UT--Austin: Required
Choose an issue of importance to you – the issue could be personal, school related, local, political, or international in scope – and write an essay in which you explain the significance of that issue to yourself, your family, your community, or your generation.

1,181-word version
I spent my childhood in a countryside not far from the shore. Unlike my friends, however, I did not know how to swim. Although I had several chances to learn, I still did not fare well, because I had developed a trauma from almost drowning in a river twice. Thus, whenever I went to a river or to the sea, I would become anxious. I had given up every attempt to learn how to swim even though I had a big curiosity about the world under the sea since I read Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea. Eventually, I forgot about swimming by joining the Korean Army, not the Navy...