also love to take “Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos,” because it will teach me to use differential equations to predict chaotic behavior. 

This is a good example, as the courses listed are highly-specific to Tufts, as well as the student’s professional goals. We not only learned something about Tufts, but also the student. Keep in mind that this wouldn’t be a complete essay⁠—it’s just an example of good, specific resources to list, and how to connect them to your own interests. 

If you want an example of a complete essay, here’s this real student response for Boston University’s “Why This College?” prompt.

Prompt: In no more than 250 words, please tell us why BU is a good fit for you and what

specifically has led you to apply for admission.

Boston University’s College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) attracts me because of its support of interdisciplinary study among its wide array of majors. In fact, the CAS now offers a course that combines biology, chemistry, and neuroscience. As I hope to conduct medical research into brain disorders, I plan to pursue all three areas of study. These cross-disciplinary connections at BU will prepare me to do so.

CAS’s undergraduate research program would allow me to work with a mentor, such as Dr. Alice Cronin-Golomb or Dr. Robert M.G. Reinhart related to their research on neurological disorders. With them, I can advance the work I have already completed related to Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). In a summer class at our local university, my partner and I extracted data from fMRI and PET studies and inputted them into a coding program. We then created an indicator map, which we imported into another software program, AFNI, to display significant activity in the brain regions affected by DID. Seeing the representation of our data thrilled me because I knew it could eventually help people who live with DID. I want to experience that feeling again. Successfully analyzing these fMRI and PET studies and learning to code drives me to pursue more research opportunities, and this desire motivates me to study at a university that offers research opportunities to undergraduates. BU’s interdisciplinary approach to psychology and support for independent undergraduate undergraduate research will optimally prepare me for a career as a neurological researcher.

This student clearly outlines BU-specific resources (the interdisciplinary course and undergrad research program), plus how these resources align with their professional goals (to become a neurological researcher). They do “name-drop” professors, but since their work clearly relates to the student’s interests, it doesn’t look disingenuous, and shows that the student has done research on their fit with BU. The student also provides background on why they want to pursue research, and shows that they already have experience, which makes their interest in the undergrad research program more concrete.

The only thing missing from this essay is the student’s fit with BU in terms of extracurriculars and social life. “Why This College?” essays should also cover extracurriculars, as the residential college experience is about more than just class and homework. Admissions officers are also interested in how you’ll contribute to their broader campus community.

In general, these essays should be academic-leaning (especially if they’re under 250 words), but you should still address some social aspects of the college that appeal to you (we recommend about 70% academics, 30% social, with more or less focus on social aspects depending on the word count). Since the student probably already detailed their previous research in their Common App activities section, they could’ve just summarized their research background in one sentence, and used the space saved to talk about a specific social aspect of BU that interests them.

Here’s another sample essay, but for UPenn. This essay’s word count was much longer, so the student was able to really hone in on several specific aspects of UPenn.

Prompt: How will you explore your intellectual and academic interests at the University of Pennsylvania? Please answer this question given the specific undergraduate school to which you are applying (650 words).

Sister Simone Roach, a theorist of nursing ethics, said, “caring is the human mode of being.” I have long been inspired by Sister Roach’s Five C’s of Caring: commitment, conscience, competence, compassion, and confidence. Penn both embraces and fosters these values through a rigorous, interdisciplinary curriculum and unmatched access to service and volunteer opportunities.

COMMITMENT. Reading through the activities that Penn Quakers devote their time to (in addition to academics!) felt like drinking from a firehose in the best possible way. As a prospective nursing student with interests outside of my major, I value this level of flexibility. I plan to leverage Penn’s liberal arts curriculum to gain an in-depth understanding of the challenges LGBT people face, especially regarding healthcare access. Through courses like “Interactional Processes with LGBT Individuals” and volunteering at the Mazzoni Center for outreach, I hope to learn how to better support the Penn LGBT community as well as my family and friends, including my cousin, who came out as trans last year.

CONSCIENCE. As one of the first people in my family to attend a four-year university, I wanted a school that promoted a sense of moral responsibility among its students. At Penn, professors challenge their students to question and recreate their own set of morals by sparking thought- provoking, open-minded discussions. I can imagine myself advocating for universal healthcare in courses such as “Health Care Reform & Future of American Health System” and debating its merits with my peers. Studying in an environment where students confidently voice their opinions – conservative or liberal – will push me to question and strengthen my value system.

COMPETENCE. Two aspects that drew my attention to Penn’s BSN program were its high-quality research opportunities and hands-on nursing projects. Through its Office of Nursing Research, Penn connects students to faculty members who share similar research interests. As I volunteered at a nursing home in high school, I hope to work with Dr. Carthon to improve the quality of care for senior citizens. Seniors, especially minorities, face serious barriers to healthcare that I want to resolve. Additionally, Penn’s unique use of simulations to bridge the gap between classroom learning and real-world application impressed me. Using computerized manikins that mimic human responses, classes in Penn’s nursing program allow students to apply their emergency medical skills in a mass casualty simulation and monitor their actions afterward through a video system. Participating in this activity will help me identify my strengths and areas for improvement regarding crisis management and medical care in a controlled yet realistic setting. Research opportunities and simulations will develop my skills even before I interact with patients.

COMPASSION. I value giving back through community service, and I have a particular interest in Penn’s Community Champions and Nursing Students For Sexual & Reproductive Health (NSRH). As a four-year volunteer health educator, I hope to continue this work as a Community Champions member. I am excited to collaborate with medical students to teach fourth and fifth graders in the city about cardiology or lead a chair dance class for the elders at the LIFE Center. Furthermore, as a feminist who firmly believes in women’s abortion rights, I’d like to join NSRH in order to advocate for women’s health on campus. At Penn, I can work with like-minded people to make a meaningful difference.

CONFIDENCE. All of the Quakers that I have met possess one defining trait: confidence. Each student summarized their experiences at Penn as challenging but fulfilling. Although I expect my coursework to push me, from my conversations with current Quakers I know it will help me to be far more effective in my career.

The Five C’s of Caring are important heuristics for nursing, but they also provide insight into how I want to approach my time in college. I am eager to engage with these principles both as a nurse and as a Penn Quaker, and I can’t wait to start.

This student takes a creative approach to the essay, by using the Five C’s of Caring as a framework. This technique works especially well since these qualities relate to the student’s future career in nursing. In addition to emphasizing the student’s creativity and passion for nursing, having the Five C’s in all caps at the start of each paragraph gives this long essay a clear, easy-to-read format.

What really makes the essay stand out is the depth of the student’s fit with UPenn, and how they’re able to also share more about who they are. The student lists specific courses, research opportunities, technology, and student groups. We also learn that they are a first-generation student, are passionate about increasing access to healthcare (particularly for LGBTQ+ people, minorities, and the elderly), care about health education, and are a feminist who staunchly defends abortion rights (this controversial topic could be risky, but since UPenn is a very liberal school, this should be fine).

Overall, this essay paints a vivid picture of how the student would engage academically at Penn, and we also see clearly how the student would pursue their intellectual passions outside the classroom. Since this essay prompt focused on “intellectual and academic interests,” there was no need to address other aspects of UPenn beyond those supporting their various interests in healthcare.

See more “ Why This College?” essay examples to understand what makes a strong response.

Brainstorming for the “Why This College?” Essay

Now that we’ve gone through a couple examples, you might be wondering how to get started yourself. 

Here are three steps we recommend to get your essay underway:

• Reflect on your academic and career goals
• Research unique opportunities related to your academic and extracurricular interests
• Pick your top academic reasons for applying, and your top extracurricular/social reasons

1. Reflect on your academic and career goals.

The driver behind this essay needs to be you , and not the school itself. Anyone can write nice things about the college, but only you can explain why you would be a good fit for it.

Ask yourself:

• What do you want to major in, if you know? If you’re undecided, what are the subjects you’re interested in?
• Which career do you want to pursue, or what are the potential options?
• What do you want to get out of college? Any particular skills or experiences?

Once you have a clear idea of your college plan, then you can dig into how the college can support your plan.

2. Research unique opportunities related to your academic, career, and extracurricular interests.

You might be wondering where you can find all these specific courses, clubs, and other resources. The school’s website is a good place to start, or if you have a general idea of what you’re looking for, you can even use Google with the school name in your search, such as “Tufts orchestra.” 

Take a look at the website of your department/major and dig into the courses, fellowships, internships, and other resources. For course syllabi, you can visit the website of the professor who’s teaching the course; they’ll often post more detailed information than the online course catalog, including readings and concepts to be covered.

Clubs may have their own websites, but you can also try to find their Facebook groups or Instagram pages, which might be more current and even show events they’re hosting⁠.

If you can, try to speak with a current student. Your school counselor may be able to connect you with one, or you can also reach out to the admissions office to see if they can connect you. If not, speaking with an admissions officer is also great, or you can try to find day-in-the-life videos on YouTube.

3. Pick your top academic reasons for applying, and your top extracurricular/social reasons.

Once you’ve done your research and found specific opportunities to cite in your essay, pick your top 1-3 academic reasons and top 1-3 extracurricular ones, depending on the word count. Going back to the Tufts essay, the good example we gave actually was already 65 words, and it was only able to mention two courses. 

Keep in mind that you not only have to describe resources specific to the school, but also how they’ll contribute to your goals. This personal aspect is just as important as the actual opportunities, so be sure to allot space to describe why exactly these resources make the school a good fit for you.

When it comes to academic reasons, you are free to list anything from special programs to unique majors to specific courses and professors. We want to caution you against “name-dropping” professors, however⁠—unless their work actually fits with your established interests and professional goals. Otherwise, it might seem like you’re being disingenuous.

We also want to reiterate that you should be sure to not only talk about academics in your essay, but also extracurriculars (unless the prompt asks you to focus only on academics, or if the word count is unusually short, i.e. 150 words or fewer). Again, college isn’t just about what you do in the classroom. Admissions committees want to be sure that accepted students will also contribute to the college community. 

Outlining Your “Why This College?” Essay

Once you’ve identified your goals and the resources to support them, it’s time to start writing. An easy format/outline for your essay would be:

• Introduction to your main goals and the why behind them (great spot for an anecdote). 
• Your first goal and how the school can support it.
• Your second goal and how the school can support it.
• Conclusion where you look towards the future and reaffirm how the college can get you there.

You can adjust the length of the essay by adding or subtracting the number of goals you write about. As noted above, r emember to include extracurriculars when sharing how the college can support your goals. You should plan to spend about 70% of your space on academic reasons, and 30% on extracurricular reasons.

Some students choose to use a more unconventional format, like the Five C’s of Caring essay above, and that works too if you want to show off your creative writing skills. Some examples include a letter to the school or a schedule of your day as a student at the college. These unconventional formats can be harder to pull off though, so only go that route if you’re confident in your writing. The letter format can be especially tricky since it’s easy to sound cheesy and overenthusiastic.

Regardless of the format you choose, remember these two things that your essay should do. It should:

• Reveal more about your goals and interests.
• D escribe how the school can help you develop your interests and reach your goals, by naming highly-specific and unique campus resources, both academic and extracurricular.

If your essay checks both of those boxes, you’re well on your way to making your candidacy more compelling to admissions officers!

Where to Get Your “Why This College?” Essay Edited

Do you want feedback on your “Why This College?” essays? After rereading your essays countless times, it can be difficult to evaluate your writing objectively. That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review tool , where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays. 

If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools. Find the right advisor for you to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!

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Easter is March 31 this year. Here’s why many Christians will wake up before sunrise to celebrate

FILE - Worshippers listen to the liturgy as the sun rises over the Salem Congregation’s God’s Acre graveyard during the 251st Easter Sunrise Service of the Moravian Church, Sunday, April 9, 2023. On Easter morning, many Christians wake before dawn. (Walt Unks/The Winston-Salem Journal via AP, File)

FILE - Worshippers listen to the liturgy as the sun rises over the Salem Congregation’s God’s Acre graveyard during the 251st Easter Sunrise Service of the Moravian Church, Sunday, April 9, 2023. On Easter morning, many Christians wake before dawn. They will celebrate their belief in the resurrection of Jesus, the son of God, as the sun rises. (Walt Unks/The Winston-Salem Journal via AP, File)

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FILE - A parishioner is silhouetted against the rising sun as she prays during an Easter sunrise service held by Park Community Church Sunday, April 4, 2021, at North Avenue Beach in Chicago. On Easter morning, many Christians wake before dawn. They will celebrate their belief in the resurrection of Jesus, the son of God, as the sun rises. (AP Photo/Shafkat Anowar, File)

FILE - The word “Jesus” is displayed on a large monitor and worship songs are played on stage as people gather for the “Easter Sunrise Service” at the Lincoln Memorial, Sunday, April 9, 2023, in Washington, hosted by the National Community Church. On Easter morning, many Christians wake before dawn. They will celebrate their belief in the resurrection of Jesus, the son of God, as the sun rises. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

FILE - The Pieta statue is seen as the sun rises during St. Patrick Roman Catholic Church’s annual Easter Sunday service at sunrise at Our Lady of Calvary Cemetery in Pottsville, Pa., on Sunday, April 17, 2022. On Easter morning, many Christians wake before dawn. They will celebrate their belief in the resurrection of Jesus, the son of God, as the sun rises. (Jacqueline Dormer/Republican-Herald via AP, File)

On Easter morning, many Christians wake before dawn to celebrate their belief in the resurrection of Jesus, the son of God — as the sun rises.

They gather outside on beaches and church lawns, in local cemeteries and national parks, marking the holy day at the very core of Christianity. For the majority of the world’s Christians, Easter Sunday — and in turn, the sunrise service tradition — will be observed on March 31 this year.

WHY DOES EASTER MOVE EVERY YEAR?

Easter is not a fixed date. It swings between March 22 and April 25 based on a calendar calculation involving the moon.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops explains further: “Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon, which is the first full moon occurring either on or after the spring equinox (March 21).”

That means sunrise service attendees will be waking up early on the last day of March this year.

IS THERE A RELIGIOUS REASON FOR EASTER SUNRISE SERVICES?

FILE - A parishioner is silhouetted against the rising sun as she prays during an Easter sunrise service held by Park Community Church Sunday, April 4, 2021, at North Avenue Beach in Chicago. (AP Photo/Shafkat Anowar, File)

There is biblical symbolism in the Easter worship of the early risers.

In the New Testament’s four Gospels, the resurrection story varies, but all tell of the four women followers of Jesus who discovered Christ’s empty tomb at dawn, said the Rev. Ginny Tobiassen, pastor of Home Moravian Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where one of the most well-known sunrise services is held.

“When we as Christians stand in a graveyard at dawn, we are saying we believe in the resurrection. We are here among our dead, celebrating the resurrection,” she said.

It’s a message members of the Moravian Church — one of the oldest Protestant denominations in the world — have sent for nearly 300 years.

WHEN WAS THE FIRST-EVER EASTER SUNRISE SERVICE?

It is unclear if the Moravian Church was the first to hold an Easter sunrise service. As Tobiassen pointed out, it is an obvious choice given the Gospel stories about the early morning visit to Jesus’ empty tomb.

But the denomination’s annual tradition dates to 1732 in Herrnhut, Germany, where Moravian refugees of religious persecution fled to and established the original Renewed Moravian Church settlement, according to accounts of church history .

For the first year, the single men gathered for an all-night prayer vigil, ending with hymn singing in the graveyard they referred to as “God’s Acre.” They invited the whole community the following year, and missionaries spread the tradition beyond the settlement, including to North Carolina.

WHAT HAPPENS DURING A MORAVIAN SUNRISE SERVICE?

In the 1750s, Moravians settled in what would become present-day Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The city is now home to one of the oldest Easter sunrise services in the U.S. It’s known to draw thousands of people — not only Moravians but everyone from the curious to the spirituality seekers, Tobiassen said. It also can be watched online and heard on the radio.

“People who just want to know what is this thing that Winston-Salem has been doing all this time,” she said. “It’s very much a part of our community’s history.”

Started in 1772, this year will be No. 252.

The sunrise service is put on by the Salem Congregation, which represents 13 Moravian churches in the city, including Home Moravian Church where Tobiassen serves as minister. In addition to the longstanding liturgy, the service includes a silent procession to the Salem Moravian Graveyard, also called “God’s Acre,” and concludes among the graves that go back generations.

FILE - The word “Jesus” is displayed on a large monitor and worship songs are played on stage as people gather for the “Easter Sunrise Service” at the Lincoln Memorial, Sunday, April 9, 2023, in Washington, hosted by the National Community Church. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

While Moravians hold their sunrise services in church graveyards, others hold them elsewhere and in various worship styles, including at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, the Lincoln Memorial in Washington and on Newport Beach in California.

IS THERE MUSIC?

Yes. Moravian congregations are known for their trombone choirs made up mostly of brass and some wind musicians, Tobiassen said, and so the sunrise service will feature a band of about 300 horn players from churches in the region paying Moravian hymns together. Many of those musicians will have been playing all night, she said. They spread out on street corners, creating a cascade of sound throughout the community as they take turns playing lines of antiphonal hymns, she said.

“The idea is they are alerting people in the community to wake up — the Lord has risen. It’s time to gather,” Tobiassen said. “Their playing expands the worship space. If you can hear a horn, you’re in church.”

FILE - The Pieta statue is seen as the sun rises during St. Patrick Roman Catholic Church’s annual Easter Sunday service at sunrise at Our Lady of Calvary Cemetery in Pottsville, Pa., on Sunday, April 17, 2022. (Jacqueline Dormer/Republican-Herald via AP, File)

ARE THEIR OTHER EASTER SERVICE TRADITIONS?

Yes. Some Christian faith groups hold an Easter vigil between sunset Saturday and sunrise Sunday, which can include a renewal of believers’ baptismal vows. In some instances, Easter vigils and Easter sunrise services are one and the same.

The Episcopal Church also calls Easter vigil the “Great Vigil.” In its tradition, the service includes a four-part liturgy that the church describes as recovering “the ancient practice of keeping the Easter feast.”

It’s explained further on the church’s website : “Believers would gather in the hours of darkness ending at dawn on Easter to hear scripture and offer prayer. This night-long service of prayerful watching anticipated the baptisms that would come at first light and the Easter Eucharist. Easter was the primary baptismal occasion for the early church to the practical exclusion of all others. This practice linked the meanings of Christ’s dying and rising to the understanding of baptism.”

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Taiwan's strongest earthquake in 25 years kills at least 9

HONG KONG — Taiwan was shaken Wednesday by its most powerful earthquake in 25 years, a major trembler that killed at least nine people, injured a thousand more, collapsed hundreds of buildings, and triggered tsunami warnings across the region.

Some 143 people, many of them tourists in badly-damaged hotels, were feared trapped in the ruins, the Taiwan National Fire Agency reported.

Rescue efforts were underway to free 71 workers trapped in two rock quarries in the hardest-hit Hualien region, the NFA said. There were also reports that multiple people were trapped in eight collapsed tunnels in and around Hualien City, about 70 miles southeast of the Taiwanese capital Taipei.

The 7.4 magnitude quake happened around 8 a.m. local time (8 p.m. Tuesday ET) at a depth of about 21 miles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The epicenter was about 11 miles south-southwest of Hualien City, on the island’s Pacific coast.

It was the strongest earthquake to hit Taiwan since 1999, when a 7.6 magnitude tremor killed about 2,400 people, said Wu Chien-fu, director of Taiwan’s Seismological Center.

While 1,011 people have so far been reported injured, Taiwanese fire officials warned that that figure — along with the death toll — could rise in the coming days.

The authorities have still not been able to reach at least 50 people who were riding in mini-buses through Taroko National Park when the quake struck and knocked out local phone networks.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said a disaster response center had been set up and that the National Army would provide support to local governments. She also warned her constituents to be wary of aftershocks.

“I would like to remind everyone not to take the elevator for the time being, and to pay more attention to safety,” the president said.

Annie Lima, an American who has lived in Taiwan for almost 17 years, was visiting friends in Hualien on Tuesday when the building they were in began to tremble. She said there continued to be aftershocks in the afternoon, hours after the initial quake.

“It was pretty scary,” she told NBC News. “In all the years that I’ve lived here and in Southern California before that I’ve felt a lot of earthquakes, but this was by far the strongest and the most frightening.” 

When the shaking started, Lima said she and her husband ran for the nearest doorway.

“Even there in a doorway on the second floor, we could barely keep our balance, you know, holding both sides of the doorway,” she said. “And all around us things were falling off the walls and off shelves, smashing and crashing everywhere.”

Videos on social media showed two buildings in Hualien, one nine stories tall and the other five stories tall, that appeared to be partially pancaked and twisted into odd angles.

Jason Delickta, an American living in the nearby community of Meilun, said his home sustained some damage but his restaurant in Hualien, the Salt Lick Smokehouse & Grill, was “quite a bit worse.”

“We lost most of our plates, because they’re all on top of the line, and so they all were shaking and fell off,” he said. “We lost a lot of liquor bottles, beer bottles, glasses, things like that.”

Delickta said he and other local business operators had been expecting an influx of visitors this weekend. It's the start of a traditional Chinese festival known as Tomb-Sweeping Day, when people honor their ancestors. But the rail service has been disrupted by the earthquake.

“The damage to our restaurant wasn’t so bad, but the economic damage for this town will be,” said Delickta, who was also in Hualien in 2018 when a 6.4-magnitude earthquake killed 17 people. "It’ll be more because of the loss of revenue."

Hualien City has a population of around 106,000. The county’s population is around 340,000.

The earthquake was also felt in all parts of Taiwan, the Central News Agency reported. Metro systems in Taipei, the capital, as well as the cities of Taichung and Kaohsiung, were suspended before mostly resuming, the agency said.

More than 87,000 households had their power knocked out by the quake and the subsequent series of aftershocks, the biggest of which measured 6.5, according to Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration.

A live camera on YouTube captured the moment at 7:58 a.m. local time when the earth began shaking at Liyu Lake near Hualien.

Taiwan is home to TSMC, one of the biggest companies in the island's crucial semiconductor manufacturing industry . A spokesperson said its safety systems were operating normally and that some fabrication plants had been evacuated as a preventive measure.

“All personnel are safe, and those evacuated are beginning to return to their workplaces,” the company said in a statement. “The company is currently confirming the details of the impact.”

Earlier Wednesday, officials in Japan issued a tsunami warning and an evacuation order for coastal areas of the southern prefecture of Okinawa, warning of waves up to 3 meters (about 10 feet) high. As of late morning, the biggest reported wave was 30 centimeters (about 12 inches) on the Japanese island of Yonaguni, which is close to Taiwan.

A tsunami warning and evacuation orders were also issued and later rescinded in parts of the Philippines.

Tremors were reported elsewhere in the region, including by social media users in Fujian, a province on China’s southeast coast that sits across from Taiwan. Videos posted online also showed chandeliers swaying in cities in other parts of China including Shanghai and Hangzhou.

In the Chinese territory of Hong Kong , the Hong Kong Observatory said it had received more than 100 reports of tremors, likening the vibration to the “passing of light trucks.”

A spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office in China, which claims the self-ruling island as its territory, extended “sincere condolences to the affected compatriots in Taiwan,” and said they would closely monitor the situation and were ready to provide disaster relief assistance.

Jennifer Jett reported from Hong Kong, Janis Mackey Frayer reported from Beijing, and Corky Siemaszko reported from New York.

Jennifer Jett is the Asia Digital Editor for NBC News, based in Hong Kong.

Janis Mackey Frayer is a Beijing-based correspondent for NBC News.

Corky Siemaszko is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital.

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Why Russia’s Vast Security Services Fell Short on Deadly Attack

The factors behind the failure to prevent a terrorist attack include a distrust of foreign intelligence, a focus on Ukraine and a distracting political crackdown at home.

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By Paul Sonne ,  Eric Schmitt and Michael Schwirtz

A day before the U.S. embassy in Moscow put out a rare public alert this month about a possible extremist attack at a Russian concert venue, the local C.I.A. station delivered a private warning to Russian officials that included at least one additional detail: The plot in question involved an offshoot of the Islamic State known as ISIS-K.

American intelligence had been tracking the group closely and believed the threat credible. Within days, however, President Vladimir V. Putin was disparaging the warnings, calling them “outright blackmail” and attempts to “intimidate and destabilize our society.”

Three days after he spoke, gunmen stormed Crocus City Hall outside Moscow last Friday night and killed at least 143 people in the deadliest attack in Russia in nearly two decades. ISIS quickly claimed responsibility for the massacre with statements, a photo and a propaganda video.

What made the security lapse seemingly even more notable was that in the days before the massacre Russia’s own security establishment had also acknowledged the domestic threat posed by the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan, called Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K.

Internal Russian intelligence reporting that most likely circulated at the highest levels of the government warned of the increased likelihood of an attack in Russia by ethnic Tajiks radicalized by ISIS-K, according to information obtained by the Dossier Center, a London research organization, and reviewed by The New York Times.

Russia has identified the four men suspected of carrying out the attack as being from Tajikistan.

Now, Mr. Putin and his lieutenants are pointing fingers at Ukraine , trying to deflect attention from a question that would be front and center in any nation with an independent media and open debate in its politics: How did Russia’s vast intelligence and law enforcement apparatus, despite significant warnings, fail to head off one of the biggest terrorist attacks in the country in Mr. Putin’s nearly quarter century in power?

The full picture is still unclear, and U.S. and European officials, as well as security and counterterrorism experts, emphasize that even in the best of circumstances, with highly specific information and well-oiled security services, disrupting covert international terror plots is difficult.

But they say the failure most likely resulted from a combination of factors, paramount among them the deep levels of distrust, both within the Russian security establishment and in its relations with other global intelligence agencies.

They also point to the way Mr. Putin has hijacked his domestic security apparatus for an ever-widening political crackdown at home — as well as his focus on crusading against Ukraine and the West — as distractions that probably did not help.

This account of the Russian failure to prevent the concert attack is based on interviews with U.S. and European security officials, security experts and analysts specializing in international intelligence capabilities. Many spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence details.

“The problem is to actually be able to prevent terrorist attacks, you need to have a really good and efficient system of intelligence sharing and intelligence gathering,” said Andrei Soldatov, an expert on Russian intelligence, who underscored that trust is needed inside the home agency and with agencies of other countries, as is good coordination. He said, “That’s where you have problems.”

An Expanding Definition of Extremist

Mr. Putin’s definition of what constitutes an extremist began to expand even before his invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.

The agency primarily responsible for combating terrorism in Russia is called the Second Service, a branch of the Federal Security Service, or the F.S.B. It once focused on Islamist extremists, bands of assassins and homegrown neo-Nazi groups.

But as Mr. Putin has advanced his political crackdown at home, its list of targets ballooned to include opposition figures like Aleksei A. Navalny, who died last month in a Russian prison , and his supporters, as well as L.G.B.T.Q. rights activists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, peace activists and other Kremlin critics.

The number of Islamist-related organizations on the register of extremist organizations listed by Russian Federal Service for Financial Monitoring has declined since 2013. At the same time, hundreds of organizations have been added related to Jehovah’s Witnesses, which has its worldwide headquarters in the United States and is viewed with suspicion by the F.S.B.

Security experts said the expanding focus wasted resources and diverted the attention of senior leaders.

The head of the Second Service, for instance, was increasingly involved in areas far afield from counterterrorism; in 2020, according to the U.S. government, he and his branch of the F.S.B. were involved in the poisoning of Mr. Navalny .

“Overall, the F.S.B. is a political police force, and as such it reflects Kremlin concerns,” said Mark Galeotti, a specialist on Russia’s security operations and a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London. “At present, the government is most exercised by political dissent and Ukrainian sabotage, so they are the F.S.B.’s priorities.”

Russia is one of the chief military backers of the Islamic State’s opponents in the Middle East, including Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, making Russian interests a key target of the Islamist extremist group. But as one European security official put it, the Russians were pursuing “fictitious threats” rather than real ones.

Still, U.S. and European officials say the Russian officials tracking Islamist extremists have their own unit within the Second Service that has remained robustly staffed and funded, despite the strains on the security services from the intensifying domestic political crackdown and the war against Ukraine.

The failure to prevent the attack was probably the result of a combination of other factors, including fatigue after being “especially alert” during the period before Russia’s recent presidential election , said a European security official, who tracks the activities of the Russian intelligence services.

There is also evidence that Russian authorities did respond to the warnings this month, at least initially.

Increased Security

On March 7, the day after the C.I.A. station issued the private warning to the Russians, the F.S.B. announced that it had killed two Kazakhs southwest of Moscow, while disrupting an ISIS-K plot to target a synagogue in the capital. U.S. officials thought the raid was possibly a sign that the Russian authorities were springing into action.

Iosif Prigozhin, a well-known Russian music producer, recalled that he and his wife, the Russian pop star Valeriya, who performed at Crocus City Hall this month, noticed how security had increased at the venue in early March; security guards checked people’s bags and cosmetics cases and took other measures he hadn’t seen there before, he said.

“I even called the general director and said, ‘Listen, what’s going on? Are you expecting high-ranking guests?'” Mr. Prigozhin said in an interview. “He said, ‘Iosif, I’ll tell you later.’ He didn’t say anything over the phone. He said it’s necessary — and that’s it.”

Around the same time, the venue’s staff was warned about the possibility of a terrorist attack and instructed on what to do in such an event, said Islam Khalilov, a 15-year-old student who was working in the coat check on the night of the attack, in an interview posted on YouTube .

One of Mr. Putin’s favorite singers, Grigory Leps, was performing there on March 8. Shaman , a singer whose pro-Kremlin jingoism has catapulted him to popularity amid wartime fervor, was scheduled to take the stage a day later.

But the heightened security didn’t ferret out one of the attackers, Shamsidin Fariduni. Employees at the music hall, speaking to Russian media, recalled seeing Mr. Fariduni at the concert venue on March 7. A photo of him in a light brown coat at the venue, verified by The Times, has circulated in the Russian press.

Aleksandr V. Bortnikov, the director of the F.S.B., emphasized Tuesday in public comments that the information the United States provided was “of a general nature.”

“We reacted to this information, of course, and took appropriate measures,” he said, noting that the actions the F.S.B. took to follow up on the tip didn’t confirm it.

The adversarial relationship between Washington and Moscow prevented U.S. officials from sharing any information about the plot beyond what was necessary, out of fear Russian authorities might learn their intelligence sources or methods.

In its March 7 public warning, the U.S. embassy said the risk of a concert venue attack in Moscow was acute for the next 48 hours. U.S. officials say it’s possible Russian authorities pushed hard around the 48-hour warning period but later grew more relaxed and distrustful when an attack didn’t occur.

It is unclear whether U.S. intelligence mistook the timing of the attack or the extremists delayed their plan upon seeing heightened security.

In the subsequent days, internal Russian intelligence reporting — which the Dossier Center said reached the Russian National Security Council — warned specifically about the threat that Tajiks radicalized by ISIS-K posed to Russia. The reporting pointed to the involvement of Tajiks in disrupted plots in Europe and attacks in Iran and Istanbul in recent months. The reporting didn’t mention the Western warnings or a possible Moscow attack.

The Dossier Center was founded in 2017 by the exiled Russian tycoon Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, a longtime opponent of Mr. Putin. The authenticity of its report could not be independently verified.

But by then, the skepticism about the plot had grown within the Russian government, and Mr. Putin felt comfortable deriding the public warnings in a speech to top officers at the F.S.B., using the occasion to attack the West again.

“Because the F.S.B. — and Putin — sees the world through the prism that the United States is out to get Russia, any information that is not consistent with that frame is easily dismissed,” said Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, who previously led analyses of Russia by the U.S. intelligence community.

She said, “That dynamic may have resulted in an intelligence failure with devastating consequences.”

‘Duty to Warn’

When it informed Russia privately about the potential terror plot, the C.I.A. was adhering to 2015 guidance known as “duty to warn” directives, requiring the intelligence establishment to inform “U.S. and non-U.S. persons” of specific threats aimed at “intentional killing, serious bodily injury and kidnapping.”

These directives are relatively rare, but the United States is obliged to issue them, even to adversaries, and has done so with both the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Iranian government in the past year. The warnings aren’t usually made public unless U.S. authorities think the threat could impact American citizens, which was the case in Moscow.

Mr. Putin, in both 2017 and 2019 , thanked the U.S. government for providing information that had helped Russia foil terrorist attacks in St. Petersburg. But analysts say a similar gesture would be impossible in the acrimonious environment he has created since invading Ukraine.

The United States has been tracking ISIS-K activities very closely in recent months, senior officials said. In the course of the monitoring, which has involved electronic intercepts, human informants and other means, American operatives picked up fairly specific information about plotting in Moscow, officials said.

Experts said Russia’s intelligence services have traditionally been focused on domestic terrorist threats emanating from separatist and religious extremist groups in Russia’s North Caucasus region. Large terrorist attacks on Russian soil attributed to international groups like the Islamic State or Al Qaeda have been rare, and the country’s domestic security services have less experience tracking those threats and are less skilled at penetrating Central Asian extremist cells.

In the days since the attack, Moscow has returned the favor to Washington for offering the tip by claiming its warning should be treated as evidence of possible American complicity.

Mr. Bortnikov, the F.S.B. director, said on Tuesday that Islamist extremists alone couldn’t possibly have carried out the attack. He blamed, among others, the United States.

Oleg Matsnev , Safak Timur and Aric Toler contributed reporting.

Paul Sonne is an international correspondent, focusing on Russia and the varied impacts of President Vladimir V. Putin’s domestic and foreign policies, with a focus on the war against Ukraine. More about Paul Sonne

Eric Schmitt is a national security correspondent for The Times, focusing on U.S. military affairs and counterterrorism issues overseas, topics he has reported on for more than three decades. More about Eric Schmitt

Michael Schwirtz is an investigative reporter with the International desk. With The Times since 2006, he previously covered the countries of the former Soviet Union from Moscow and was a lead reporter on a team that won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for articles about Russian intelligence operations. More about Michael Schwirtz