CollegeVine College Essay Team December 8, 2024 16 Essay Breakdowns,Essay Guides 2024-25

How to Write the Kennesaw State University Essays 2024-2025

As a public research institution in Georgia, Kennesaw State University offers many undergraduate opportunities and hosts a lively campus culture in metro Atlanta. In the current admissions cycle, KSU requires Honors College applicants to the President’s Emerging Global Scholar, Ancient and Modern Classics, and Wellstar-Phillips Elite Honors Nursing Cohorts to submit a response to the prompt respective to their program, in addition to the Common App essay. The base of each prompt is the same, i.e., inspiration and personal growth, but the themes they ask you to emphasize in your writing vary. We’ll break down these Honors College prompts to help you write a compelling essay.

Kennesaw State Supplemental Essay Prompts

This prompt is asking you to reflect on your personal growth by analyzing a particular moment or experience related to leadership and civic engagement. It uses some elements of the Impact on Community/Community Service essay archetype but is not an overall example of that model, so make sure you understand the nuances of this prompt first.

While it enumerates the theme of “inspiration,” and inspiration should certainly be part of your response, you should emphasize involvement in your community (this doesn’t necessarily have to be community service, per se, but we’ll get to that in a bit) and instances of leadership. The inspiration comes in with the journey that led you to undertaking this endeavor, but again, it should be discussed in connection with the impact of whatever experience you’ve identified.

To begin, consider the following questions to help you form your topic:

• What is an accomplishment or event that deeply inspired you to become a leader?
• Did you ever take action in your community or school to address an issue or support a cause?
• How did this experience change your understanding of yourself or your role in the community?
• What specific leadership roles have you taken? What skills or qualities did you develop?
• How do you continue to build on this sense of leadership and civic responsibility?

A strong response will clearly link the experience of engagement and leadership to actions that impacted your community or others in a meaningful way. In order to demonstrate personal growth that resulted from this theme of inspiration, you should show how your perspective on leadership or responsibility changed as a result of your experience. As with most college admissions essays, you’ll definitely want to go beyond generalities and instead highlight specific contributions by detailing leadership roles, initiatives, or projects you led. Finally, there should also be a sense of future-forward thinking, especially in terms of how you plan to contribute globally or in broader societal contexts.

Now, let’s take a look at what some potential topics could include.

• Gina, who volunteered at a local refugee center, might write about how witnessing the needs of displaced families inspired her to organize a mentorship program for refugee children, where she also developed leadership skills in a multicultural environment.
• Mateo, a student council leader, could reflect on organizing a fundraising event for environmental conservation after a trip to a national park. His new understanding of environmental justice led him to spearhead sustainability initiatives in his school.
• Yusuf led a campaign to introduce mental health resources at his high school after discussing the effects of stress in a psychology class. His efforts led him to study the mental health crisis on a broader, national level, inspiring future civic engagement in healthcare reform.

The goal here is to explore how a particular event or realization sparked inspiration that led you to take actions that made a difference in your community or the broader world. The essay requires you to not only reflect on personal growth but also to focus on your leadership and civic contributions, particularly in a global or societal context. Reflection is key to this response: essays focused only on personal growth without external impact will feel less meaningful, and simply listing leadership or engagement roles will also weaken your writing. Be specific about what you did and how it impacted yourself and others.

Finally, let’s get into some possible responses.

“I noticed that some students in my community were having trouble with online learning during the pandemic, so I decided to see what I could do to help. I worked with my school and started a program to provide them with laptops and mobile internet access. While it was a bit difficult to organize, everything worked out in the end, and I realized how important it is to help people when they need it. This experience made me realize how rewarding leadership can be.”

As you can probably tell, this is not a strong response. It’s too vague about what the student did, and there’s no explanation of how the program was organized, what challenges were faced, or what impact it had on the students who received help. Also, the example doesn’t indicate any sustained effort beyond the initial action, making it seem like a one-time project instead of an ongoing initiative.

In addition, the reflection on leadership is pretty shallow. Saying “it’s important to help people” doesn’t add meaningful insight or demonstrate personal growth. The student doesn’t show how their understanding of leadership or civic engagement deepened. Check out an improved version below:

“As I watched a group of students in my community struggle to keep up with online learning during the pandemic, I realized how deeply the digital divide was affecting their education. Inspired by the resilience of these students, I partnered with a local tech company to launch an initiative that provided laptops and internet access to low-income families in my district. Leading this project taught me that leadership is not just about solving immediate problems but about empowering others to reach their full potential. Since then, I’ve been involved in advocating for educational equity, working with local policymakers to secure long-term funding for under-resourced schools.”

This example is much stronger as it highlights leadership in addressing a contemporary issue (the digital divide) and shows how the student translated inspiration into civic engagement that directly benefited their community. It demonstrates long-term commitment and action, which strengthens the response, and does so specifically, with clear reflection on the issue, actions, and impact.

This prompt is asking you to connect an experience of personal development to literary reflection. The goal is to demonstrate how your experience led to a deeper understanding of yourself, the community that surrounds you, and how this moment influenced your journey with some insight into how literature and classics studies have expanded your perspective. The inspiration you write about should be discussed in the context of whatever experience you’re planning to write about – cast this moment of inspiration in the light of personal growth and zoom in on it using a literary lens.

To begin, consider the following questions to help you identify your topic:

• What event, moment, or realization made you see the world differently?
• Did a specific piece of literature resonate with this experience? How did it shape your response to the situation?
• Has there ever been an instance in which a literary work challenged or deepened your understanding of human nature or yourself?
• How did this experience lead to personal growth? Did it affect your actions or choices afterward?
• How have you continued to build upon the inspiration you found in that moment? Did it change the way you engage with literature or other aspects of life?

Your response must tie a specific moment of personal growth to the theme of literature and demonstrate meaningful engagement with classic works. Your connection to classics should be evident in your writing, and a good way to accomplish this is to use concrete examples with personal details in order to outline how the inspiration led to personal growth or a new understanding of yourself. The essay will get into not only what inspired you but also how you acted on that inspiration. What steps did you take, and how have you built upon that sense of inspiration since then? Using vivid, personal storytelling to convey your experience will authenticate the narrative you’ve created and draw the reader further into your journey.

Regarding the inclusion of literary reflection, this can be done by connecting classic references through direct influence on yourself, thematic resonance, or a shared exploration. It should be analytical and indicate some intellectual depth, not just be name-dropped or briefly referenced. The work or works you engage with should, of course, be relevant to the field of Ancient and Modern Classics (AMC) – e.g., Greek epics, Roman philosophy, and modern pieces from the 19th to 21st centuries. 

Now, let’s consider some examples of topics:

• Mariela, an aspiring philosophy major with a passion for Stoic philosophy, could reflect on how reading Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations during a family crisis helped them find clarity and emotional resilience, leading to personal growth. The student might describe how this text inspired them to adopt Stoicism in their daily life and further explore its relevance to modern issues like mental health or personal responsibility.
• George, fascinated by the intersection of ancient history and modern political movements, could reflect on how reading The Republic by Plato sparked a realization about the role of justice in society. This insight may have inspired them to join a debate team or become involved in local political activism, translating classical philosophy into modern-day actions.
• Jorge, a passionate writer who loves reading modern novels with ancient mythological themes, may explore how Madeline Miller’s Circe transformed their understanding of power and isolation, inspiring them to write their own stories about misunderstood figures. This process led to personal growth as they began to see parallels between themselves and literary characters, prompting them to embrace their individuality.

Given that the aspect of literature is the cornerstone of this prompt, it’s especially important to explain how this literary work offered new insights or deepened your perspective or understanding of your experience. Your essay should link your personal growth to larger themes like heroism, moral dilemmas, love, and suffering, demonstrating how the literature you’ve engaged with mirrors, challenges, or expands your understanding of the world.

In essence, the literary aspect adds intellectual depth to your essay. It demonstrates that your personal growth isn’t just isolated to real-life events but is also informed by your engagement with enduring themes in literature. This not only shows that you’re a thoughtful, reflective individual but also aligns you with the Classics Cohort’s focus on intellectual inquiry and critical thinking. When selecting a work to write about, especially a piece of modern literature, make sure to choose one that is well-respected and well-established. Don’t try to overcompensate by writing about an overly serious title that you don’t have a connection with, but you should also not engage with something too new or frivolous.

Finally, let’s check out a couple of potential examples.

“Reading Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own led me to realize that women need space and independence to succeed. Woolf’s argument that ‘a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction’ was very eye-opening to me, because it helped me understand that women are often not given the same opportunities as men. This inspired me to reflect on the times when I felt restricted because of my gender, like when people told me I should wear more feminine clothes or act a certain way. After reading Woolf, I started thinking more about gender inequality and joined my school’s feminist club to discuss these ideas. We talked about how women have been historically oppressed, and I learned a lot from those discussions. Woolf’s work helped me understand the importance of having a space to express yourself, and I’ve tried to apply that to my life by being more confident in who I am.”

This example isn’t very strong – the reflection on Woolf’s work is very surface-level, and the examples of feeling restricted by gender roles, such as being told to wear feminine clothes, are fairly common and not deeply explored. The student summarizes Woolf’s main point about women needing independence but doesn’t dig deeper into how this applies to their own life or worldview in any meaningful way. The essay lacks nuance and specific engagement with Woolf’s ideas, making it feel more like a book report than a personal reflection. 

The student briefly mentions joining a feminist club, but there’s no clear sense of how this translated into action or personal growth. There’s no evidence of tangible change, and the essay remains passive, focused on general ideas rather than concrete actions. The student doesn’t explain how these moments impacted them personally or how Woolf’s work changed their perspective in a meaningful way, so the essay remains vague and lacks emotional depth. A revised version is below:

“I had always felt like I was playing a part. From the expectations to be ‘ladylike’ to the subtle pressure to downplay my ambition, I had grown up in a world that told me what it meant to be female. It wasn’t until I read Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own that I began to understand the full weight of these expectations. Woolf’s exploration of how women have been systematically excluded from intellectual and creative spaces shook me to my core. Her assertion that ‘a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction’ forced me to confront the ways I had been holding myself back—accepting the limitations placed on me by society. Inspired by Woolf’s call for independence and creative freedom, I began to push back against those limitations. I took on leadership roles in my school’s feminist club, organizing discussions on gender inequality and leading workshops on self-expression through writing and art. I also started writing my own stories—stories about girls who refused to fit into boxes, much like I was learning to do myself. Woolf’s work inspired me to claim my own space, both literally and metaphorically, and to help others do the same.”

This essay shows how A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf inspired the student to rethink their own relationship with gender and creativity. The student demonstrates clear personal growth and takes proactive steps, such as leading discussions and workshops, to address gender inequality. The essay effectively combines a deep connection to the literary work with tangible actions that reflect the student’s evolving understanding of gender roles. It produces a much more reflective and meaningful effect and comes across as more analytical and authentic.

In this prompt, you are asked to reflect on a personal story of growth and connect it to the themes of care and concern for others, which are central to the nursing profession. The key is to demonstrate how an inspiring event or realization helped you develop empathy, compassion, or understanding of others, and how it motivated you to take action or deepen your care for others. The theme of inspiration you write about should be considered with a healthcare angle – cast your inspiration in the light of personal growth and zoom in on it using a lens of care.

Think about these questions to help you brainstorm your topic.

• What accomplishment, event, or realization made you see the importance of care and compassion?
• Was there a moment when you felt deeply connected to helping or understanding others – perhaps a specific instance where you provided care for someone? How did that shape your values or future actions?
• How did this experience lead to personal growth? Did it inspire you to take further action in helping others?
• How have you continued to build upon this sense of care and concern since that moment? What steps have you taken to continue helping others or developing your skills?

Compelling responses will highlight compassion for and understanding of others. This could be a time when you took care of someone in need or otherwise realized the importance and responsibility of providing care. You should reflect on the emotional impact of this event and how it helped you understand others on a deeper level; this could be learning to empathize with people in difficult situations or realizing the importance of small acts of kindness. Tie your personal growth and actions to your interest in nursing by including clear actions you took as a result of this inspiration, like volunteering at a hospital, mentoring others, or pursuing medical training through CPR classes. Show how this event helped you understand the role of a nurse in caring for others. The response should demonstrate how you’ve built upon this initial inspiration and how it continues to shape your approach to nursing and care.

Now, let’s see what potential topics could look like:

• Daniel, who cared for his younger sibling with a chronic illness by helping with day-to-day tasks and offering emotional support, could write about how helping his sibling through countless doctor appointments, medication routines, and emotional struggles made him realize the importance of empathy in healthcare. 
• Soraya, who volunteered at a nursing home after seeing the isolation and loneliness experienced by her aging grandparents, might reflect on how visiting their grandparents in a nursing home opened her eyes to the emotional needs of elderly patients. She could describe an experience in which she spent time with an elderly resident who had no family visitors, realizing that small acts of kindness—such as simply sitting and talking—could significantly improve someone’s quality of life. 
• Elliott, who was involved in disaster relief efforts after their community was hit by a hurricane, could write about how assisting first responders and nurses in a makeshift emergency shelter after a natural disaster inspired them to pursue nursing, realizing the importance of both medical care and emotional reassurance in times of crisis. This experience led them to pursue emergency medical training, where they learned how to provide first aid and manage trauma. Now, they are passionate about becoming an emergency room nurse, driven by the desire to provide care and calm during chaotic situations.

The most important part of this prompt is to connect your background to experiences that demonstrate care, compassion, and concern for others, essential qualities for a nursing applicant. Your reflection shouldn’t be passive, but action-oriented, whether through volunteering, working in healthcare settings, or offering emotional support. Link personal experiences to the nursing profession by showing how you have developed skills or priorities in empathy, patient care, or health advocacy.

Finally, let’s read a couple of example responses.

“​​Growing up, I always knew I wanted to help people, especially because my family has dealt with so many health issues. My grandmother had diabetes and hypertension, and since my mother worked a lot, I had to help take care of her. I was always the one who took her to her doctor’s appointments and made sure she took her medication. Doing this taught me a lot about responsibility and how important it is to care for people, especially family members.

There was one appointment in particular that really made me think about how much I enjoyed helping others. My grandmother didn’t understand the doctor’s instructions, and since I speak Creole, I was able to explain everything to her. It made me feel proud to be able to help her in this way and showed me that sometimes, people just need a little extra support to get through hard times. This moment inspired me to pursue a career in nursing because I realized how much I enjoy making a difference in people’s lives.

Since then, I’ve been passionate about healthcare. I’ve continued to help my grandmother with her daily care and have learned more about her conditions. I’ve also volunteered at a local nursing home, which has allowed me to interact with elderly residents and help them with basic tasks. I believe that taking care of others is one of the most important things a person can do, and I want to dedicate my life to doing that as a nurse.”

This example isn’t particularly compelling – it lacks vivid details and storytelling. Although it mentions that the student helped his grandmother and translated for her, it doesn’t dive into the emotional complexity of the situation or how it impacted him on a personal level. The essay tells rather than shows, failing to draw the reader into the experience. A stronger version is below:

“The rhythmic hum of my grandmother’s oxygen machine filled the small room, a sound that had become part of the background of my life. At twelve, I didn’t fully understand her conditions—diabetes, hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease—but I knew that they were part of our daily routine. Every morning, I measured her blood pressure with a cuff that wrapped snugly around her frail arm, careful not to make her wince. At night, I helped prepare her insulin shots, my hands steady even though my heart raced with the weight of responsibility.

My mother was the backbone of our family, working two jobs to make ends meet, and as the oldest child, I took on more than just schoolwork and chores. I became my grandmother’s primary caregiver when my mom was at work, making sure she followed her medication schedule and accompanying her to her numerous doctor’s appointments. It was in these moments, sitting in stark white waiting rooms with the scent of antiseptic in the air, that I began to notice how much her well-being depended on the emotional side of care, not just the physical.

I still remember the moment when this realization truly crystallized for me. We were in the middle of a long appointment with her endocrinologist, who was adjusting her insulin dosage. My grandmother, a woman who once ran a bustling household in rural Haiti, now looked tired and lost, her eyes clouded with confusion. The doctor’s instructions were complex, and my grandmother, despite her nodding, clearly didn’t understand. The language barrier was one thing, but the rapid-fire medical jargon was another. I translated the doctor’s words into simple Creole, pausing often to make sure she was following. Her tense shoulders relaxed, and she smiled at me, the first smile I had seen from her that day. That was the moment I realized how much power lay in the simple act of care—how much it meant to not only treat someone’s physical ailments but to address their emotional needs too.

This experience sparked something within me. My grandmother wasn’t just a patient in a system of diagnoses and treatments—she was a person who needed to feel understood, respected, and loved. Inspired by this realization, I started researching more about diabetes and hypertension. I wasn’t content with just helping her follow the doctor’s instructions; I wanted to understand why these treatments worked and how I could support her even better. I dove into online resources and library books, learning about nutrition, exercise, and even mental health, all of which played a role in managing her conditions. I became her advocate at doctor appointments, asking questions and making sure she was involved in decisions about her care. But I also became something more—a source of comfort and connection in a system that often felt cold and impersonal to her. My journey started with my grandmother, but it has grown into a calling to provide care for those who need both healing and human connection.”

This example does a much better job of illustrating the student’s personal experiences and motivations by using storytelling elements and providing clear details. The response uses a pivotal moment in the student’s journey toward a nursing career to demonstrate their skills in care and empathy, which creates an authentic and relatable narrative.

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