essay on why change is good

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“If you do not create change, change will create you.” ~Unknown

We are often resistant to change , and we don’t realize that change itself is constant.

Even if you resist or avoid it, it will enter your life just the same. When you initiate the change yourself, it’s pretty easy to adapt to it, since it’s a wanted one.

But are the unplanned and unexpected changes bad? What if all changes were good by default?

I have been embracing change since a young age. During my life I have lived in five countries and in over twenty-five apartments, changed five schools and about five different careers.

At first it is a bit difficult and annoying, but after a while you get used to the change so much that if it doesn’t come for a while, you end up moving the furniture at home in order to feel something changing.

Changes connected with moving from country to country impacted my personality. Thanks to them I became more flexible and open-minded. Now I understand cultural differences and appreciate diversity.

Each of the career shifts brought knowledge and new experiences. As a result, apart from the professional experience I learned how to resolve conflicts with difficult colleagues and how to work with unbearable bosses.

Career related changes brought self-confidence. All those changes led me to the realization of what I wanted to do with my life.

The biggest change in life occured when I got married. The change brought love, peace, and comfort into my life. As a result, a new me was born—me being a wife, mother, and happy woman.

Finally, the big change I initiated by quitting a good job and embracing the passion of writing made me truly happy and satisfied.

In general, when looking back, I realize that all the good things in my life are the results of changes that occurred in the past.

People usually avoid changes and prefer to stay in their comfort zones , but I am true believer that once you get the courage and take the first step to change, your life will become much better.

Below are just few benefits of change:

1. Personal growth

You grow and learn new things every time something changes. You discover new insights about diffferent aspects of your life. You learn lessons even from changes that did not lead you to where you wanted to be.

2. Flexibility

Frequent changes make you easily adapt to new situations, new environments, and new people. As a result you do not freak out when something unexpectedly shifts.

3. Improvements

We all have things in our lives we’d like to improve—finances, job, partner, house, etc. All of us know that nothing will  improve by itself. We need to do things differently to make that happen. Without change, there’d be no improvements.

4. Life values

From time to time changes make you re-evaluate your life and look at certain things from a different perspective . Depending on what the change is, it may also reinforce your life values.

5. The Snowball effect

Often we give up because we cannot accomplish the difficult task of making a huge and immediate change. That is when small changes become extremely valuable. One shift at a time, small changes will eventually lead you to the desired big one.

6. Strength

Not all changes lead you to pleasant periods of life. Unfortunately we do not live in fairy tale and sad things happen, too. Overcoming the tough period will make you stronger.

7. Progress

Changes trigger progress. Things move forward and develop because of the them.

8. Opportunities

One never knows what each change may bring. When you turn from your usual path there will be plenty of different opportunities waiting for you. Changes will bring new choices for happiness and fulfillment.

9. New beginnings

Each change is a turning page. It is about closing one chapter and opening another one. Changes bring new beginnings and excitement to life.

10. Routine

Remember the movie Stranger than Fiction ? The main character Harold Crick does the same things in exactly same time for years. He leads a completely dull, extremely predictable, and uninteresting life. That is how your life would be without changes.

So next time you get the temptation to avoid or resist the change, aim instead to initiate the ones that will lead you to where you want be.

And remember—if there were no change, there would be no butterflies!

Old way, new way image via Shutterstock

About Ani Alexander

Ani Alexander has left her 10+-year career and is transforming her writings from hobby to profession. Her Blog is about how to increase possibilities of fulfilled, happy, successful life. Ani is also the bestselling author of  Emotional Moments , a book of short stories about life.

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Essays About Change: Top 5 Examples and 10 Prompts

If you are writing essays about change, see below our best essay examples and writing prompts to help expand your horizon on this topic.

The only thing constant is change. It could be good or bad. It could be short-term or have a lasting impact. The best we can do is to ride on this inevitable and never-ending cycle of change and try coming out of it still standing, thriving, and smiling. This ability to cope with change is called resilience. 

However, some changes – such as the loss of a loved one or a livelihood — are too overwhelming to deal with that some fall into trauma and depression, in which case psychological support is highly encouraged. Read on to see our round-up of rich, well-written essays about change, and a list of helpful prompts follows to help you start your essay. 

1. “The Psychology Of Dealing With Change: How To Become Resilient” by Kathleen Smith

2. how prison changes people by christian jarrett, 3. six ways the workplace will change in the next 10 years by jordan turner, 4. “social movements for good: what they are and how to lead them” by derrick feldman, 5. “the right way to make a big career transition” by utkarsh amitabh, 1. changing your lifestyle for the better, 2. be the change the world needs, 3. adapting to life-changing events, 4. addressing climate change, 5. how did technology change our daily lives, 6. people who changed the world, 7. if you could change the world, 8. dealing with resistance to change, 9. coming-of-age novels, 10. changing your eating habits.

“If you can learn to cope with change, you’ll lower your risk for anxiety and depression. Your relationships will flourish, and your body will feel healthier. But if you can’t cope with change, only a minor amount of stress can make you feel overwhelmed by life. You might also struggle to set and meet the goals you have for yourself.”

Instead of fixating on events and people over which we do not have the power to control, we should focus on ourselves and how we can embrace change without fear. Some tips in this essay include practicing self-care, being in the present, and focusing on your priorities, such as health and well-being. 

Check out these essays about being grateful and essays about heroes .

“Ultimately, society may be confronted with a choice. We can punish offenders more severely and risk changing them for the worse, or we can design sentencing rules and prisons in a way that helps offenders rehabilitate and change for the better.”

In an environment where you are forced to follow the rules to the letter and worry about your safety and privacy daily, prisoners could develop a kind of “perpetual paranoia” or “emotional numbing” and deteriorate cognitive abilities. The essay suggests a rethink in how we deal with law-breakers to encourage reform rather than punish and risk repeat offenses.

Check out these essays about police brutality and essays about assessment .

“As technology closes the divide between geographically separate people, it introduces cracks in relationships and cultures. The remote distribution of work means that many employees will not build the same social relationships in the workplace, leading to issues of disengagement and loneliness.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has already disrupted our way of work in our new normal, but more changes are yet to unfold. This essay looks into the future of work where responsibilities and demands will see a sea change; machines will be co-workers; and the best employee is defined by digital skills, not years of experience.

You might also like these essays about cinema and essays about jealousy .

“Social movements for good establish a mass platform of action for a population, which helps inform and cultivate the awareness necessary to help prevent an issue from affecting more people. True social movements for good have the power to generate awareness that produces tangible results, helping the general population live longer, more productive, happier lives.”

A social movement for good aims to bring social justice to an aggrieved community by calling for tangible support and resources. To accelerate a movement’s momentum, an effective leader must possess certain qualities in this essay.

“There were so many questions running through my head during this time. Why should I quit to make this my full-time job? Is this what I really want? When should I quit? Poet Mary Oliver’s words kept ringing in my head: ‘What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?’”

Deciding on a career change is more complex than deciding whether you want to do something different. A career shift entails lifestyle, mindset, and motivation changes, each of which has to be carefully reassessed and prepared for. This essay guides you in deciding when or why it is right to leave your job.

10 Interesting Writing Prompts on Essays About Change

Below are thought-stimulating prompts to help with your essay: 

Committing to regular exercise or getting to bed earlier may be easier said than done. Moreover, the determination that was burning at the start of your lifestyle change journey may wane in the latter part when things get tough. So, for your essay, provide practical tips from wellness experts and your own experience on how to sustain a routine toward a better lifestyle. You can split your essay into sections for each health and wellness tip you recommend.

This is the gist of the famous quote by Mahatma Gandhi: “be the change you wish to see in the world.” Unfortunately, many of us get frustrated over people refusing to change but fail to see how this change should start with our perception and action. In this essay, write about what an individual can do to focus more on self-improvement and development. 

Have you ever faced a situation where you had to adapt to a drastic change? It could be moving to a different city or school or dealing with losing a loved one. Share your experience and list the traits and practices that helped you through this challenging phase. You may also research what psychologists recommend people to do to keep from falling into depression or developing anxiety. 

To offer a unique highlight in your essay, tackle what your school or community is doing to fight global warming. Interview city councilors and mayors and learn about ongoing initiatives to keep the city clean and green. So this essay could help entice others in your community to work together and volunteer in initiatives to slow climate change.

List down the advantages and disadvantages technology has presented in your life. For example, seeking clarification from teachers about an assignment has been made easier with the many communication channels available. However, technology has also enabled a work-at-home or distance learning arrangement that is causing burnout in many households. 

Feature a person who has revolutionized the world. It could be a scientist, artist, activist, writer, economist, athlete, etc. Preferably, it is someone you idolize, so you do not have to start from scratch in your research. So first, provide a short profile of this person to show his life and career background. Then, write about their ultimate contribution to society and how this continues to benefit or inspire many. 

If there’s one thing you could change in this world, what would it be? This sounds like a question you’d hear in pageants, but it could be a creative way to lay down your life advocacy. So, explain why this is where you want to see change and how this change can improve others’ lives.

Resistance to change is most common when companies modernize, and the dinosaurs in the office refuse to learn new digital platforms or systems. Write about what you think leaders and human resource units should do to help employees cope with changes in the new normal.

A coming-of-age novel tells stories of protagonists who grow up and undergo character transformation. From being eaten up by their fears, the main heroes become braver and better at confronting a world that once intimidated them. For this prompt, share your favorite coming-of-age novel and narrate the changes in the hero’s qualities and beliefs. 

Delivering fast food has become so easy that, for many, it has become a way of life, making it an enormous challenge to replace this practice with healthy eating habits. So, research and write about nutritionists’ tips on creating a lifestyle and environment conducive to healthy eating habits.

If you’re still stuck picking an essay topic, check out our guide on how to write essays about depression . For more ideas, you can check out our general resource of essay writing topics .

Yna Lim is a communications specialist currently focused on policy advocacy. In her eight years of writing, she has been exposed to a variety of topics, including cryptocurrency, web hosting, agriculture, marketing, intellectual property, data privacy and international trade. A former journalist in one of the top business papers in the Philippines, Yna is currently pursuing her master's degree in economics and business.

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The nature of change, finding the predictable in the unpredictable..

Posted May 6, 2011 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them — that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like. – Lao Tzu

Life happens, and what happens is something called change. Some changes are the result of biology and the passage of time, within the natural cycle or order of things. Others are self-generated, under our own control and willful effort, or dependent upon encounters with significant others—family, friends, colleagues, and intimates. Still, other changes occur as a result of circumstance or fate, a proverbial "date with destiny."

Our experiences are externally or internally focused; they either follow a linear pattern, regulated by chronological time, space, and the social structure, or transcend ordinary time and emerge from the depths of our psyches and our own internal strivings. They may be subtle and gradual, easy and welcomed, or difficult and demanding. We may meet change with acceptance and grace, or with protest and resistance.

The personal significance of each change occurs when we decide to make change. This means we move from the passive state of just watching how things unfold to taking some action that enables us to utilize the change to create an outcome of our own choice. Shifting our focus from what happens (the events themselves) to what we do with what happens is another way to describe transition. Ultimately, the way we make change is our personal choice and responsibility.

The danger of going through change without allowing ourselves to truly experience it is that transition through change may not actually occur. If we are too uncomfortable to stay the course through transition, too anxious to fix the problem, we may lose the message and its accompanying transformative effect. Change without transition may only serve to recreate old scenarios and reinforce old patterns of behavior. For change to have a salutary effect on us, we need to learn to effectively work with it and not to run the other way when it presents itself.

Everything changes all the time, so the ancient philosophers and mystics tell us. The I Ching , the Book of Changes , is a classic Chinese text that has served as a tool for decision-making and for predicting the future for well over five thousand years. Although everything is transient, continuously changing, the concept of change and its evolving process adhere to basic natural laws, which by their cyclic and repetitive properties make change essentially unchanging.

The I Ching is comprised of a system of symbols whose purpose is to help us find order within the random occurrences of life. Basically, every situation in life cycles through six mutable, yet predictable stages that are mirrored within each symbol of the I Ching : coming into being, beginning, expanding, moving toward the highest potential, achieving peak potential, and descending toward the opposite. The ancients recognized that all life follows the rhythm of the universe. It's the wise person who internalizes this rhythm, harmonizes with the "surrounding all," and conforms what he does to the flow of life, the Tao .

While change may interrupt the usual flow of our daily lives and disrupt our normal functioning, it also affords us the opportunity, and the challenge, to examine our lives and to alter its course, if we so choose. Or to stay the course, making better choices and decisions in the life we're already living.

Turning too quickly away from what change has to offer may deprive us of gaining valuable insights, or being gifted by a powerful lesson. The key here is to understand that change is the rule, not the exception . When we have accepted and mastered that concept, it's far easier to adjust our lives accordingly to it with the knowledge and trust that we are being carried in its flow.

Putting change aside for a moment, let's turn to the other essential piece of the equation—the complexity of individual personality development. Healthy personality development is determined by the complementary interplay of three organizational systems: the body (soma), the psychic (psyche), and the communal or social (ethos).

Theories of personality development abound, but it's the pivotal theory of psychoanalyst Erik Erickson that may help us better understand change within the context of the entire life cycle. His theory helps illuminate and clarify how an individual meets and processes intrinsic change and, by inference, may contribute to an understanding about whether or not an individual is able to rise to the task of making change for him-/her self in the world.

This is a summary of the eight psychosocial stages, and the crises and ego qualities that accompany each stage of the life cycle. Each of these crises represents a period of heightened potential and a turning point in life. Ideally, mastery of each stage and its associated crisis produces ego strength, or ego quality.

• Infancy : The crisis/task centers around trust vs. mistrust and the associated ego strength is hope .
• Early childhood : Autonomy vs. shame and doubt is the core issue and the development of will is the desired goal.
• Play age : In this period the crisis surrounds initiative vs. guilt and purpose is the associated ego strength.
• School age : The crisis/task centers on industry vs. inferiority and the development of competence is the associated ego strength.
• Adolescence : Etched in most of our minds, the issue here concerns identity vs. identity confusion and fidelity is the goal.
• Young adulthood : The task/crisis concerns intimacy vs. isolation and the ability to love is the associated ego strength.
• Maturity : The core issue, extending over many decades, is about generativity vs. self-absorption and the goal is care .
• Old age : The task during this final period concerns integrity vs. despair and disgust and the associated ego quality is the cultivation of wisdom .

For Erickson, conflict and crisis are positive and necessary; they are "sources of growth, strength, and commitment." But even if an individual fails to complete a given task, carrying it unfinished into future stages, each subsequent stage provides added resources and opportunities to resolve old conflicts and crises.

Beyond theory, however, there are many practical factors that influence if and how we engage change.

• Temperament , our disposition from birth---whether we are easygoing and adaptable, or serious, shy and fearful, or difficult and inflexible---may color how we see and engage the world and influence us moving forward.
• Early socialization plays an enormous role. The thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors, of our parents and significant others may greatly influence what we think and feel, as well as how we behave. For example, one can easily see how love, acceptance, and optimism encourage trust and hope versus criticism, judgment, ridicule, pessimism , and even abuse.
• The belief system of the family and community is invariably "inherited" by the individual; the beliefs of the "tribe" are often programmed from the beginning of life. Fear around making change and taking risks are often acquired limiting beliefs. Limiting beliefs about change, how we deal with change and what we are actually capable of doing, may need to be addressed, shifted, or even discarded along the way.
• Our cumulative life experiences, what we've learned through successive transitions, gives us needed tools, skills and acquired wisdom.

Since even the idea of change for many of us is often overwhelming and anxiety -provoking—and for some of us, something to be avoided at all cost—hopefully, this overview has set your mind at ease about the prospect of change and the actual process of moving through it.

Abigail Brenner, M.D . , is a psychiatrist in private practice. She is the author of Transitions: How Women Embrace Change and Celebrate Life and other books.

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Change Is Hard. Here’s How to Make It Less Painful.

• Erika Andersen

Four strategies to help you shift your mindset.

When an organizational change is first proposed, most people immediately want to know three things: what does this change mean to me, why is it happening, and what will it look like when the change has been made? People only begin to be open to accepting, embracing, and making this change when their mindset starts to shift from “this change is going to be difficult, costly, and weird” to “this change could be easy, rewarding, and normal.” The author offers four straightforward approaches for leaders to support their people through this necessary mindset shift, resulting in a critical mass of people who will understand, accept, and adopt the change reasonably quickly.

Every leader has had the experience of unveiling an organizational change — a new system or process, a corporate restructure, a shift in the business model — and getting a less-than positive response from their team. Sometimes the reaction is subtle: lowered eyes, tightened lips, silence. With a more confident or vocal team, you might get questions about whether the change is necessary, complaints about “yet another thing to do,” and lots of reasons why this just isn’t a good time for a big shift.

• Erika Andersen  is the founding partner of Proteus International , a coaching, consulting, and training firm that focuses on leader readiness. In addition to her latest book, Change From the Inside Out: Making You, Your Team, and Your Organization Change-Capable , she is the author and host of  The Proteus Leader Show   podcast and the author of four previous books:  Growing Great Employees , Being Strategic , Leading So People Will Follow , and Be Bad First .

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10 Powerful Reasons Why Change is Good for You

By: Author Dawn Elizabeth

Posted on Last updated: February 1, 2022

Categories Personal Growth

When the winds of change come sweeping into our lives, it’s easy to dig our heels in and refuse to budge. But when we really think about it, change is good for you.

Think about the situations when our lives change. Perhaps it’s being issued with divorce papers, cutbacks at work that leave you without a job. Maybe you just feel lost in life . Maybe it was a surprise pregnancy or, yes, even the pandemic that we all are still recovering from. At first glance, these changes are harsh and leave you with feelings of dread and anxiety, wondering what the future might hold for us.

Even change that we want or even plan can be a scary thought! My husband and I have been wanting to move abroad. But even with extensive planning, the unknowns we’re sure to encounter have kept us firmly planted for now.

Maybe you want to apply for new jobs, or maybe you’ve already done the work and a company wants to hire you… but they would require your whole family to relocate to a new city 1,200 miles across the country. We’re afraid of the work, the hassle, the stress, the worry, the uncertainty.

But whether it’s a calculated change or it’s completely unexpected, the ebbs and flows of life can bring some amazing things to our lives, should we only look for them!

*This post may contain affiliate links. Read our full disclosure policy, click here .

10 Ways Change is Good for You

1. you get to experience more of life.

When things change, whether planned or unplanned, we usually get an experience that we otherwise would have have had. When we live the same day over and over throughout our lives, we can become numb to the natural ebbs and flows that life has to offer us.

For some of us (many of us, in fact), the goal is to become numb to the hardships. It’s easier to live in monotony than it is to accept a challenge or do something hard. But the honest truth is that when you numb yourself to the difficult parts of life, you also numb yourself to the joys and wonders that life has to offer.

When change confronts us and we go with it, we get to experience more life at a greater depth than we would if we just stayed in our comfort zone.

2. Change creates growth

Speaking of our comfort zone, years ago, you developed habits that helped you create that comfort zone for you.

But it has been said that all of the magic happen outside of our comfort zone. One of my favorite quotes is by Andre Gide:

You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.

When we choose growth, learning, and getting comfortable with being outside of our comfort zone, we dare to discover new things, not just for ourselves, but for all humankind. Your growth is valid in and of itself, but to know that we have the power to impact other lives just by changing a little part of ourselves, is gold.

RELATED: Using Your Inner Narrative for a Happier Life

3. You avoid monotony

Years ago, this may not have been the case. But after the pandemic, we’ve all had to deal with monotony. And monotony isn’t fun. Living and working in the same place, with the same people, day in and day out can be brutal. Changing things up, no matter how small those changes may be, can revitalize your life.

In fact, change begets more change. When we have the courage to try to seek new experiences, even when it is small, we’re opening ourselves up to a world of new possibilities that can bring us excitement, new knowledge, new skills, new friends, and even new love.

4. You learn your strengths through change

Change can be nice sometimes. Sometimes it’s easy, welcome, and peaceful.

But sometimes it’s not.

Sometimes change hits us square in the face, unsuspecting, and knocks us down. When change is harsh and difficult, we learn how strong we truly are . During those times we have to face difficult challenges, we discover our perseverance, our resolution to our values and priorities. We take care of our children, we take care of ourselves, and we come out on the other side a better person.

It has been those tough changes in life, when I was forced out of my first teaching job and when I went through my divorce, that I feel the most proud for coming out the other side. I did not let those life-altering events poison my mindset, instead, I became more compassionate and more accepting of others’ struggles.

5. It helps us realize what things aren’t working in our lives

On those occasions life springs change on us suddenly, it can feel like a death sentence. How are we going to get through this?

When the pandemic hit, everyone was forced into a new normal. But those who truly embraced the change were the ones who took the opportunity to examine their lives under a microscope. I’ve had friends who went from unhealthy to eating clean and exercising every day. I had other friends who realized that their marriage was not what they thought and had to decide what the next step was.

Change can help us to recognize what else needs to change in our lives.

READ MORE: Affirmations for Acceptance and Flow

6. Change helps you learn to be flexible

This one is certain. The more we deal with change, the better we become at dealing with it!

Especially when confronted with something unwanted in life, we have to learn the best ways to handle not only the change, but any consequences of it, as well as our own feelings about it. Getting through those difficult situations can be challenging, but it also help us with something else: when we have an opportunity for positive change, we’re more likely to take it.

Change in life is a positive thing because it allows you to learn that flexibility and how to handle challenging times. We begin to understand that change is an unavoidable part of life, but you can learn to go with the flow, be more present , and be flexible to make the most out of life.

7. Change brings opportunities and opens doors

When I moved to New Mexico, I had no idea that I was about to meet my life partner/soulmate/husband . I moved halfway across the country from Ohio to New Mexico to learn new things and be somewhere with a greater percentage of sunny days. In addition, I found a best friend, emotional security, and someone who would support me unconditionally .

Had I not made the decision to take the job in New Mexico, 1,200 miles away from where I was born, I would have never had these amazing experiences with the man of my dreams.

When you make changes in your life, you automatically open yourself to even better opportunities, whether they be new relationships or new business ventures. Doors will fling open to you at every glance, and you’ll move forward to all kinds of new and exciting parts of your life.

RELATED: How to Let Go and Surrender to Life’s Flow

8. Change makes life exciting!

Let’s face it, new is exciting and fun!

Sometimes, after all that monotony, we lose our passion and creativity . But when we break free of doing the same things again and again, it stimulates our critical thinking and creativity. We begin to welcome changes and get excited when new things come our way.

When was the last time you had something new happened that you were excited about? Maybe it was that a new coffee shop was going in across from your office. Maybe it was that you were getting a raise after being at the same salary for five years.

Change isn’t always bad or surprising… sometimes change is exciting!

READ MORE: How to Seize the Moment in Your Life !

9. Successful people utilize change to get ahead

Everything is changing, all the time. Our society is constantly altering course and making adjustments to meet the demands of new situations. Successful people are the ones who see the change coming and try to get ahead of it.

How can you utilize the changing demands of people and society for your own betterment? Helping others adjust with a new gadget, a new app, or a new technique for making their lives simpler and more streamlined is not only great for them, it’s also great for you.

10. Everything gets better with change

In almost every case, when things change, it’s because life is pushing to something better.

Look at modern medicine. With every new development and change, we are able to cure and heal more people, and give others a chance at a normal life when they would not have had those opportunities in the past. Vaccines, surgeries, and medicines are constantly improving.

Even if you have gone through some tough times , change is there for you to move your life into a better direction. So keep going, keep moving, and keep accepting changes into your life, for the better!

You can see the many ways that change in life is good. We know that life is what we make of it , but embracing change can still be hard when we’ve been wired to think of stability as security. But the truth is that change brings so many wonderful things to our lives!

Life is meant to be lived. That means going with the flow and accepting change when it comes your way.

And hopefully you’ll LOVE the changes your life goes through!

RELATED POST: Why Good Health and Success are Connected

10 Powerful Reasons Why Change in Life is Positive for You

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Sources of Insight

Unleash Your Greatest Potential

Change is Good

“One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it’s worth watching.” –- Anonymous

Change is good.   But only if you embrace it.   Change is a chance to stop doing what’s not working, start doing things that would work better, and keep doing the things that work well.

Change is the ultimate opportunity for transformation.

When any great change happens, it’s a chance to do a reset.  It’s a chance for a fresh start.  It’s a chance to let things go.  It’s a chance to create a vision for the future.  It’s also a chance to reinvent yourself, which many times means bringing out more of who you are.

Sometimes change is taking one step back to take two steps forward.  The key is to avoid taking a step back, only to take two steps back.  That’s what happens if you get bogged down with baggage and don’t embrace the new opportunities with a fresh perspective.

Spring is in the air and it’s time for change.   I’ve changed things at Sources of Insight.  It was long overdo.  I had stretched my previous theme way past what it was designed for.

The big thing to note is that the world has moved on to more social integration and more mobile devices, software services, and apps.  My original theme was designed for different times.  As much as I liked the design, it was no longer keeping up with today’s world.

Worse, my theme was starting to look like patchwork versus an integrated experience.

As part of changing Sources of Insight, I used it as an opportunity to address the feedback I’ve gotten from readers on a few things:

• Make it easier to find key things
• Support nested comments
• Improve the fonts and readability

The big thing a few of my readers brought to my attention is the fact that my theme wasn’t working well on mobile devices.  My theme was not “responsive”, meaning, it didn’t adjust between phones, tablets, and laptops.

Now it does.

Now Sources of Insight is responsive across devices, and it’s even easier to find things.  For example, the menu has two rows, so now you have one-click access to key pages and categories.  The menu is responsive, too, so I can also add some simple drop-downs so you can directly jump to specific items.

While I’ve addressed a lot of the feedback from users,  I do still have some open issues.  For example, I’ve had several readers ask me to add a “Donate” option (in fact, one reader was actually pretty upset that I didn’t provide a donate option, and that surprised me.)   I also haven’t fleshed out my Social media integration story yet.

All in good time.

I’m a fan of creating a sustainable pace, so the way I look at Sources of Insight is that there’s more time ahead of us, than behind us.

The real beauty here is that the theme has an elegant design, with plenty of room for growth.

One thing I’ve noticed about themes and blogging is that changing a theme can often lead to growth.  While it might be a chicken and egg scenario, I think a few things happen when you change your theme:

• You create a new energy, and people like to see what’s different.
• If done well, you find a theme that brings out your energy, or gives you a better platform to showcase your work, or helps inspire and ignite what you’re truly capable of.
• While changing things around, you stumble onto something that helps you take things to the next level … it’s serendipity in action.

I’m glad I made the change.  Now my theme looks like an integrated experience.  It does a lot of  little things well, including supporting nested comments.  Overall, I think you’ll like the new experience.

I can’t say it was easy.  Even though I tried to avoid a bunch of issues, I had a lot of unexpected surprises.  In fact, the theme I ended up with is not even the one that I originally bought and tested with a variety of users.  I’ll share what I learned in a future post in more depth so that fellow bloggers can avoid the mistakes I made and save a lot of time and money.

All’s well that ends well, but this is not the end.

It’s merely the beginning.

Here’s to new beginnings, and may big changes this year bring you great opportunity to renew, retool, and re-imagine what’s possible.

Photo by Stf.O .

10 reasons why change is important for personal development

The concept of change can be unsettling. Many of us would prefer to shy away from changes no matter whether they are big or small. However, change is an integral part of your personal development journey and for the most part should be embraced. Change touches all aspects of life, but embracing change in your career (such as taking a [PRINCE2 project management course]), can contribute enormously towards positive personal development.

Internal Change Will Help you Focus

Change enables you to become the person you want to be. Practising and enacting change yourself is one of the most rewarding processes you will ever experience. It also displays a very valuable life skill. If you are able to pinpoint areas in your career that you are unhappy with, or need further development, being able to change your approach shows a commitment to progression and a confidence in your own ability. In order to avoid stagnation, it’s important for internal changes to be made almost continuously. No matter whether it’s changing the way your present yourself, developing your skills, takin a course or changing your routine – you are your own boss in life and a huge amount of change comes from within.

External Change Will Shape You

There is some change that we cannot control. External circumstances and changes will often have a dramatic effect on our career. These changes, no matter whether they seem good or bad at the time, will teach you something new. External change makes you more flexible, more understanding and prepares you for the future. Just as internal change will encourage you to progress, external change will give you the experience and drive to push forward. Something positive can be taken away from almost any external change, especially in project management roles where it imperative that managers are receptive to the changes around them. So, being able to grow from the challenges life throws at you is fundamental for healthy personal development.

Change Ensures Life Stays Exciting

No matter whether change is internal or external, it is undeniable that it keeps your career interesting. Change means that your experiences as a project manager will differ from day to day, vary month to month and transform from one year to the next. The world is in continuous motion - technologies, trends and politics will all evolve around you. Integrating yourself within the natural ebb and flow of change will ensure a fulfilling career experience. A career without change is likely to be one that lacks personal development as well as excitement, adventure and growth.

Change Leads to Opportunity and Experiences

Each change in your career is an invitation to try a new experience or take advantage of a new opportunity. Of course, these invitations can be declined, but it is important to consider the benefits a new experience or opportunity will bring you or your project. It can be all too easy to dismiss these chances as risky. This is potentially detrimental to your personal development as taking risks and managing failure is all part of the process we call life. However, knowing how to manage risk effectively is a process that can be learnt, with a little training and guidance. Accepting an opportunity, employing a new team member, or even trying an entirely new project role all count as constructive changes that should be embraced.

Change Ensures That Bad Situations End

Whether it is incited by you or whether it occurs organically, change is your ticket out of any situation or any place where you are unhappy or unfulfilled. So long as you embrace change, you will find that your situation does not have to last forever and you will progress on to something bigger and better. If you reject change, experiences and opportunities in your career are likely to pass you by. By taking a course to improve your skills or managing a new project, you will be presented with the chance to enhance and develop. Use change to push you forward and if you don’t like something – change it.

Change Helps You Move On

Sometimes the past can hold us back, but moving on is a slow and steady process that should be nurtured rather than rushed. Those little changes that occur every day stimulate your progress and put you one step further away from the bad situation you have left behind. It is common for individuals to let their past be the be-all and end-all of their personal development. This can lead to stunted personal growth and means full potential is never met. Your personal development should be continual and is a crucial part of moving on. Implementing change in your life and kick starting your personal development by investing in training will help your past to seem like a distant memory and help you to step into the career role you always dreamed of.

Change Means Progress

When you feel as though your development is slow going and you are still miles away from your career goals, take a look back at how far you have come. In past year alone you are likely to have progressed, even if the changes are only small. Looking back on the last five years you are sure to have progressed in many more ways than you have realised. If you don’t like the road ahead then making a change could lead to a promotion, a happier lifestyle or even a sense of fulfilment. Your goal should always be to progress and enacting changes such as training and learning is the best way to do it.

Change Documents Your Journey

The seasons will change, new technologies will emerge, the years will fly by and people will grow along with you. Your career will be counted and measured by the changes you’ve been through, not by the awards you have won or the money you have earned. You will never forget the opportunities you embraced, the chances you took or the times you failed and picked yourself up again. Those milestones are all part of your journey, each significant in their own way to your own personal story and contributing individually to your CV. Your personal development relies on the changes that have happened in the past which have led you to where you are now. And the training and learning you do today will help to carve your future path.

Change Will Happen Anyway

It’s undeniable, change is integral to your personal development and one cannot exist without the other. You may have yourself down as someone who doesn’t like change, but it’s important to always remember that change is inevitable anyway. Many huge career changes will not stop and ask your permission first. They will happen with or without your consent. However, there are still some changes that you can take control of. So, it’s better to embrace the course of change and make it your own along the way.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Grant Pettersson .

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GP Essay #1: Is change always good?

Some people love change, while others will do anything in their power to avoid it. However, most agree that change is a huge and necessary part of life. Those who advocate for change believe that change is always good as it allows the world to constantly improve and move towards a better future. However, many believe that it is not that simple, as such an absolute view of change ignores the fact that the effects that change has on the world and the lives of its people are extremely complex. To classify change therefore as solely good or bad would be inaccurate, as it would characterise the nature of change to an absolute degree, something that the complex nature of change just does not allow. Hence, I would argue that while change is largely positive, there are certain downsides and risks we have to be aware of, and hence, it cannot be always good.

It is often argued that change is good as it leads to innovation and improvements in life. The desire to constantly improve and the willingness to embrace change in order to achieve better and to adapt to changes in the external environment have resulted in a proliferation of innovations and inventions, allowing society to come a long way in terms of technology and quality of life. The willingness to change has prompted the invention of many of the things which we deem as ubiquitous today such as aeroplanes, the Internet and personal computers. The Wright brothers, for instance, saw the need to improve transportation networks and eventually invented a flying craft that could be controlled while in the air, demonstrating how change can be a positive experience for society as the willingness to change and the desire to improve can lead to innovations that drastically improve the way we live our lives. More recently, researchers at Maastricht University in the Netherlands have reacted to anthropogenic climate change by introducing lab-grown meat on a larger scale. Evidently, change is good in that it provokes improvements and encourages greater uptake of that new solution, thus allowing people to improve and innovate. This has allowed society to continuously improve for the better instead of remaining stagnant.

Change is also good when it allows people to become more accepting of new and unconventional ideas. Oftentimes, ideas and traditions are relics of the past, rooted in backward ways of thinking and may not have a place in our world today. With technological progress and increasing diversity, newer ideas and beliefs have begun to permeate society, forcing many to rethink beliefs that have long been present in society. This change in the mindset of many within society has led to the world becoming more accepting not only of different cultures but also of people with ideas and beliefs that do not align with the status quo. In turn, this creates a more tolerant and accepting environment for people to coexist despite their differences. This is in stark contrast to the past where people were segregated based on the colour of the skin or their sexual orientation in places such as America where having coloured and non-coloured designations on busses, restaurants and even restrooms was a common sight. The world has taken great strides in this aspect, with the legalisation of gay marriage in the United States and in Taiwan, and the decriminalisation of homosexuality in conservative India, among others. In Singapore’s context, marital immunity for rape has been repealed since 2019, and widely decried as Singaporeans become more aware of the prevalence of sexual assault in domestic situations. These events – which many would have thought to be impossible years ago – are a testament to the power that change and the willingness to change can have on the nature of society. Evidently, change can be a force for good when it allows people to forgo stereotypes and outdated ways of thinking and encourages people to become more willing to accept different ideas by changing their own views on how society should be. In a world that is increasingly diverse and complex, change has the potential to create a more harmonious, tolerant and peaceful world. 

However, the effects of change are not solely good or bad, as the pursuit of change can be destructive and outweigh the eventual positive outcomes that change brings about. Many times, in the pursuit of change and improvement, unintended negative consequences do arise. As society strives to enhance its technological prowess and overall standard of living, the changes that have been made to the way of life on the planet has resulted in the creation of modern problems. Anthropogenic climate change, for instance, is a direct result of the Industrial Revolution, which saw the proliferation of technologies such as the coal-dependent steam engine as humans sought to improve their quality of life. The changes that have occurred in the way that trade, transport and business are conducted have led to consequences such as the increase in air travel and the food we consume. These in turn have led to tremendous amounts of burning and deforestation in order to keep up with the need for energy. As a result, the amount of greenhouse gases has increased tremendously over the past 150 years, and close to 1.3 million square metres of forest cover have been destroyed since 1990. The blind pursuit of change and innovation, motivated by our obsession with improvement of quality of life, has led the human race to a time where the very existence of the entire human race is now under threat. It is often quipped that “the road to hell is often paved with good intentions”, and indeed, while many desire change with altruistic motivations in mind, we must be mindful that these good intentions can and do sometimes lead to detrimental consequences for society in the long term. 

Furthermore, change can be detrimental if communities are unable to adapt to these changes, or if the effects of these changes are not appropriately managed. Many communities around the world have deep-rooted traditions steeped in history. Some of these traditions have directed the way these communities live their lives, with many being traditionally subsistence-based in nature. The focus on subsistence has caused many of these native and traditional communities to be unable to adapt to the changes that the world has undergone over the years, as they lack the education and the capital to entirely rework the nature of their societies and align it to the way that the modern world is structured. The Native American communities for example have struggled for years in the United States as their traditional subsistence-based nature and their deep-rooted connections to their lands have limited their ability to adapt to the nature of work and commerce in the 21 st century. Without the tradition of working for monetary gain and the structures for a proper education system, these communities have often been left behind, swamped by drastic and rapid change, resulting in many of these communities having to struggle in order to survive in the modern economy. The change that the world experienced was therefore detrimental to these communities and their way of life as they did not have the conditions and structures needed to allow them to adapt in the modern world, leaving them vulnerable to the winds of change in the social, economic and technological domains. Besides traditional values, certain marginalized communities such as the poor bear the brunt of the negative repercussions of change due to their conditions and situations they find themselves in. The poor and uneducated sometimes find it challenging to pick up new skills and adapt to new technologies in a world that evolves at breakneck pace, where industries are constantly being disrupted and cheap foreign labour depresses their wages. Taxi drivers in Malaysia have protested against technological companies like Grab and Uber for threatening their livelihood, for instance, and they do not have any recourse against such obtrusive change. Thus, change can sometimes be undesirable as different communities adapt and come to terms with change at different paces, leaving many communities to suffer as the world speeds towards the future.

Overall, to assert that change is always good would be an overgeneralisation of the nature of change and its many facets, while ignoring the detrimental effects that change can bring if it is not properly managed. Although change does have its benefits, these do come with their own sets of challenges which could in fact be worse than what we had experienced before. Ultimately, change is neither inherently bad nor innately good and a lot depends on how change is managed and how it is received by different groups within society.

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IELTS essay, topic: Change is always a good thing, agree or disagree?

• IELTS Essays - Band 6

Some people prefer to spend their lives doing the same things and avoiding changes. Others, however think that change is always a good thing. Discuss both sides and give your own opinion.

Nowadays, people are arguing whether an ideal lifestyle should be a stable one or should it include a wide ranges of changes. In my opinion, whether changes are needed should be determined the of you are at.

Apparently, are favorable the development of young people, in to their careers. Primarily, an abundant experience in varieties of jobs enables the young to master a broad range of techniques and skills, leading to significant edge over counterparts in the competition for employment. Meanwhile, trying various roles in life and work provides wide of lifestyles for the young in the future. Only after this comparison can they realize what the real goals of their .

However, other than frequent changes, the elderly who have undergone all these challenges may pursue a steady lifestyle. For the elders, concentration on their favorite activities would give rise to a sense of enjoyment and security, which is helpful to physical and psychological health. Due to a stable life, the elderly are less exposed to stress, leading to a decrease in adrenal hormones and resulting in their well- .

Furthermore, degeneration of mental and physical function would make the elderly unlikely to adapt to external changes, causing and , which are not contributing to their health.

Above all, it is unlikely to describe the changes in life with a positive or negative term. Accommodation for personal needs and goals is more important than the changes themselves.

All the parts of the task were covered, although some were covered better than others. The main ideas are relevant but not all of them are developed well enough. The information is presented coherently, it is evident that the writer progresses from one idea to another. The linking words and phrases are used, however at times they are incorrect, repetitive or seem forced (not natural). Paragraphing needs to be done more logically. The writer’s occasional word-formation errors detract from the good impression, but overall the response is still easy enough to understand. Even though there are some errors in grammar and punctuation, they don’t make the meaning much harder to understand. Overall, this essay seems to be worthy of Band 6 – 6.5.

Click here to see more IELTS essays of Band 6

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10 reasons why climate change is an important issue

We’re all concerned about climate change, but when it looks like a problem for future generations, you ask yourself, ‘will climate change even affect me?’ No matter what you care about, climate change is already affecting our world today. While we still have time to limit the worst impact, here are ten great reasons why we should all care about climate change:

Climate change will mean big changes for animals around the world. So if we care about incredible species, we must care about how a changing climate will make it harder for them to find food, and decrease their habitats – from forest to sea ice to the UK’s rivers and chalk streams .

2. Because you need your morning coffee fix

If you’re one of those people who need a coffee hit to get going, mornings may become grim. The effects of climate change on coffee are well-documented and coffee producers are already seeing reduced harvests, and more pests, because of it. Even if you’re caffeine-free you’re not in the clear – wine production may also be hit.

Finding Nemo or Dory may become harder as their beautiful homes crumble under the stress of our changing climate. Warmer air and ocean temperatures cause coral bleaching, where corals lose their colour and may die. Ocean acidification – from increased CO2 in the atmosphere – compounds the problem. Today, the ocean is 26% more acidic than it was in 1990, and the Great Barrier Reef has just experienced unprecedented back-to-back bleaching events in 2016 and 2017. Climate change is very bad news for anyone hoping to see the Great Barrier Reef one day.

4. Because we all need clean water

Did you know that 2 in every 3 people worldwide live in regions of severe water scarcity? Even a small increase in global temperatures will destabilise the water cycle and could make water scarcity much worse. Climate change affects rainfall patterns, meaning both drought and flooding will be more common, and more intense. And although it’s hardly comparable with life-threatening floods, climate change may already be making you late for work .

Globally temperature records  have been broken in recent years, and flooding in the UK gets worse. Year after year we’ve seen politicians wading through floods in Somerset, hopping into dinghies in Cornwall and arguing with each other in Westminster. More frequent and more intense extreme weather is a documented result of our greenhouse gas emissions, and the annual cost of flooding in the UK could increase 15-fold by the 2080s. We need to see politicians taking serious action on reducing the UK's carbon footprint, not looking for the next photo opportunity.

6. Because rainforests are incredible

Unique, irreplaceable, and often described as ‘the world’s lungs’, rainforests are some of the most precious habitats on the planet. They really are amazing; the Amazon, for example, is home to an astonishing 1 in 10 of all the known species on Earth. Yet over a third of the Amazon rainforest is already threatened by climate change. It’s a double-edged sword too: worldwide, forest destruction – mainly for agriculture – is a major cause of climate change, generating an incredible amount of greenhouse gases.

With increasing carbon emissions, it stands to reason that we face compromised air quality. This affects human health, especially children. Air pollution can lead to asthma, heart and lung disease. Beijing’s insidious smog is a visible reminder of this, but bad air quality is also making headlines in the UK, and has been labelled a ‘public health emergency’ by MPs.

8. Because clean tech is exciting

It’s not all bad news. Some of the biggest advancements in technology over the past few years have come from trying to limit, and come up with alternatives to, humanity’s CO2 dependency. Solar panels, wave-energy conversion and wind farms are allowing us to harness the power of nature in a clean way, harvesting energy without harming our environment or destroying habitats. Meanwhile nifty gadgets – like the Wall-E sized robot that can insulate your house to save energy – are helping to cut carbon in unexpected places. More of this technology could mean a cleaner, healthier future for us and our planet – because clean tech doesn’t just help nature, it also has the potential to build better, more accessible and people-friendly cities.

Climate change won’t just impact forest, or coral reefs, or even people in far-off countries – it will affect all of us. From more extreme weather to increasing food prices, to recreation and decreased opportunities to appreciate the natural world, people everywhere will feel its effects. Reducing our carbon footprint is fundamentally necessary to create a world where people and nature thrive – and that’s why WWF is working on it .

10. Because of future generations

We are fortunate to live in a beautiful, diverse, nurturing, awe-inspiring planet. Our children, and all future generations, deserve the same.

If you’re feeling worried by now, you’re not alone. Millions of people are working together for our planet. Events like Earth Hour are a brilliant reminder that together, humanity is capable of great things, and we can make change happen for the right reasons.

Already, so much has changed since we first heard about the possible effect of climate change. Beginning with the Rio Earth Summit, then the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, action on a global scale is speeding up. Now it is more important than ever that we use our action, our votes and our voices to tell political and business leaders that action on climate is absolutely essential.

What can you do? You could start with taking our carbon footprint calculator, to look at how your lifestyle impacts the environment and where you can reduce your footprint.

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12 Effective “Why This College?” Essay Examples

What’s covered.

• Essay 1: UPenn Nursing
• Essay 2: UPenn
• Essay 3: UW Madison
• Essay 4: Northwestern
• Essay 5: NYU
• Essay 6: NYU
• Essay 7: Boston University
• Essay 8: Boston University
• Essay 9: Tufts
• Essay 10: Tufts
• Essay 11: Georgia Tech
• Essay 12: Georgia Tech

Where to Get Your Essays Edited

The “ Why This College?” essay is one of the most common supplemental prompts. These school-specific essays help colleges understand if you’re a good fit for them, and if they’re a good fit for you.

In this post, we’ll share 12 “Why This College?” essay examples from real students and explain what they did well, and what could be improved. Read these examples to understand how to write a strong supplemental essay that improves your chances of acceptance.

Please note: Looking at examples of real essays students have submitted to colleges can be very beneficial to get inspiration for your essays. You should never copy or plagiarize from these examples when writing your own essays. Colleges can tell when an essay isn’t genuine and will not view students favorably if they plagiarized.

Essay Example #1: UPenn Nursing

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.

What the Essay Did Well

This essay has many positive aspects, but the most impressive one is the structure. Utilizing the Five C’s of Caring to discuss Penn’s offerings was a genius way of tying in this student’s passion for nursing while also making their essay exciting and easy to read. Beginning each paragraph with the respective adjective helped focus the paragraph and allowed the student to demonstrate how they exemplify each quality without explicitly stating it. The student wasn’t afraid to think outside the box and add creativity to their essay structure, which really paid off.

Another positive is how specific and specialized the Penn resources and opportunities the student mentions are. This essay did not fall into the trap of name-dropping professors or programs. In every paragraph, there was a connection to something the student wants to do at Penn to further themselves in the respective characteristic they were describing.

Not only did this student mention a resource at Penn—whether it was a professor, a class, or a club—in every paragraph, but they elaborated on what that resource was and how it would help them achieve their goal of becoming a nurse. The what and how is what sets this essay apart from other supplements that just name-drop resources for the sake of it. The amount of detail this essay went into about some of these resources makes it clear to the admissions officers reading the essay that this student has seriously looked into Penn and has a strong desire to come to campus and use these resources.

What Could Be Improved

One thing this essay could do to make it stronger is improve the first paragraph. The student does a good job of setting up Sister Roach and the Five C’s, but they don’t mention anything about their desire to study or pursue nursing. The first paragraph mentions both Sister Roach and Penn, but left out the student. This could be fixed by simply adding something along the lines of “I can’t wait to embody these values as a nursing student at Penn” to the paragraph.

Essay Example #2: UPenn

Prompt: Considering the specific undergraduate school you have selected, how will you explore your academic and intellectual interests at the University of Pennsylvania?  For students applying to the coordinated dual-degree and specialized programs, please answer these questions in regard to your single-degree school choice; your interest in the coordinated dual-degree or specialized program may be addressed through the program-specific essay. (300-450 words)

I always loved watching the worms when it rained. I used to put my little raincoat on, sit on the doorsteps, and watch them move toward the puddles. My younger brother, forever intent on destroying the world around him, would try to stomp on the worms, and I would run after him screaming. In my imagination, the brain looked like a pile of squiggly worms. However, my neuroscience curiosity has since grown beyond a worm’s habits.

For example, my mother thought that I was insane when I wanted to watch American Murder: The Family Next Door . To her immense relief, I was interested in the psychology of the criminal rather than the crime itself. Although neuroscience is my primary interest, I also hope to learn more about the intersection between law and medicine at the UPenn College of Arts and Sciences. I’ve been able to explore this topic through various projects at school such as presentations on juvenile crime and the death penalty.

At the University of Pennsylvania, I look forward to taking classes like Forensic Neuroscience (BIBB 050) as well as Neuroscience and Society (PSYC 247) both of which directly combine my two interests. Hopefully, the Take Your Professor to Dinner program resumes as I would make sure to talk to Dr. Daniel Langleben about his research on forensic functional brain imaging over a meal of Philly cheesesteaks.

I also hope to participate in the Race, Science, and Society Program where I can discover how race biases and neuroscience go hand-in-hand and contribute to the fight against racism. The Beyond Arrests: Re-Thinking Systematic-Oppression Group immediately caught my attention while looking at Penn’s opportunities to engage in relevant dialogue. My fascination with the criminal system began with reading Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment , and Penn will both fuel that curiosity as well as introduce new questions about the world of justice reform.

As an eight-year Latin scholar and a five-time reader of the Percy Jackson franchise, I would like to take classes in the Penn Classical Studies department where I can learn more about the impact of ancient cultures on society today. Classes such as Greek and Roman Medicine (CLST 271) would intersect my interests in medicine and classical civilizations.

Although I do harbor a deep love for Philly cheesesteaks and enjoyment of running in strange places like the Woodlands Cemetery, the range of programs to support my diverse interests and unmatched opportunities to put learning into action make me confident that the University of Pennsylvania is the best university for me to succeed.

The real strength in the essay lies in the sheer number of details this student is able to include in a short space, without sacrificing style and flow. The first two paragraphs really have nothing to do with Penn, but the inclusion of them makes this response feel like an essay, rather than a list of offerings at Penn. Striking the balance is important, and the anecdote at the beginning ultimately humanizes the writer.

From the three unique courses to the specific professor and his research to the race and criminal justice programs, this student has clearly done their homework on Penn! The key to this essay’s success isn’t just mentioning the offerings at Penn that excite the student, but the context that explains how each opportunity fits into the student’s academic interests.

Adding book titles like Crime and Punishment and Percy Jackson to support their passion for the criminal justice system and classics are extra details that help us learn more about how this student pursues their passions outside of the classroom. Finding little ways to humanize yourself throughout the essay can take it from good to great.

One area of improvement for this essay is the structure. It follows a very traditional “ Why This College? ” framework—start with an anecdote, then discuss classes, and then extracurriculars and programs—that gets old quickly for admissions officers.

A great way to add some spice to the format would be to use a sample schedule for the day. This essay mentions three different classes, two different groups, and a Take Your Professor to Dinner opportunity. Together, that’s the recipe for a full day at UPenn!

There are a few ways to play around with an essay that follows a typical day-in-the-life. Maybe each paragraph starts with a time and explains what they do during that hour. Maybe they narrate walking through campus on their way from one class to the next and what they just learned. However they choose to go about it, adding in a playful spin to the traditional essay structure is one of the best ways to instantly set an essay apart from the crowd. 

Essay Example #3: UW Madison

Prompt: Tell us why you decided to apply to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition, please include why you are interested in studying the major(s) you have selected. If you selected undecided, please describe your areas of possible academic interest. (650 words)

Essay – # Day 117

7:30 am… As I open my eyes, I look at the pinboard in front of my bed. Written in red block letters are two of the many goals of my life: “Make life better and more independent for the Visually impaired; Inspire kids to explore the field of STEM, making them the future problem solvers.“

Keeping these goals afresh in mind, I freshen up and prepare for the first class of the day, ​ECE 533 Image Processing. As the professor explains the Applications of Image Processing in Computer Vision, a light bulb sparks in my mind. I can modify the head contraption of PERIPHIS to identify objects in peripheral vision and alert the wearer via an earpiece using Text to Speech (TTS). 

After the class, I see Professor Mohit Gupta at the WISION Lab, where he shares his insights from the Block World Cameras system, which helps to geometrize 3D Man-made environments. We brainstorm ways we can implement this system on PERIPHIS.

Deep in the discussion and intrigued by my curiosity, he asked me where my interest in this niche field sparked during high school, and then I recount the incident from 9th grade: 

“In Hindi – Agar aaj mere paas paise hote to ye din na dekhna padta” (If I had money, I would not have had to see this day.) 

These were the words of Aadiya, a glaucoma patient, who couldn’t help but cry in despair as she injured herself in an accident just because she couldn’t sense the incoming traffic. During my visit to “Baroda Association for Blind (BAB)” for a survey, I saw and experienced firsthand how hard and inaccessible it is for an underprivileged visually impaired to locomote without anyone’s assistance. 

What happened next was my first adventure into the world of Computer Science and Engineering. I dedicated the next four years to find an affordable solution to a pressing problem. It was called PERIPHIS, a smart wearable that helps alert the visually impaired wearer of impending danger while locomoting.

When I finally presented this device to Aadiya, the smile on her face made me realize how big an impact technology can make in one’s life.

11:00 am… As I head to the Engineering Hall to complete my assignments of COMP SCI 570

Introduction to Human-Computer Interaction, I crossways with my roommate from the Chadbourne Residential College, who is also interested in researching applications of Computer Vision in real life. We fix a time to chat later. 

1:20pm… After a quick bite, I head to Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory. I expand my knowledge on different applications of Computer Science to make human life better than I found. I get fascinated when I see a few students building a child-friendly humanoid robot to teach kids the principles of Coding and AI. I hop in and share insights from my experience of being the President at AiGoLearning and kindling interest in STEM for young children. I explain how crucial the UI is when it comes to technology for the young.

5:00pm… To blow off some steam and socialize, I meet up with my fellow countrymen and artists at the Indian Graduate Students’ Association. We discuss and plan the upcoming Diwali Night Music at Shannon Hall. I feel proud to share my national identity while bringing out my musical self by contributing as a Tabla player at the student organization. 

As I close my day, I reflect and think of the most unique resource at UW. It is not the labs, research facilities, classes, but the people, including the professors and students, all aligned to a single goal: “Solving problems to make society a better place.”

10:00pm… I find my way back to my dorm room and write with red block letters on my pinboard: “Meet with at least 1 Badger every day and gain new insight from them.”

This essay is a stellar example. The day in the life formatting is a common way to spice up your “Why This College?” essay, but the way this writer executes it is nearly flawless.

Opening with the vision board makes the student’s college goals clear from the very start, and this was cleverly done since vision boards are naturally one of the first things you see when you wake up.

The student then takes us to specific courses and labs and shares their thoughts on how they could improve their invention, PERIPHIS. The author seamlessly includes background information on PERIPHIS by including this hypothetical conversation with a professor who speaks their native language.

As we go through the day, we can see that this student will not only be involved academically, but also socially. We learn how important their culture is to them and how they plan to share it with the campus community.

This essay does everything a “Why This College?” essay should: it shares the student’s goals and motivations behind them, how the university can support those goals, and how the student will engage with the campus beyond academics.

There’s not much this essay could improve, besides a few formatting and wording issues. The first line of this essay—“ Essay – # Day 117”—is a great attention-grabber, but the placement of the # symbol is confusing and perhaps should’ve been in front of the number.

There are also a couple spots where wording is a bit awkward, such as these lines:

I crossways with my roommate from the Chadbourne Residential College, who is also interested in researching applications of Computer Vision in real life. We fix a time to chat later. 

It should instead say something like “I run into my roommate” and “We schedule a time”. This is likely due to English not being the student’s native language, but could’ve easily been caught by proofreading from a native speaker.

Essay Example #4: Northwestern

Prompt: While other parts of your application give us a sense of who you are, we are also excited to hear more about how you see yourself engaging with the larger Northwestern community.

In 300 words or less, help us understand how you might engage specific resources, opportunities, and/or communities here. We are curious about what these specifics are, as well as how they may enrich your time at Northwestern and beyond.

For as long as I can remember, I have seen my parents, both farmers, struggling to produce food because of the challenges presented by the environment. Joining Northwestern’s community, and majoring in Environmental Engineering, will allow me to understand what are the reasons behind climate change and learn how to stop them and/or prevent them from happening. 

Having witnessed how plant diseases affect crops, I would like to collaborate in the PLANT-Dx project and in its widespread application. I strongly believe that it will be able to help farmers to improve the quality and quantity of their production, and reduce famine around the world. At some point in my education, I want to take advantage of the study-abroad programs Northwestern has to offer and learn about farming practices in a different part of the world. In addition, I want to conduct research on sustainable alternative farming methods that adapt to the new environmental conditions and that can be practiced in countries with fewer resources.

Apart from having access to outstanding professors, rigorous academics, and cutting-edge research resources, I will be able to be part of a close-knit community genuinely curious about others’ activities, truly passionate about what they do, and not afraid to step out of their comfort zone to make of this world a better place. Being part of Engineers for a Sustainable World at Northwestern will allow me to get to know people that share one of my passions in addition to learning and teaching how to apply sustainable practices in daily life.  

I am already looking forward to marching through the Weber Arch.

This essay is extremely cohesive, as it focuses on the student’s agricultural background and desire to study environmental engineering. The student mentions a couple resources specific to Northwestern, such as the PLANT-Dx project and Engineers for a Sustainable World.

Because of the background information the student provided, their motivations for participating in these opportunities is also clear. We can see that Northwestern would be a school that would help them achieve their goals.

There are two main aspects of the essay that could be improved: the writing and its specificity.

To begin with, the intro paragraph is a bit clunky and vague.  The student should have specified the challenges the environment has presented to their parents’ farming with detailed imagery about droughts or torrential rain. The final sentence about climate change is also much too broad, and the student should’ve stated a goal in a smaller niche of environmentalism.

For example, here’s what a rewritten strong intro paragraph might look like:

The drought this year was bad, and the once-flourishing tomato crops on my family’s farm were afflicted with Southern Blight. As my family and our community struggled to put food on the table for the third year in a year, I resolved to major in Environmental Engineering at Northwestern to learn how to preserve our agriculture in the face of climate change.

Another writing error is the typo in the final paragraph, where they write “to make of this world a better place”. It’s important to proofread your essay and have others help you proofread as well!

Finally, while the essay mentions a couple specific Northwestern resources, the other resources they mention are too vague.  The student could’ve improved by mentioning a specific study abroad program and a current research project on sustainable alternative farming methods. Most colleges let you study abroad and conduct research, so you need to explain why Northwestern is the best place for your goals.

Essay Example #5: NYU

Prompt: We would like to know more about your interest in NYU. What motivated you to apply to NYU? Why have you applied or expressed interest in a particular campus, school, college, program, and or area of study? If you have applied to more than one, please also tell us why you are interested in these additional areas of study or campuses. We want to understand – Why NYU? (400 words)

“A futuristic way of looking at academics,” the student panelist said during a New York University virtual information session. I reflected on a conversation I had with my grandma; she couldn’t understand how her vegetarian granddaughter could build a career in the food industry. However much I tried convincing her that vegetarianism was the future, as it offers substantial benefits to the environment and can offer health benefits to a growing population with the same environmental resources, she insisted that tofu would never provide the same satiation as meat. She was raised in a community where meat consumption was embedded in the culture, and its production is a large part of the country’s economy. In contrast, I had the privilege of living a few steps from San Francisco, with many restaurants and grocery stores dedicated to plant-based meat alternatives. Trying innovative recipes and products eventually allowed me to develop my own recipes. Upon my move to Nicaragua, where my grandmother is from, I found my food options to be limited, expensive and hard to find. So I developed my own small-scale solutions that did not break the bank and satiated grandma.

An institution that implements forward-thinking is what I need to reach my goals of changing the future of plant-based diets and people’s views on vegetarianism. NYU’s Nutrition and Food Studies program offers multiple disciplines of food studies that I will apply to my aspirations as a vegetarian. I plan to study under Adjunct Faculty Kayleen St. John, whose success in the plant-based industry and her teaching of the ‘Foundations of Plant-Based Nutrition’ in The Vegetarian Times excites me. The variety of classes like Introduction to Food History, Food Photography, and Food Systems: Food & Agriculture will give me an overview of what is available in the food industry to be prepared for all fields. Not to be cliche, but NYU’s proximity to the city is essential for the rapidly changing vegetarian industry. The multiculturalism available in NYC and NYU will allow me to understand the food system and diets of various cultures, religions, and areas. I can explore the extremes of the food industry, from fancy restaurants to public school cafeterias. These juxtapositions, much like the one I experienced after my move to Nicaragua, will allow me to broaden my reach and demonstrate that the vegetarian diet is not something reserved for select groups but a diet attainable to all. 

A core strength of this essay is the fact it takes its time to provide the reader with ample background on why this student is interested in nutrition and food studies and how they have grappled with difficult questions and surrounding this topic in the past. It’s okay to not mention anything about NYU for a whole paragraph if you are using that space to bring depth to your interests and tell the reader the crucial backstory behind pursuing your intended degree.

Another positive aspect is the inclusion of New York City for a purposeful reason. NYU admissions officers read thousands of essays that just talk about living in NYC for the sake of NYC—this is not what they want to hear. In contrast, this essay focuses on the vast and lively food scene in New York that the student considers to be an invaluable asset to her NYU education. This is a time where including New York actually plays to the appeal of NYU, rather than making it seem like the student is simply applying for the city.

Finally, this student clearly demonstrates that they are someone who wants to change the world for the better, but through their personal niche. NYU is looking for people who express this desire to be a changemaker, but oftentimes sweeping statements like “I want to change the world” come across as vague and disingenuous. The essay does mention changing diets and looking to the future, but it is focused within the student’s specific area of interest, making the claim to change the world more determined and authentic.

This essay could be made stronger if there was a bit more personal reflection included. The first paragraph provides a lot of details on the student’s vegetarianism and how it conflicts with her grandmother and her heritage. What it doesn’t include very much of is how the student thinks and feels about her diet being at odds with that of her family. 

Does this student feel they are betraying their heritage by being vegetarian? What emotions do they feel when people criticize vegetarianism? Why did they go vegetarian in the first place? Probing questions like these that get to the emotional core behind the story in the first paragraph would really help to build out this student’s backstory. We want to understand what their emotional responses and reasoning processes look like, so finding ways to include those into an already expositive paragraph would further bolster this essay.

Essay Example #6: NYU

My mother never takes off her Cartier necklace that my father gave her 10 years ago on their anniversary. As a child, I didn’t fully understand this attachment. However, on my 15th birthday, my aunt gifted me a ring, which was uniquely designed and made up of three rings linked together. Wearing it every day and making sure I would never lose it, I didn’t treat it like my easily replaceable childhood necklaces; it was my piece of luxury. This sparked my deep curiosity for the luxury world. The niche strives to provide the finest and most memorable experiences, as equally as my Japanese attention to detail and my French appreciation towards aesthetic beauty. In a constantly shifting environment, I learned that luxury chases timeless excellence.

NYU Stern’s BS in business and a co-concentration in management and marketing will fully immerse me in the business side of luxury fashion that I aim to pursue a future career in. The luxury marketing track, offered only by NYU, will enable me to assemble the most suited classes to reflect my interests. Specifically, NYU Stern’s exciting electives such as The Dynamics of the Fashion Industry seminar and Brand Strategy & Planning will encourage me to develop the skills that I was introduced to and grew keen on when running a virtual sustainable fashion auction.

As someone who has moved around from Paris to Tokyo, to Chicago and now Athens, I thrive in meeting and collaborating with others from diverse backgrounds. The school’s strong global outlook, demonstrated through Stern’s International Business Exchange Program, further sets NYU apart for me, as it is crucial to building essential soft skills. This opportunity allows me to experience new cultural approaches to luxury business which I can bring back with me to New York, and therefore push me to become a well-rounded business student. Similarly, I am excited to take part in the array of student clubs offered, such as the Luxury and Retail Association (LARA), which I learned about after connecting with and talking to current students. Seeing past talks from employers of companies like Conde Nast, I am eager to learn outside of the classroom from future speakers. 

Finding myself in new situations constantly, I always seek new challenges and explorations – to me, it is clear that NYU Stern will push me to create the finest and most unique learning experiences of timeless excellence.

This essay has an amazing introduction paragraph. It doesn’t mention anything about NYU or what this student is planning on studying, which is what makes it so intriguing. The reader doesn’t know where this student is headed after making such a seemingly unrelated statement about jewelry, but we want to find out. 

Not only does this essay immediately capture the reader’s attention, it maintains a succinct and direct tone that helps the reader effortlessly flow from one paragraph to the next. The student chose to include three opportunities at NYU that excite them and fully elaborate on them. This serves as an excellent example of more is less. 

We aren’t bombarded with a laundry list of classes, professors, and clubs the student wants to take. Instead, the student took a focused approach and described why they were excited by each offering they highlighted. Going deeper into a smaller number of opportunities at the college still shows this student did their research, but it allows for their backstory and goals to be discussed in far greater detail.

While this student does a good job of elaborating, they also mention a few key aspects of their personality as throw-away lines, when it would have been great to elaborate further on them. For example, they mention running a virtual sustainable fashion auction (cool!), but don’t provide us with any details on what that actually entails, how they got involved with it, what they enjoyed about it, etc. They also mention moving around a lot in the context of developing a diverse perspective, but they don’t include any emotional insight into what that was like.

Although there are only 400 words available, and you don’t want to spend too much time discussing the past, it would be nice to see just a sentence or two that delves into the details of this student’s background. The fashion auction and moving around clearly had an impact on the student, so we want to know what that was. If they are choosing to include these details, they must be important in the student’s decision to pursue business at NYU, so they shouldn’t be afraid to divulge the emotional significance to the reader.

Essay Example #7: Boston University

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 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 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 colleges are also interested in how you’ll contribute to their 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 (instead of 78 words, which is 31% of the total word count!), and used that valuable space to talk about a specific social aspect of BU that interests them. 

Essay Example #8: Boston University

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. 

I am fascinated by research, though completely uninterested in the disciplines traditionally associated with it, such as STEM fields. I need to find a school that will balance my desire to conduct research with my interest in political science. 

While many schools boast in-depth student research programs for those looking to cure diseases or develop solutions to global warming, few tout their support for humanities research. Additionally, many universities that do allocate funding to social science research typically reserve these monies for graduate students or upperclassmen. BU, with the help of its Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, will allow me to conduct research on the topics that most intrigue me, such as gender disparity in politics, or the relationship between dominant parties in power and the country’s economy and involvement in foreign affairs. Furthermore, I can begin these studies as early as my first year. Not only can I take classes with professors like Sandra McEvoy or Dino Christenson to develop my interests in a classroom setting, but I could also work with one of them to develop new knowledge in the topics that we both enjoy learning about. With this knowledge base and experience conducting studies with top professors in a respected research institution, I will be well-prepared for my future law career. I want to learn in an environment that encourages independent study no matter one’s field of interest or experience, and BU’s support of intellectual curiosity for all of its students makes it a perfect fit for me.

This student knows exactly what they want, and they’re not afraid to state it bluntly. Their intro paragraph is totally honest about their interests (or lack of interest), and we immediately understand one of their main college goals: to conduct political science research.

The student mentions a specific resource, the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, as well as an alignment with BU’s value of encouraging independent study in all fields. Showing alignment with a specific value of the university is a great way to take your essay to the next level.

This essay shows us that the student would be a great fit for BU and would take advantage of its research opportunities.

The writer mentions some of their research interests, but doesn’t explain the motivation behind them. We don’t actually learn very much about the student themself, which is a common flaw of “Why This College?” essays. The essay would’ve been stronger if they’d explained why they’re interested in “gender disparity in politics, or the relationship between dominant parties in power and the country’s economy and involvement in foreign affairs.” For example, maybe they feel strongly about abortion rights and are upset about the way men have been legislating women’s rights.

The student also names two professors whose classes they’d like to take and with whom they’d like to do research, but we aren’t told which classes they’re interested in, or which topics they could cover together. You want to avoid “name-dropping” professors without context in your essay. If the student shared the names of specific classes or research topics and why they’re interested in them, that would’ve strengthened their essay.

Essay Example #9: Tufts

Prompt: Why Tufts? (100 words) 

When Deanne, Tufts’ admissions counselor, visited my school, she immediately caught my attention by emphasizing Tufts’ diverse yet unified campus. Tufts’ inclusive definition of diversity goes beyond merely recruiting students from a variety of backgrounds. Tufts seeks to integrate these categories of diversity and pushes its students to learn from one another. One such intersectional program that attracts me is CAFE (Conversation, Action, Faith, and Education). By joining CAFE, a community that promotes interfaith education, I will learn from my peers, become more understanding of other religious backgrounds, and apply this broader understanding to my academic work at Tufts.

It’s hard to write a “Why This College?” essay in 100 words. This essay does a good job sticking to one unique element of Tufts—its intersectionality. Since Tufts also cares about demonstrated interest, it’s great that the student also mentioned speaking with an admissions counselor. 

We unfortunately don’t learn very much about the student from this essay. Why do they care about diversity and interfaith programs? How does this relate to their academic and career goals? While the word count is super short, they could’ve cut these lines and jumped right into the specific resource they’re interested in: Tufts’ inclusive definition of diversity goes beyond merely recruiting students from a variety of backgrounds. Tufts seeks to integrate these categories of diversity and pushes its students to learn from one another.

Here’s an example of a stronger version of this essay:

When a Tufts admissions counselor visited my school, she immediately caught my attention by emphasizing Tufts’ diverse yet unified campus. As a Muslim hoping to go into International Relations, I want to attend a school that not only recruits diverse students, but pushes them to learn from one another. I hope to join intersectional programs such as CAFE (Conversation, Action, Faith, and Education). By joining this community that promotes interfaith education, I will gain the necessary perspective and compassion to become a human rights lawyer in countries with religious conflict, such as my homeland Azerbaijan.

Essay Example #10: Tufts

Prompt: Why Tufts? (100 words)

Someday I hope to conduct medical research in developing countries; Tufts attracts me because of its wide array of majors it offers and support for undergraduate research. To understand the human brain, I hope to study biology, neuroscience, and psychology. In addition to outstanding faculty in each of these areas, Tufts also organizes initiatives including the International Research Program. Through this program, I would work with other students and faculty members on an international project related to brain diseases. This opportunity will give me a taste of my future career and help me narrow the scope of my later studies.

This essay does a better job of sharing the student’s goals with us compared to the previous Tufts essay. We learn that the applicant is interested in medical research in developing countries on brain diseases, and that Tufts has a program to support international research.

The essay still mentions some resources that could apply to many schools, which is not an effective use of the tiny word count. For example, they say: “Tufts attracts me because of its wide array of majors it offers and support for undergraduate research” and they mention the “outstanding faculty” in the fields they plan to study.

They also don’t tell us their motivation behind studying brain diseases abroad, and it feels like there’s a significant story there. Giving some background would’ve further strengthened their essay.

Finally, they mention that they still need to narrow the scope of their studies; while it’s fine to be undecided on your career and majors, you don’t need to spend your precious word count saying that in your essay. They could’ve instead shared a couple potential avenues they’re considering.

Here’s what the student could’ve written instead:

Outcomes for schizophrenia patients are better in developing countries than in developed ones. I hope to research the reasons behind this and improve the treatment options in the US for the cousin I grew up with. In college, I want to study biology, neuroscience, and psychology. Tufts attracts me because of its unique interdisciplinary BS in Cognitive and Brain Science and its International Research Program. Through this program, I could do the research I’ve dreamt of doing with a faculty member and other students, preparing me for my future career as either a researcher or clinician.

Essay Example #11: Georgia Tech

Prompt: Why do you want to study your chosen major specifically at Georgia Tech? (300 words)

Climate change is a human rights issue.  

There the headline was, screaming on my phone screen. I think about those suffering from a lack of clean water. I think about those suffering from a lack of clean air. 

I often think back to that headline – it’s what drives my passion for environmental engineering. As an environmental engineer, I can mitigate air pollution and design water treatment systems that address the water injustices that people face. However, it’s not just about creating a technology that cleans water; it’s about changing people’s lives. New technologies can make a lasting difference in humanitarian issues worldwide; Georgia Tech’s research on creating a toilet that turns human waste into clean water for those in need of improved sanitation aligns perfectly with my interests.   

At Georgia Tech, through the student-led organization, Engineers for a Sustainable World and the InVenture Prize, I can translate the knowledge gained from my classes into a concrete vision. I can design and implement hands-on sustainability projects around Atlanta and invent a water sanitation system for the on-site acquisition of clean water. 

Georgia Tech can also provide me with ample research opportunities, such as the broad area of Healthy Communities in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. I can further pursue my interest in developing solutions to deliver clean water while welcoming new areas of inquiry. An area I would like to explore would be the controlling of dangerous matter in the air to reduce health hazards; reducing the impact of climate change is of utmost importance to me. 

Studying environmental engineering at Georgia Tech would well prepare me to develop solutions to climate-related issues. With the countless opportunities that Georgia Tech has to offer, I know there is nowhere else where I can receive a better environmental engineering education.

What the Essay Did Well l

This essay begins with an attention-grabbing statement that leaves the reader wondering how this will relate to the student’s interest in Georgia Tech. They then transition seamlessly into how climate change and human rights motivate their desire to become an environmental engineer.

The student mentions several resources specific to Georgia Tech that would help them achieve their goals, such as the research on the toilet turning waste into water, Engineers for a Sustainable World, InVenture Prize, and Healthy Communities research. It’s clear that they did their research and have reflected on their fit with the campus community.

They end the essay explicitly stating that Georgia Tech is the best place for them to grow, and the reader is certainly convinced of this by the end.

This essay is quite strong, so there’s not much that the student could’ve improved. That said, there is one sentence that is a bit awkwardly worded: New technologies can make a lasting difference in humanitarian issues worldwide; Georgia Tech’s research on creating a toilet that turns human waste into clean water for those in need of improved sanitation aligns perfectly with my interests.

Instead, the student could’ve written:

New technologies can make a lasting difference in humanitarian issues worldwide; Georgia Tech aligns with this value of mine and is even developing a toilet that turns human waste into clean water for those who need improved sanitation.

Essay Example #12: Georgia Tech

From my first Java project, a somewhat primitive graphing calculator, I realized that CS unlocks a different way of thinking. My brain races at speeds it seldom touches with other subjects. Every part of CS, from conceptualizing a plan to executing a solution, is another piece of a puzzle I’m eager to solve and affords the most opportunities for creative problem-solving and application. 

“Progress and Service,” Georgia Tech’s motto, tells me there’s no better place to explore my curiosity and deepen my CS skills while simultaneously helping make the world a better place, my ultimate goal for a college education. 

In the classroom, I look forward to GT’s threads program, where I can tailor the curriculum to suit my career choice after exposing myself to all technical aspects of CS.

I’ll apply my specialized learning with Tech’s fascinating research opportunities. Professor Pandarinth’s brain-machine interfacing software means a lot to me. My uncle passed away from a freak accident after extensive paralysis because potential treatments were unaffordable. Exploring this revolutionary brain decoding software wouldn’t just involve me in cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology research, I’d be personally driven to ensure its success and accessibility. 

I’m at my best building towards tangible results. I learned this on my robotics team using design skills to create a technically complex robot that tackles anything from shooting balls to hanging on a balance beam. I’m excited to expand my skills on the RoboJackets team, applying my career interests to build ferocious BattleBots and autonomous race robots that compete on the Indy Speedway, two events that sound ridiculously fun. 

Of course, I can’t skip hackathons. These competitions molded my interest in coding so I want to give back to Georgia Tech’s Hack-Community by planning HackGT and the Catalyst Mentorship program as a member of the Hexlabs team. 

The student’s passion for CS shines through this essay. They explain what they love about the subject (the problem-solving aspect) and they share that they hope to make a difference through CS, demonstrating alignment with Tech’s motto of  “progress and service”.

It’s clear that this student has done their research, mentioning specific academic programs, research, and clubs. We can see that they’d be greatly engaged with the campus community.

Finally, this essay is also down-to-earth. The student doesn’t try to use impressive vocabulary or formal language. In fact, they even describe some extracurriculars as “ridiculously fun.” While you shouldn’t get too informal in your essays, this student’s casual tone in this context makes them feel more approachable and more excited about the prospect of going to Georgia Tech.

This essay has a couple sentences that are confusing to read:

Every part of CS, from conceptualizing a plan to executing a solution, is another piece of a puzzle I’m eager to solve and affords the most opportunities for creative problem-solving and application.

This sentence could’ve been broken up and rewritten as:

Every part of CS, from conceptualizing a plan to executing a solution, is another piece of a puzzle I’m eager to solve. For me, the field affords the most opportunities for creative problem-solving and application.

This sentence also uses incorrect grammar—the comma should be replaced with a semicolon:

Exploring this revolutionary brain decoding software wouldn’t just involve me in cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology research, I’d be personally driven to ensure its success and accessibility. 

These details would make the essay more readable.

The organization of the essay could also be reworked. The student mentions Tech’s motto of “progress and service,” but doesn’t follow up until later with an example of how they’d use CS for the greater good. Using CS for social good isn’t ultimately the theme of their essay, so this section would’ve been better placed at the end of the paragraph about AI technology research, or at the very end of the essay. The essay actually ends abruptly, so placing the section at the end might’ve tied it up nicely, if the student could’ve placed more emphasis on how they plan to use CS to improve society.

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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Why is the Death Penalty Good for our Society

This essay about the potential societal benefits of the death penalty argues that it can act as a deterrent, provide closure to victims’ families, and safeguard the public from severe offenders. It explores the complexity of this divisive issue, emphasizing that when implemented judiciously, capital punishment could positively contribute to society. While acknowledging the serious concerns of its critics, the essay advocates for a balanced discussion on its role within the criminal justice system, guided by justice and the protection of innocent lives.

How it works

In the tapestry of societal dialogue, few topics evoke as much passion and debate as the role of the death penalty. Amidst the clash of perspectives, one aspect often overlooked weaves through the discourse—the argument that, when administered judiciously, the death penalty can serve as a positive force for society. Despite its divisive nature and the necessity for meticulous application, advocates assert that the death penalty can act as a deterrent, offer closure to victims and their families, and protect society from the gravest offenders.

By exploring these facets, it becomes apparent that, within a carefully constructed framework, the death penalty can indeed contribute positively to the societal landscape.

Central to the argument in favor of the death penalty is its potential deterrent effect. Proponents suggest that the looming threat of ultimate punishment can dissuade individuals from committing heinous acts. This deterrent effect ripples beyond the individual perpetrator, resonating within the collective consciousness and signaling society’s unwavering stance against abhorrent crimes. Although empirical evidence on this matter remains contested, the theoretical basis of deterrence theory remains robust: the prospect of severe consequences can influence behavior, guiding individuals away from the path of criminality.

Additionally, advocates emphasize the importance of justice for victims and their loved ones. The death penalty represents society’s unequivocal condemnation of egregious crimes, reaffirming the sanctity of victims’ lives. For many families, the execution of the perpetrator provides a sense of closure and vindication, facilitating the challenging journey towards healing and restoration. In cases of unimaginable atrocities, such as mass murder or terrorism, the death penalty serves as a symbolic reparation for the profound wounds inflicted upon society as a whole. While no form of retribution can fully alleviate the pain of loss, the death penalty offers a semblance of justice in an often unjust world.

Furthermore, proponents argue that the death penalty acts as a crucial safeguard against the most dangerous offenders. Some individuals pose an irredeemable threat to society, committing crimes of such depravity and magnitude that they forfeit their right to coexist with their fellow humans. While life imprisonment may remove offenders from society, it fails to provide the same level of assurance against recidivism or the possibility of escape. In contrast, the death penalty ensures that these individuals can never again inflict harm on innocent lives. In cases where rehabilitation is deemed unattainable, society must prioritize the protection of its citizens over the rights of irredeemable offenders.

Despite the validity of these arguments, critics of the death penalty raise legitimate concerns about its implementation, including issues of racial bias, wrongful convictions, and the irreversible nature of the punishment. Indeed, these concerns necessitate careful consideration, and any system of capital punishment must be subject to rigorous oversight and safeguards to prevent miscarriages of justice. However, these apprehensions should not overshadow the potential societal benefits that proponents attribute to the death penalty when administered fairly and justly.

In summary, while the death penalty remains a contentious issue, proponents argue that it can serve as a deterrent, offer closure to victims and their families, and protect society from the most egregious offenders. By recognizing these potential societal benefits and addressing concerns surrounding its application, society can engage in a nuanced and enlightened discussion about the role of the death penalty in our criminal justice system. Ultimately, the pursuit of justice and the protection of innocent lives should guide our collective efforts to create a safer and more equitable society for all.

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For Earth Day 2024, experts are spreading optimism – not doom. Here's why.

Climate change may still be an existential threat to humanity, but as Earth Day 2024 rolls around on Monday, some of the people most concerned about the planet aren't peddling doom – they're spreading optimism.

There's plenty to feel good about , they say: Huge strides towards fighting climate change , decades of work that have led to other environmental disasters being averted – and the reality that hope can help fuel the actions needed to keep tackling the climate crisis.

“People assume that in the 50 years since the first Earth Day we’ve made no progress. That we’re in a worse position now than we were in the 1970s, that there’s no point to environmental action,” said Hannah Ritchie, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom who studies sustainability in relation to climate change.

Quite the opposite is true. Climate-friendly advances that would have seemed impossible even 10 years ago are now commonplace. And three times in the past 50 years humanity has faced – and fixed – massive, man-made global environmental issues.

This Earth Day, some climate scientists think climate change could be added to the list.

That reality is still a long way off , but we've made more progress than you might think. It's as if humanity has to climb the world’s tallest mountain, said Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist of The Nature Conservancy and a distinguished professor of climate science at Texas Tech University.

Wind and solar power are the cheapest electricity on the planet. Heat pumps come up in most heating and cooling discussions. Electric cars are now mainstream.

Monday brings even more funding for climate-friendly causes, with the Biden administration announcing $7 billion in grants to provide solar power to over 900,000 homes in low-income and disadvantaged communities. The White House said the president’s actions would save more than $350 million in electricity costs annually – roughly $400 per household – over the next 25 years.

“It's like climbing the world's tallest mountain," Hayhoe said. "You walk and walk and you climb and climb and the top seems like it's never getting closer. But when you turn around, you realize how far you've come.”

Even Al Gore , former senator and vice president who famously began warning Americans about global warming in 1981, feels a little positive.

In March, he acknowledged to USA TODAY that things aren’t moving fast enough but said, “We’re gaining on this, we’re gaining momentum and soon we'll be gaining on the crisis itself.”

Three huge climate wins in 50 years

Humanity has already had some amazing wins when it comes to other big, seemingly intractable environmental issues.

Take DDT, a pesticide originally seen as a miracle in the fight against mosquitoes and other vermin when it was first introduced in the 1940s. It wasn't until the late 1950s that scientists connected the dots between declining bird populations and the new wonder chemical. DDT thinned eggshells so that nesting mothers crushed their own babies – leading many species, including the bald eagle , to the brink of extinction.

But DDT was banned in 1972 and by 2007 bald eagles had made such a comeback they were removed from the Endangered Species list.

Or look up at the sky and ponder the ozone layer that protects us from ultraviolet radiation. In the early 1980s scientists first saw that a hole had developed in that critically protective layer of the atmosphere. Without it, fields would burn and the outdoors would be unsurvivable. Despite the costs and the immensity of the problem, nations around the world signed the Montreal Protocol, phasing out the chlorofluorocarbons that caused the hole. Today, the ozone is repairing itself and is expected to return to 1980 levels by 2060.

Then there was acid rain , the byproduct of burning sulfur-laced coal. Beginning in the 1950s, it killed forests and life in lakes and streams across broad swaths of the northeast, with public awareness of its dangers growing in the 1970s. The Clean Air Act of 1990 helped limit sulfur emissions and levels began to fall.

Global CO2 emissions could peak next year

It's important to remember that history when considering the grim news about carbon dioxide levels in Earth's atmosphere, the root cause of global warming.

Last year they hit the highest point in human history, 420 parts per million. That’s up from 280 parts per million before the Industrial Revolution. In that time, global temperatures have risen by about 2 degrees.

But there’s something else happening that doesn’t get as much notice but is very hopeful. Experts – including the International Energy Agency – say that global carbon dioxide emissions will probably peak next year and certainly by 2030, using a scenario based on current policy settings.

That means 2023 was very likely the year with the highest greenhouse gas emissions ever and the numbers will only go down from here.

While that won’t make up for all the CO2 that has been pumped into the Earth’s atmosphere since the mid-1700s, it’s an important milestone and shows how the energy shift is already well underway.

Last year: On Earth Day, scientists tell us what 2050 could be like. Their answers might surprise you.

“The transition to clean energy is happening worldwide and it’s unstoppable,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said last year . “It’s not a question of ‘if’, it’s just a matter of ‘how soon.’”

That said, current emission levels are a third higher than they needed to be to limit global warming to 2.7 degrees . So global per capita emissions still must come down significantly. But progress is being made, progress that's not always apparent to the general public, said Ritchie.

Clean energy is now the cheapest energy

That progress is being aided by more good news. Clean energy, from solar and wind, has gotten very cheap much faster than many climate experts ever hoped.

“The world is fundamentally in a different place from what it was in 1970. Even just a decade ago we were in a completely different position,” said Ritchie, whose book "Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet," came out in January.

Today, solar, wind and battery power are dramatically less expensive than they were even 10 years ago. In 2023, electricity from wind and solar was significantly less expensive than from coal, nuclear and natural gas.

The unsubsidized cost of wind power has dropped  66% since 2009 , while the cost of unsubsidized solar has fallen 84%, according to an analysis by  Lazard , a financial advisory firm that publishes annual estimates of the total cost of producing electricity.

Even five years ago, Ritchie said she was quite pessimistic because the costs for clean energy were so high. That doesn’t worry her anymore.

“We’ve seen this really dramatic change,” she said. “Solar and wind have gone from being the most expensive energy technologies by far to being cheaper than fossil fuels. That’s a fundamental shift and will change the speed at which we move toward low carbon technologies.”

The shift in cost is moving so quickly it’s hard even for experts to keep up.

“If you’re looking at data that even from just a few years ago you’re really behind,” said Ritchie.

These shifts aren’t just happening in the United States, but worldwide. While China is still the largest single global carbon emitter and is still building coal-fired power plants, it’s also moving extremely quickly into renewables.

New solar, wind and hydroelectric power in China accounted for 59% of the world’s new renewable in 2023, according to S&P Global.

“Last year alone, China deployed as much solar as the United States has in its entire history,” said Ritchie.

The International Energy Agency also says demand for oil, coal and gas will peak by 2030 as the number of electric vehicles on the road globally increases and China continues to move towards wind and solar.

That prediction is based on the current policies of the nations of the world.

That’s still too high to keep to the Paris Agreement goal of limiting the rise in average global temperatures.

But Hayhoe points out that when the first National Climate Assessment was issued in 2000, the estimate was that we could be heading to as much as a 7.2 to 9 degree increase by the end of the century. Today, the predictions are that 4.8 degree warmer world by the end of the century. "And that number goes down with every new step we take up the mountain," she said.

There’s hope on the horizon

Ritchie says the work necessary to fix climate change can seem overwhelming but it’s actually not as bad as it might seem. "The solutions overlap, so in tackling one problem you're making others better at the same time," she said.

Keeping this front and center can be hard. The same voices that have been denying climate change for decades now have added what’s known as doomerism to their toolbox – saying it’s too late and there’s no hope.

Even those who are overwhelmed by climate change can be frozen into inaction, said Hayhoe.

“We have people who are so panicked that they descend into this very unhelpful doomerism,” she said.

Meanwhile, Gore is also among those in awe of the progress humanity has made.

“If you had said years ago (that) in the year 2023 80% of all the new electricity generation installed worldwide is going to be solar and wind, I would have said ‘Wow. That's great!’ But that's what happened last year. If somebody had said 20% of all new vehicles sold worldwide would be electric vehicles, wow that's incredible as well,” he told USA TODAY in March .

“I often cite the famous saying from the late economist Rudy Dornbusch who said things take longer ‘than you think they will, but then they happen faster than you thought they could,'” he said.

Contributing: Michael Collins, USA TODAY

An official website of the United States government

Gross Domestic Product, First Quarter 2024 (Advance Estimate)

• News Release
• Related Materials
• Additional Information

Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 1.6 percent in the first quarter of 2024 (table 1), according to the "advance" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the fourth quarter of 2023, real GDP increased 3.4 percent.

The GDP estimate released today is based on source data that are incomplete or subject to further revision by the source agency (refer to “Source Data for the Advance Estimate” on page 3). The “second” estimate for the first quarter, based on more complete source data, will be released on May 30, 2024.

The increase in real GDP primarily reflected increases in consumer spending, residential fixed investment, nonresidential fixed investment, and state and local government spending that were partly offset by a decrease in private inventory investment. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased (table 2).

The increase in consumer spending reflected an increase in services that was partly offset by a decrease in goods. Within services, the increase primarily reflected increases in health care as well as financial services and insurance. Within goods, the decrease primarily reflected decreases in motor vehicles and parts as well as gasoline and other energy goods. Within residential fixed investment, the increase was led by brokers’ commissions and other ownership transfer costs as well as new single-family housing construction. The increase in nonresidential fixed investment mainly reflected an increase in intellectual property products. The increase in state and local government spending reflected an increase in compensation of state and local government employees. The decrease in inventory investment primarily reflected decreases in wholesale trade and manufacturing. Within imports, the increase reflected increases in both goods and services.

Compared to the fourth quarter, the deceleration in real GDP in the first quarter primarily reflected decelerations in consumer spending, exports, and state and local government spending and a downturn in federal government spending. These movements were partly offset by an acceleration in residential fixed investment. Imports accelerated.

Current‑dollar GDP increased 4.8 percent at an annual rate, or $327.5 billion, in the first quarter to a level of $28.28 trillion. In the fourth quarter, GDP increased 5.1 percent, or $346.9 billion (tables 1 and 3).

The price index for gross domestic purchases increased 3.1 percent in the first quarter, compared with an increase of 1.9 percent in the fourth quarter (table 4). The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index increased 3.4 percent, compared with an increase of 1.8 percent. Excluding food and energy prices, the PCE price index increased 3.7 percent, compared with an increase of 2.0 percent.

Personal Income

Current-dollar personal income increased $407.1 billion in the first quarter, compared with an increase of $230.2 billion in the fourth quarter. The increase primarily reflected increases in compensation and personal current transfer receipts (table 8).

Disposable personal income increased $226.2 billion, or 4.5 percent, in the first quarter, compared with an increase of $190.4 billion, or 3.8 percent, in the fourth quarter. Increases in compensation and personal current transfer receipts were partly offset by an increase in personal current taxes, which are a subtraction in the calculation of DPI. Real disposable personal income increased 1.1 percent, compared with an increase of 2.0 percent.

Personal saving was $755.7 billion in the first quarter, compared with $815.5 billion in the fourth quarter. The personal saving rate —personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income—was 3.6 percent in the first quarter, compared with 4.0 percent in the fourth quarter.

Source Data for the Advance Estimate

The GDP estimate released today is based on source data that are incomplete or subject to further revision by the source agency. Information on the source data and key assumptions used in the advance estimate is provided in a Technical Note and a detailed " Key Source Data and Assumptions " file posted with the release. The second estimate for the first quarter, based on more complete data, will be released on May 30, 2024. For information on updates to GDP, refer to the "Additional Information" section that follows.

*          *          *

Next release, May 30, 2024, at 8:30 a.m. EDT Gross Domestic Product (Second Estimate) Corporate Profits (Preliminary Estimate) First Quarter 2024

Full Release & Tables (PDF)

Technical note (pdf), tables only (excel), release highlights (pdf), historical comparisons (pdf), key source data and assumptions (excel), revision information.

• GDP Lisa Mataloni  301-278-9083 [email protected]
• Corporate Profits Kate Pinard 301-278-9417 [email protected]
• Media (BEA) Connie O’Connell 301-278-9003 [email protected]

Additional resources available at www.bea.gov :

• Stay informed about BEA developments by reading the BEA blog , signing up for BEA's email subscription service , or following BEA on X, formerly known as Twitter @BEA_News .
• Historical time series for these estimates can be accessed in BEA's interactive data application .
• Access BEA data by registering for BEA's data Application Programming Interface (API).
• For more on BEA's statistics, refer to our online journal, the Survey of Current Business .
• BEA's news release schedule
• NIPA Handbook : Concepts and Methods of the U.S. National Income and Product Accounts

Definitions

Gross domestic product (GDP), or value added , is the value of the goods and services produced by the nation's economy less the value of the goods and services used up in production. GDP is also equal to the sum of personal consumption expenditures, gross private domestic investment, net exports of goods and services, and government consumption expenditures and gross investment.

Gross domestic income (GDI) is the sum of incomes earned and costs incurred in the production of GDP. In national economic accounting, GDP and GDI are conceptually equal. In practice, GDP and GDI differ because they are constructed using largely independent source data.

Gross output is the value of the goods and services produced by the nation's economy. It is principally measured using industry sales or receipts, including sales to final users (GDP) and sales to other industries (intermediate inputs).

Current-dollar estimates are valued in the prices of the period when the transactions occurred—that is, at "market value." Also referred to as "nominal estimates" or as "current-price estimates."

Real values are inflation-adjusted estimates—that is, estimates that exclude the effects of price changes.

The gross domestic purchases price index measures the prices of final goods and services purchased by U.S. residents.

The personal consumption expenditure price index measures the prices paid for the goods and services purchased by, or on the behalf of, "persons."

Personal income is the income received by, or on behalf of, all persons from all sources: from participation as laborers in production, from owning a home or business, from the ownership of financial assets, and from government and business in the form of transfers. It includes income from domestic sources as well as the rest of world. It does not include realized or unrealized capital gains or losses.

Disposable personal income is the income available to persons for spending or saving. It is equal to personal income less personal current taxes.

Personal outlays is the sum of personal consumption expenditures, personal interest payments, and personal current transfer payments.

Personal saving is personal income less personal outlays and personal current taxes.

The personal saving rate is personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income.

Profits from current production , referred to as corporate profits with inventory valuation adjustment (IVA) and capital consumption (CCAdj) adjustment in the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPAs), is a measure of the net income of corporations before deducting income taxes that is consistent with the value of goods and services measured in GDP. The IVA and CCAdj are adjustments that convert inventory withdrawals and depreciation of fixed assets reported on a tax-return, historical-cost basis to the current-cost economic measures used in the national income and product accounts. Profits for domestic industries reflect profits for all corporations located within the geographic borders of the United States. The rest-of-the-world (ROW) component of profits is measured as the difference between profits received from ROW and profits paid to ROW.

For more definitions, refer to the Glossary: National Income and Product Accounts .

Statistical conventions

Annual-vs-quarterly rates . Quarterly seasonally adjusted values are expressed at annual rates, unless otherwise specified. This convention is used for BEA's featured, seasonally adjusted measures to facilitate comparisons with related and historical data. For details, refer to the FAQ " Why does BEA publish estimates at annual rates? "

Quarterly not seasonally adjusted values are expressed only at quarterly rates.

Percent changes . Percent changes in quarterly seasonally adjusted series are displayed at annual rates, unless otherwise specified. For details, refer to the FAQ " How is average annual growth calculated? " and " Why does BEA publish percent changes in quarterly series at annual rates? " Percent changes in quarterly not seasonally adjusted values are calculated from the same quarter one year ago. All published percent changes are calculated from unrounded data.

Calendar years and quarters . Unless noted otherwise, annual and quarterly data are presented on a calendar basis.

Quantities and prices . Quantities, or "real" volume measures, and prices are expressed as index numbers with a specified reference year equal to 100 (currently 2017). Quantity and price indexes are calculated using a Fisher-chained weighted formula that incorporates weights from two adjacent periods (quarters for quarterly data and annuals for annual data). For details on the calculation of quantity and price indexes, refer to Chapter 4: Estimating Methods in the NIPA Handbook .

Chained-dollar values are calculated by multiplying the quantity index by the current dollar value in the reference year (2017) and then dividing by 100. Percent changes calculated from real quantity indexes and chained-dollar levels are conceptually the same; any differences are due to rounding. Chained-dollar values are not additive because the relative weights for a given period differ from those of the reference year. In tables that display chained-dollar values, a "residual" line shows the difference between the sum of detailed chained-dollar series and its corresponding aggregate.

Updates to GDP

BEA releases three vintages of the current quarterly estimate for GDP. "Advance" estimates are released near the end of the first month following the end of the quarter and are based on source data that are incomplete or subject to further revision by the source agency. "Second" and "third" estimates are released near the end of the second and third months, respectively, and are based on more detailed and more comprehensive data as they become available.

The table below shows the average revisions to the quarterly percent changes in real GDP between different estimate vintages, without regard to sign.

Annual and comprehensive updates are released in late September. Annual updates generally cover at least the five most recent calendar years (and their associated quarters) and incorporate newly available major annual source data as well as some changes in methods and definitions to improve the accounts. Comprehensive (or benchmark) updates are carried out at about 5-year intervals and incorporate major periodic source data, as well as major conceptual improvements.

Unlike GDP, advance current quarterly estimates of GDI and corporate profits are not released because data on domestic profits and net interest of domestic industries are not available. For fourth quarter estimates, these data are not available until the third estimate.

GDP by industry and gross output estimates are released with the third estimate of GDP.

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The Secret Push That Could Ban TikTok

U.s. lawmakers have long worried that the chinese government could use the app to spread propaganda..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

From “The New York Times,” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. And this is “The Daily.”

[THEME MUSIC]

American lawmakers have tried for years to ban the video app TikTok over concerns that its ties to China pose a national security risk. Last week, they passed a law that might finally do it. Today, my colleague, Sapna Maheshwari, on the secret effort behind the law and what a ban would mean for the company’s 170 million American users.

It’s Tuesday, April 30.

So Sapna, tell me about this law that just passed that potentially bans the social media app TikTok. We’ve seen efforts in the past to rein in TikTok, but this one really seems like the most substantial yet.

It’s a huge deal. What this law really does is it puts the future of this hugely popular app with 170 million American users into question. TikTok has reshaped the way many people listen to music. It’s changed the way we cook. It’s made a whole different kind of celebrity.

But it’s never been able to shake these concerns around the fact that it has really close ties to China. It’s owned by a Chinese company, ByteDance. And lawmakers, for years, have been worried that the Chinese government could somehow use ByteDance and TikTok to get information on Americans or possibly spread propaganda.

President Trump tried to ban it in 2020. The State of Montana tried to ban this app last year. TikTok has largely survived those challenges, but this time it could actually be banned in the United States.

So let’s talk about this. Why did this effort succeed where the other ones failed?

So it’s an interesting story.

Here we go.

The committee will come to order.

And it really dates back to this hearing about a year ago that Congress had with Shou Chew, the CEO of TikTok.

Mr. Chew, you are here because the American people need the truth about the threat TikTok poses to our national and personal security.

Members of the committee, thank you for your time.

— TikTok has repeatedly said that it has addressed these national security concerns and that there’s no issue here. And you can hear that when Shou Chew testified.

Let me start by addressing a few misconceptions about ByteDance of which we are a subsidiary. ByteDance is not owned or controlled by the Chinese government.

He’s saying American investors are behind ByteDance.

Now, TikTok itself is not available in mainland China. We’re headquartered in Los Angeles and in Singapore.

And I myself am Singaporean. I live in Singapore.

The bottom line is this — American data, stored on American soil, by an American company, overseen by American personnel.

And we are actually going above and beyond what American technology companies do to keep things safe.

And I look forward to your questions. Thank you very much.

And is Congress convinced by that?

Congress is not convinced by that.

ByteDance is a Chinese company?

Well, ByteDance owns many businesses that operates in China.

Is it or is it not a Chinese company?

Congressman, the way we look at it, it was founded by Chinese entrepreneurs.

No, no, no, no. I’m not asking how you look at it. Fact, is it a Chinese company or not? For example, Dell is a company —

It was this really fiery, five-hour hearing, where Republicans and Democrats asked really contentious questions.

We do not promote or remove content at the request of the Chinese government. Will you repeat —

The question is, are you percent certain that they cannot use your company to promote such messages?

It is our commitment to this committee and all our users that we will keep this free from any manipulation by any government.

OK. If you can’t say it 100 percent certain I take that as a no.

There’s this underlying sense of distrust around the company and its ties to China.

I will remind you that making false or misleading statements to Congress is a federal crime.

I understand. Again, you can go on our platform. You will find that content.

And it becomes clear through the hearing that, across the board, Republicans and Democrats largely feel the same way.

Mr. Chew, I got to hand it to you. You’ve actually done something that in the last three to four years has not happened except for the exception of maybe Vladimir Putin. You have unified Republicans and Democrats.

So within weeks of this hearing, this small group of lawmakers gets together. And they say, let’s come up with a law that works where all the other ones have failed and actually make TikTok answer to its Chinese connections once and for all.

So tell me about this small group of lawmakers. Who are they?

So it starts with Republicans. Among them is Steve Scalise, one of the most powerful Republicans in the House. And a small group sort of works together for a few months, but they realize that in order to really make this law work, they’re going to need Democrats. So they end up working through this House Committee that’s focused on China and competition. And this is where the bulk of the work on this bill takes place.

And just to note, this is a really small group. There’s less than 20 key players who are working on this. And all throughout, they are keeping this very, very secret.

And why exactly are they keeping it secret? What’s the point of that?

So this group really wanted to keep this out of the eyes of TikTok, which has a huge lobbying presence in DC, and has successfully worked to kill bills that targeted TikTok in the past. And what they’re really doing is looking at all of the past efforts to either force a sale or a ban of TikTok, and trying to work their way through why those plans didn’t succeed and what they can do differently.

But while the lawmakers are working on this bill, something big happens that kind of changes the politics around it. And that’s October 7.

Your social media feeds are unique to you, but could they be shaping how you view the Israel-Gaza War? The BBC’s —

As the war breaks out and people start getting information about it, a lot of people are getting information about the Israel-Hamas War on TikTok, especially young people.

Social media algorithms seem to be driving some users towards increasingly divisive posts —

And there’s this big messy argument spilling out into living rooms and all over the internet, and, of course on TikTok. And it’s getting very heated. For instance, there’s this moment in the fall where a bunch of TikTok users start sharing this old manifesto.

I read Osama bin Laden’s “Letter to America.”

It’s wild, and everyone should read it.

Go read “A Letter to America.” Seriously, go read it.

That was actually written by Osama bin Laden, defending the 9/11 attacks and criticizing the United States’ support of Israel. TikTok users start trying to tie it to the modern day conflict.

Reading this letter, it becomes apparent to me that the actions of 9/11 were all just the buildup of our government failing other nations.

The way this letter is going viral right now is giving me the greatest sense of relief. Now it’s all coming to light because of Palestine.

And there’s these accusations that TikTok may be promoting one side of the conflict over the other. And a couple of researchers look at hashtags around Palestine, and they say that the data they pulled shows that TikTok is showing way more pro-Palestine videos and not so much for Israel. And this sets off huge alarm bells for this small group of lawmakers.

But isn’t that just a function of the fact that TikTok, at this point, is the public square in the United States for young people? I mean, this is what young people were talking about, and this is where they’re doing the talking.

TikTok has pushed back really forcefully against these accusations. They said that Gallup polls show that young people view Israel differently than older generations. They say that they’re not the ones influencing what people post, that the hashtags and the videos are a reflection of the user base and nothing that they’re doing to influence.

But for lawmakers, this doesn’t really make their concerns go away. Instead, this conflict shows them how TikTok could be used to spread propaganda. It made lawmakers feel that TikTok could be really dangerous when it comes to shaping the views of Americans on foreign policy, on US elections. And what it also does is, it provides this driving force to this group that’s drafting this bill. And they suddenly see that this might be a way to bring more people into their effort.

And so heading into November against this backdrop, they even bring in the White House and the Justice Department to help work on this bill. And with the White House, they want to make sure that this is a bill that the president will support. And they work with the Justice Department to shore up the language in the bill to help defend against court challenges.

Because the Justice Department, of course, would be the one that would have to defend the bill, right?

That’s exactly right. And so they’re trying to make it as rock solid as possible so that they can win in court when TikTok challenges this law. And so March rolls around, and they decide that it’s time to unveil this bill that they’ve been working on for close to a year.

The battle over TikTok on Capitol Hill is intensifying.

This morning, House lawmakers have agreed unanimously to move a bill to a full floor vote.

And TikTok is caught completely flat footed. They didn’t see this coming. And this is just what the group wanted. So TikTok has this army of lobbyists that’s suddenly scrambling. And they go into damage control mode. They start reaching out to members of Congress.

This app is so much more than just an app for dumb TikTok dances.

They fly a group of TikTok stars and small businesses to come to DC —

This is a life-changing apps.

— and lobby on the steps of the Capitol and meet with lawmakers.

Standing up here with all these amazing TikTokers behind me is a complete honor, and every single one of them would voice their opinion just like this. This is how we feel. This has to stop.

They set up interviews between these TikTok creators, as they’re known, and big TV shows and news programs. And they’re doing everything they can to fight against this bill before it goes any further. And then they decide to do something unusual, which is use TikTok itself to try and derail this bill.

How exactly do they do that?

So days after this bill is announced, a ton of TikTok users get a message when they open the TikTok app that basically says, call Congress and tell them not to ban TikTok.

Hmm. OK. So like, literally this window comes up and says, call Congress. Here you go.

Exactly. You can enter your zip code, and there’s a button that appears. And you can press it, and the call goes straight to your representative.

So offices are quickly overwhelmed by calls. And TikTok sent out this message to users on the same day that a House committee is going into vote on this bill and whether to move it forward. And so the stunt happens. They go into vote, and they come out, and it’s 50 to 0 in support of the bill.

One of the representatives who worked on the bill said that this stunt by TikTok turned a lot of no’s into yeses and yeses into, quote, “hell yeses.”

[LAUGHS]: so the whole episode sounds like it actually backfired, right? Like, TikTok’s stunt essentially just confirmed what was the deepest fears of lawmakers about this company, that the app could be used to influence American politics.

That’s definitely how a lot of lawmakers viewed it. And when this bill is brought to the full House a week later, it passes by an overwhelming majority. And weeks later, it passes in the Senate as part of a broader aid package. And on Wednesday, it’s signed into law by President Biden.

But now the question is, what does it mean? Like, how will this actually work? And how will it affect the tens of millions of Americans who use TikTok every day?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

We’ll be right back.

So Sapna, now that Biden has signed this bill, what does it actually mean in practice for TikTok? What does the law do?

So the law is really trying to push ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, to sell to a non-Chinese owner. And the company basically has nine months for this sale to happen. There’s an option for President Biden to add another three months to that clock. And if the company doesn’t find a buyer or refuses to be sold, it will be banned.

And what would a ban actually mean, Sapna? I mean, people would still have the app on their phones, right? So it wouldn’t disappear overnight.

Yeah, no one’s coming to pick up your phone and to forcibly delete this thing. What the law says is that app stores and web hosting services wouldn’t be allowed to carry TikTok anymore. So basically, it would kind of die a slow death over time, where it wouldn’t be updated and just kind of peter out.

So the bottom line here is that the clock has started on this potential sale, right? They have 12 months to find a buyer. So what are the obstacles here? I mean, it sounds pretty ferociously complicated.

There’s a ton of challenges here. And it’s a very messy choose-your-own adventure. So one of the first big questions is who could buy this?

ByteDance and TikTok are private. We don’t know their financials. But analysts estimate that it will cost tens of billions of dollars. That narrows the buying pool pretty quickly. And a lot of the companies that could afford to buy it, like Meta, the owner of Facebook, or Google, which owns YouTube, would probably be kicked out of the running because they are simply too big. Regulators would say, you already own these big apps. You can’t possibly add this to your stable.

There’d be a monopoly concern there.

Exactly. And then, there’s a lot of questions around how this would work, technically. ByteDance and TikTok are very much global organizations. You have the CEO in Singapore. They have huge operations in Ireland. They have this big workforce in the US. And of course, they do have engineers in China.

So how do you extract all those things, make it all work? It’s a very big international transaction.

And then there is the chance that the Chinese government blocks this sale and says, you cannot do this, ByteDance. We will not allow it.

So Sapna, how does that actually work, though, in terms of China? I mean, can China actually just ban the sale of this company? I mean, it is a private company after all, right?

Well, here’s one way it could work. The Chinese government could block the export of TikTok’s algorithm. And let me explain that in kind of plain English.

They could basically block the technology that fuels the TikTokiness of this app, the recommendations, the magic of it, why you see what you see when you’re looking at TikTok.

TikTokiness, is that an adjective?

That is now an adjective.

[LAUGHS]: Nice.

And there’s a chance that Beijing could say, hey, you can’t export this technology. That is proprietary. And if that happens, that suddenly makes TikTok way, way less valuable.

So the Chinese government could let the sale go through potentially, but as a kind of an empty shell, right? The thing that makes TikTok TikTok, the algorithm, wouldn’t be part of the company. So that probably isn’t very appealing for a potential buyer.

Exactly. And I mean, the role of the Chinese government here is really interesting. I’ve talked to experts who say, well, if the Chinese government interferes to try and block a sale of this app, doesn’t that underscore and prove all the concerns that have been expressed by American lawmakers?

If you’re worried about China being in control of this thing, well, that just confirmed your fears.

Exactly. And I mean, it’s an interesting thing that ByteDance and TikTok have to grapple with.

So bottom line here — selling TikTok is quite complicated, and perhaps not even possible for these reasons that you’re giving, right? I mean, not least of which because the Chinese government might not allow the algorithm to leave the country. And that’s not something that the US Congress has a lot of control over.

So is this law fundamentally just a ban, then?

That’s what TikTok is calling it. Right after this bill was signed into law on Wednesday —

Make no mistake, this is a ban, a ban on TikTok and a ban on you and your voice.

— Tiktok’s CEO made a TikTok — what else?— that explained the company’s position.

Because the freedom of expression on TikTok reflects the same American values that make the United States a beacon of freedom.

He actually argued that TikTok reflects American values.

TikTok gives everyday Americans a powerful way to be seen and heard. And that’s why so many people have made TikTok part of their daily lives.

And he said that this law infringes on the First Amendment free speech rights of Americans who love it and who use it every day.

The facts and the Constitution are on our side, and we expect to prevail again.

So it’s very clear that TikTok plans to challenge this law in court. And the court fight to follow will determine the fate of TikTok’s future in the US.

So is that First Amendment argument that the TikTok CEO is making here going to work?

Nobody wants to put money on that. I mean, the company is really approaching this with the idea that the First Amendment rights of Americans are being infringed on. But if you remember, the government has been working on this law. They’ve been anticipating those challenges. And they can justify an infringing of First Amendment rights in certain cases, including with national security concerns. And so it’ll be up to a judge on whether those concerns pass muster and justify this sale and even a potential ban of TikTok.

Got it. So TikTok will argue free speech, First Amendment. And the government will counter by saying, look, this is about China. This is about America’s national security interests.

That’s right. And the legal experts that I’ve spoken with say this is a really big and sticky area of the law, and it’s a huge case. And they really think that this will go to the Supreme Court, regardless of who wins in the first round of this.

So where does that leave the millions of Americans who use TikTok, and many of them, of course, who earn a living on the platform?

I mean, it’s really uncertain what happens now with the company, and the clock has started ticking. When I’ve looked at TikTok and looked at videos from users —

This is about the impending TikTok ban. And it just triggered me so much. It makes my blood boil, and I have to get this out there.

There’s a lot of shock —

The most success I’ve had has been here on TikTok, and now they’re trying to take it away.

This is so stupid!

— and anger.

You can’t ban apps! You can’t ban things from people!

People are confused.

Word on the street is that in the next 9 to 12 months, TikTok could be banned.

And they’re also caught a bit off guard, just because there have been these years of efforts to do something about TikTok. People on the app have been hearing about a TikTok ban, really, since 2020.

The government can take away a literal app on our phones, and we’re supposed to believe we’re free?

A few TikTokers have said, how can this be the thing that the government is pushing through so quickly?

Can we stop funding a genocide? No. Can we get free COVID tests? No. Can we stop killing the planet? No. Can we at least watch videos on an app of people doing fun things and learn about the world around us? No.

So there’s this sense of distrust and disappointment for many people who love this app.

We got rid of TikTok. You’re welcome. Protecting you from China. You know that phone was made in China. Ah!

And I think there’s also this question, too, around what about TikTok makes it so harmful? Even though it has increasingly become a place for news, there’s plenty of people who simply use this app for entertainment. And what they’re seeing out of Washington just doesn’t square with the reality they experience when they pull out their phones.

And I wonder, Sapna, I mean, just kind of stepping back for a second, let’s say this ban on TikTok succeeds. If it goes through, would Americans be better off?

It depends who you ask. For the users who love TikTok, if it actually disappeared, it would be the government taking away a place where maybe they make money, where they get their entertainment, where they figure out what to read or what to cook next. To free speech advocates, this would be dystopian, unheard of for the government to crack down on an app with such wide usage by Americans.

But for the American political class And the National security establishment, this is a necessary move, one that was years in the making, not something that was just come up with on the fly. And ultimately, it all comes down to China and this idea that you can’t have a social media app like this, a source of news like this, that is even at all at risk of being influenced by the Chinese government and our greatest adversaries.

Sapna, thank you.

Here’s what else you should know today. On Monday, in its latest high-profile showdown with pro-Palestinian protesters, Columbia University gave students until 2:00 PM to clear out from an encampment at the center of campus or face suspension. It appeared to be an effort to remove the encampment without relying on New York City Police, whose removal of a previous encampment there two weeks ago inspired similar protests on campuses across the country.

Free Palestine!

Hi, this is Sharon Otterman reporting for “The New York Times.”

00 PM deadline for protesters to clear out of the encampment at the center of Columbia University has come and gone, and there’s still quite a large contingent inside the encampment.

But Monday’s warning seemed only to galvanize the Columbia protesters and their supporters.

And hundreds of students and others from around the campus have come out to support them. They are currently walking around in a picket around the encampment.

Hundreds of students, standing for or five people deep, encircled the encampment in a show of solidarity. They were joined by members of the Columbia faculty.

There’s also dozens of faculty members, who are prepared to stand in lines in front of the main entrance to the encampment, in case Public Safety or the NYPD move in. But as of 2:00, there was no sign of that happening.

Then, on Monday evening, Columbia announced it had begun to suspend students who had failed to leave the encampment. It was unclear exactly how many students had been suspended.

[PRO-PALESTINE CHANTING]:

Today’s episode was produced by Will Reid, Rachelle Banja, and Rob Szypko. It was edited by Marc Georges and Liz O. Baylen, contains original music by Dan Powell and Marion Lozano, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sharon Otterman.

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. See you tomorrow.

• May 1, 2024   •   35:16 The New Abortion Fight Before the Supreme Court
• April 30, 2024   •   27:40 The Secret Push That Could Ban TikTok
• April 29, 2024   •   47:53 Trump 2.0: What a Second Trump Presidency Would Bring
• April 26, 2024   •   21:50 Harvey Weinstein Conviction Thrown Out
• April 25, 2024   •   40:33 The Crackdown on Student Protesters
• April 24, 2024   •   32:18 Is $60 Billion Enough to Save Ukraine?
• April 23, 2024   •   30:30 A Salacious Conspiracy or Just 34 Pieces of Paper?
• April 22, 2024   •   24:30 The Evolving Danger of the New Bird Flu
• April 19, 2024   •   30:42 The Supreme Court Takes Up Homelessness
• April 18, 2024   •   30:07 The Opening Days of Trump’s First Criminal Trial
• April 17, 2024   •   24:52 Are ‘Forever Chemicals’ a Forever Problem?
• April 16, 2024   •   29:29 A.I.’s Original Sin

Hosted by Sabrina Tavernise

Featuring Sapna Maheshwari

Produced by Will Reid ,  Rachelle Bonja and Rob Szypko

Edited by Marc Georges and Liz O. Baylen

Original music by Marion Lozano and Dan Powell

Engineered by Chris Wood

Listen and follow The Daily Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

American lawmakers have tried for years to ban TikTok, concerned that the video app’s links to China pose a national security risk.

Sapna Maheshwari, a technology reporter for The Times, explains the behind-the-scenes push to rein in TikTok and discusses what a ban could mean for the app’s 170 million users in the United States.

On today’s episode

Sapna Maheshwari , who covers TikTok, technology and emerging media companies for The New York Times.

Background reading

A tiny group of lawmakers huddled in private about a year ago, aiming to bulletproof a bill that could ban TikTok.

The TikTok law faces court challenges, a shortage of qualified buyers and Beijing’s hostility .

Love, hate or fear it, TikTok has changed America .

There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.

We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.

Special thanks to Sharon Otterman .

The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Dan Farrell, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Summer Thomad, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson and Nina Lassam.

Sapna Maheshwari reports on TikTok, technology and emerging media companies. She has been a business reporter for more than a decade. Contact her at [email protected] . More about Sapna Maheshwari

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The states to watch on the 2024 electoral map

Domenico Montanaro

To better understand the landscape for the presidential election with a little more than six months to go, here is our initial Electoral Vote map of the cycle.

It focuses on the states that are expected to be most competitive in the effort by the campaigns to get to 270 electoral votes, a majority of the 538 total available.

There are a number of paths each candidate can take to victory. Follow them here.

This analysis, which will appear and be adjusted semi-regularly until Election Day, goes beyond just polling and is based on conversations with campaigns and strategists, NPR reporting from the field, campaign activity, and historical and demographic trends.

It lays out which direction the states are leaning at this point and are organized into seven categories — Toss Up, Lean Republican, Lean Democratic, Likely Republican, Likely Democratic, Safe Republican and Safe Democratic.

Voting booths are seen at Glass Elementary School's polling station in Eagle Pass, Texas, on November 8, 2022. Mark Felix/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Voting booths are seen at Glass Elementary School's polling station in Eagle Pass, Texas, on November 8, 2022.

State analysis and ad spending

Trump holds slight advantages in most of the swing states right now, according to averages of the polls. Strictly going by the polls, Trump would have a 283-255 lead (if you give Biden Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which are currently statistical ties).

But the toss up states are expected to be close, within just a few points, in either candidate's direction. Biden currently has a massive war chest and ad-spending advantage. In addition to personnel, ads are the largest expenditure of a presidential campaign.

Third-party scramble

It's also unclear how third-party candidates could affect the map. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been pulling double digits in polling, and it's not totally clear which side he pulls most from. Polls have shown him pulling evenly, some have shown him pulling more from Trump, others more from Biden. The Biden campaign would prefer a one-on-one matchup with Trump and super PACs are cropping up on the left to attack Kennedy's record.

He's qualified so far for the ballot in three states — Michigan, Hawaii and Utah. A Quinnipiac poll last month showed Trump's lead expanding from 3 to 5 points when RFK Jr. was included. Kennedy's campaign and a super PAC supporting him say he has enough signatures to potentially also get on ballots in Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Carolina and South Carolina.

The state of play in the states

In Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Biden has caught up, pulled even or taken a lead in some recent surveys. And Pennsylvania happens to be where Biden and allies are spending the second-most on ads right now — almost $4 million in the past month and a half since Super Tuesday, the unofficial start to the general election.

That's only slightly behind what they're spending in Michigan. Biden is trying to make up ground there with younger voters and Black voters, groups he's lagging with. Trump and groups supporting him have spent only about $700,000 in Pennsylvania in that same time frame.

Team Biden has also spent $2 million in Wisconsin. Trump and groups supporting him have spent nothing there so far.

Most of the money in this election is going to be poured into seven states, and they fall into two familiar buckets — the so-called "Blue Wall" states of Michigan , Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and the Sun Belt states of Arizona , Georgia, North Carolina and Nevada .

The Blue Wall states are home to significant shares of white, working-class voters, but Biden has retained strong support with unions. Democrats are also putting in significant efforts, especially in Wisconsin , to reach Black voters and be on college campuses. All three states have significant Black populations and multiple colleges and universities.

While North Carolina was also close in 2020 — within 2 points — given its history of voting Republican, it begins the cycle in the Lean Republican category. Democrats feel the gubernatorial race in the state could help them, as Republicans nominated a highly controversial candidate, who could turn off swing voters.

The increasing population of white, college-educated voters in the state's Research Triangle continues to make the state competitive. But Republicans have won it in all but one presidential election since 1976.

Demographics are important but it isn't everything

The industrial Midwest has moved more toward Republicans because of the shift toward the GOP among white voters without college degrees. That's why states like Ohio and Iowa, which were competitive for decades until the Trump era, are no longer Democratic targets.

It's the key group Trump is targeting. But they are declining as a share of the population and of the electorate. That's a big reason Trump lost despite whites without degrees voting at a higher rate in 2020 (64%) compared to 2016 (55%), according to data from Michael McDonald, the preeminent turnout expert in the country and professor at the University of Florida.

It's also because of the continued shift with college-educated white voters toward Democrats. In 2020, Trump won college-educated white men by 3 points in 2020, according to exit polls, but the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll showed Biden winning the group by more than 20 points.

Combined with the increasing Latino and Asian American population and a remigration to the South of young Black voters, particularly in Georgia, that has meant a reshaping of the electoral map.

"In 2024, we'll see an even more diverse electorate than we saw in 2020, which was even more diverse than 2016 and more diverse than 2012," McDonald predicted.

Consider that 20 years ago, Republican George W. Bush won Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Nevada, New Mexico and North Carolina. That's all changed, as each is either competitive or clearly in the Democratic column.

In addition to the Latino population increase in the Southwest, McDonald pointed to the uptick in Asian Americans, and a remigration of Black voters to Georgia as to why those states continue to trend toward Democrats.

But it's not all demographics. Latinos, Black voters and young voters all view the economy negatively. Majorities overall disapprove of Biden's handling of the economy and more voters say they think the economy was better under Trump.

"Issues matter as well," McDonald noted. "But the sort of issues that can move a sizable chunk of the electorate change with the demographics. And so that's where the two things intersect."

Post-pandemic election realities

This year's election is also going to be different from 2020 in a very big way. Because of the pandemic, mail-in voting was used widely and that contributed heavily to increased turnout. In 2020, 66% of registered voters cast ballots, the highest since 1900 . That's unlikely to be the case again, McDonald noted.

"I would be very surprised if we have a turnout rate like we saw in 2020," McDonald said. "And the people who would most likely then not participate ... are going to be these lower-education voters. And so it's going to pose a real challenge to the Trump campaign, to energize these folks yet again to vote in 2020."

NOTES: President Biden is headed to Tampa, Fla., this week for a campaign event. Campaigns will say that nothing is more precious than a candidate's time, and that stops in a particular state can move numbers. Because of an abortion-related ballot measure in the state, Democrats think they can make Florida competitive. That may be, but it's incredibly expensive because it's such a large state with so many TV markets. In 2020, the Biden team spent more than $150 million in Florida, more than any state, to no avail. To this point, the Biden campaign has spent almost nothing in ads on the state and the polling has, to this point, shown Trump well ahead. For now, it ranks decidedly below the most competitive states. Texas is a majority-minority state, but remains something of a white whale in Democratic politics. In 2020, it was the closest it has been since 1996, decided by 7 points. But with other paths to 270 and how expensive Texas is to advertise and organize in, expect the core seven states to be the focus.

In this combination of file photos, President Joe Biden, left, speaks on Aug. 10, 2023, in Salt Lake City, and former President Donald Trump speaks on June 13, 2023, in Bedminster, N.J. Biden and Trump have set up a political movie the country has seen before — even if the last version was in black and white. Andrew Harnik/AP hide caption

In this combination of file photos, President Joe Biden, left, speaks on Aug. 10, 2023, in Salt Lake City, and former President Donald Trump speaks on June 13, 2023, in Bedminster, N.J. Biden and Trump have set up a political movie the country has seen before — even if the last version was in black and white.

Paths to 270

As the map stands, if Trump and Biden win the states leaning in their direction, Trump would need to win 35 electoral votes from the toss ups to get to 270, and Biden would need 44.

Here are three paths to get over the top for each candidate.

• The Blue Wall Crumble: Trump toppled the Blue Wall in 2016, winning Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. If he did so again, the 44 electoral votes there would be more than enough. Any other states would be icing. But importantly: Trump likely needs to win at least one of these states to win election again, because the Sun Belt states of Nevada, Arizona and Georgia only provide 33 Electoral Votes.
• Sun Belt Plus: Trump could sweep the Sun Belt, but would come up short if he were to lose all the Blue Wall states. That would mean a whisker-close, 270-268 loss for Trump. So he would need at least one other state — likely one of the toss-up Blue Wall states, or he could aim to pick off New Hampshire or Minnesota... or win the one electoral vote in Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District, which would lead to a tie race (see below).
• The Eastern Front: Pennsylvania and Georgia provide exactly the 35 Electoral Votes Trump would need to get over the finish line and would put him at 270, even if Biden wins Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada.
• The Repeat: Remember, Biden already won once and with 51% of the vote, so he just has to convince the people who voted for him once to do so again. Biden won in 2020 with 306 electoral votes, meaning he can lose up to 36 and still win. Four years ago, Biden swept all of the states in the toss up column.
• Hold the Wall: If Biden hangs onto Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, he'd have a 270-268 win. Of those, the state he most needs to make up some ground is in Michigan, though most polls are currently within the margin of error. That's why Biden is campaigning so hard talking about steel and increasing tariffs on Chinese imports to appeal to the kinds of union and working-class voters – that were so key in 2020 – in those states.
• The Southwest Chip Shot: Latino voters are critical to Biden's efforts to win in Nevada and Arizona. He's lagging with them currently, but is running lots of Spanish-language ads in both places to try and boost his appeal. Plus, the Arizona abortion ruling threatens to make abortion a focus and be a turnout motivator in the state. If Biden were to win both, and Trump were to chip off Michigan (or Wisconsin), but Biden holds Pennsylvania, Biden would win 272-268. (By the way, if Biden were to win Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin and Michigan, he'd still lose if he lost Pennsylvania, 270-268.)

But, there could also be a tie:

There has only been one Electoral Vote tie in U.S. history — it happened in the election of 1800 .

The country came thisclose in 1876, and 2000 was within 5 electoral votes... and some hanging chads.

If a tie happened, Trump would likely become president, because a tie would go to the House. Each House delegation would cast one collective vote for their states. The voting delegations would be those voted into the House after this year's congressional elections.

Republicans currently hold an advantage and are still likely to do so in 2025 as well.

Here are two potential, not outside the realm of possibility, tie scenarios:

• Sun Belt + Omaha: Trump sweeps the Sun Belt, wins the one electoral vote in the Omaha area congressional district in Nebraska, as he did in 2016, but Biden wins the Blue Wall states.
• Industrial tie: Biden sweeps the Sun Belt toss ups, but loses Michigan and Pennsylvania in the Blue Wall. (NOTE: In this scenario, Georgia and North Carolina could be swapped out because they both have the same number of Electoral Votes.)