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My Interests Essay & Paragraphs for students

Interests are facets of our personality, shaped by our experiences and preferences. They add color to our lives and provide a sense of fulfillment. This essay will explore my personal interests, shedding light on what motivates and engages me.

Table of Contents

Essay On My Array of Interests

Interests can span a wide spectrum, from academic pursuits to hobbies. They help define who we are and what we value in life.

Interest in Literature: A Journey into the World of Words

One of my primary interests lies in literature. I am fascinated by the power of words and the ability of authors to weave intricate narratives that transport readers into different worlds. Be it a gripping mystery or a poignant drama, literature provides an avenue for exploration and imagination.

Interest in Technology: Navigating the Digital Landscape

In the modern world, technology plays an increasingly significant role, and it is another area that piques my interest. I am intrigued by advancements in technology, from artificial intelligence to virtual reality. This interest extends beyond mere usage; I enjoy understanding the mechanics behind these technologies, which often leads me to delve into coding and programming.

Interest in Music: The Universal Language

Music is a universal language that transcends boundaries, and it constitutes one of my core interests. I find solace in music, and playing the guitar is a hobby that provides me with immense satisfaction. Music allows me to express my emotions and connect with others on a deeper level.

Interest in Travel: Exploring the World

Travel is another interest that I hold dear. I relish the opportunity to explore new places, experience diverse cultures, and meet people from various walks of life. Traveling broadens my horizons and provides invaluable life experiences.

The Role of Interests in Personal Development

Interests play a crucial role in personal development. They provide opportunities for learning, self-expression, and building connections.

Learning and Growth

My interests facilitate continuous learning and growth. Through literature, I enhance my language skills and critical thinking. Technology keeps me updated with current trends and develops problem-solving skills. Music nurtures creativity, and travel fosters adaptability and open-mindedness.

Self-Expression and Connection

Interests also serve as a medium for self-expression and building connections. Music allows me to express myself creatively, while literature provides insights into human emotions and experiences. Technology and travel enable me to connect with a global community, sharing knowledge and experiences.

Balancing Interests with Responsibilities

While pursuing interests is important, it’s equally essential to balance them with responsibilities.

Prioritizing and Time Management

Balancing interests with responsibilities involves prioritizing and effective time management. While I devote time to my interests, I ensure that my academic and personal responsibilities are not compromised.

Integrating Interests into Daily Life

I also strive to integrate my interests into daily life. For instance, listening to music while studying, reading during leisure time, or exploring tech-related topics for academic projects. This integration makes routine tasks more enjoyable and fulfills my pursuit of interests.

Conclusion: My Interests – A Reflection of My Identity

In conclusion, my interests in literature, technology, music, and travel are integral to my identity. They provide avenues for learning, self-expression, and connection, contributing significantly to my personal development. Balancing these interests with my responsibilities enhances my life’s quality, making it more enriching and fulfilling. While interests may evolve over time, they remain a constant source of motivation and engagement, illuminating the path of self-discovery.

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Blog > Essay Advice , Essay Examples , Supplementals > Writing a Great Academic Interest Essay (with Examples)

Writing a Great Academic Interest Essay (with Examples)

Admissions officer reviewed by Ben Bousquet, M.Ed Former Vanderbilt University

Written by Kylie Kistner, MA Former Willamette University Admissions

Key Takeaway

What is an academic interest supplemental essay.

Academic Interest essays are a kind of supplemental essay . They ask you to expand on one of your primary academic interests. Since you’re going to college to be a student, colleges ask Academic Interest supplemental essay questions because they want to get a sense of your intellectual curiosity.

In fact, Academic Interest essays are one of the main places in your application for you to geek out about the topics you’re most passionate about.

Admissions officers want to know about the questions that keep you awake at night, the problems you’re ready to roll up your sleeves and solve, and the conversations you can’t wait to partake in.

But don’t worry. When a school asks you to describe your academic interest, you don’t have to stress about having your entire life planned out. If you say, “I want to create a robot to clean up litter in the ocean,” nobody is going to come knocking on your door when you graduate looking for a robot.

Your main goal when writing your Academic Interest supplementals? Show that you’ll be a great contributor to the learning community on campus.

In this post, we’ll walk you through how to do just that.

Let’s start by looking at a few examples of what Academic Interest prompts look like.

1: Stanford University

The Stanford community is deeply curious and driven to learn in and out of the classroom. Reflect on an idea or experience that makes you genuinely excited about learning. (100 to 250 words)

2: Pomona College

Academic Interest Statement: What do you love about the subject(s) you selected as potential major(s)? If undecided, share more about one of your academic passions.

3: Brandeis University

The Brandeis community is a diverse group of critical thinkers defined by their ability to dive deeper into their learning by questioning, analyzing, evaluating, creating, critiquing and seeking other perspectives. Share an example of how you have used your own critical thinking skills on a specific subject, project, idea or interest.

These examples should help you identify Academic Interest prompts when you come across them.

Now let’s move on to discussing three strategies you can use to answer any Academic Interest prompt colleges throw at you.

Academic Interest Essay Strategy

Great essays are strategic essays. Since supplemental essays exist to supplement the rest of your essays (like your personal statement ), activities, and letters of recommendation, it’s important to write them with intention. These three strategies will help you write your Academic Interest essays with an eye toward showing admissions officers how your intellectual curiosity makes you a perfect fit for the intellectual community at the school in question.

Write about an academic interest that aligns with what the school has to offer.

It doesn’t make much sense to write about your undying passion for pursuing a career in linguistics if you’re applying to a school that doesn’t have a linguistics program. Be sure you're doing your research on the school.

Remember that your supplemental essays exist to showcase how well you fit into a school’s academic, social, and cultural communities. While the academic interest you choose doesn’t have to exactly match up with something specific at the school like a Why this Major essay , it’s a good idea to choose an interest that can support your case for academic fit.

Be specific.

Specificity is your friend in most essays but especially in Academic Interest essays. As an admissions officer, one of the most memorable Academic Interest essays I read was about the history of corsets. It doesn’t get much more specific than that!

In a similar way, you should choose something specific to write about based on what the prompt is asking you to do. Whatever your intellectual niche is, don’t be afraid to be explicit about what it is that captivates you. Your goal is to be as specific as is necessary to bring an admissions officer into your intellectual world, give them a look around, and send them on their way with a new understanding of what you care about and why it’s important.

Reflect on the significance of your academic interest.

Academic Interest essays succeed when you demonstrate why the topic is important to you and to the world.

While these supplementals should be specific, they aren’t an opportunity for you to write a treatise on an obscure math concept or insect species. Instead, your Academic Interest essays should make it clear why your interest matters, to whom, and why.

Showing these connections lets an admissions officer know that you’re able to see the big picture and draw connections between academic interests and real-world problems.

How to write an Academic Interest supplemental essay

Alright. With those three strategies in mind, it’s time to get to writing.

Step 1: Read the prompt.

There are lots of ways colleges ask you to write about an academic interest. Take a look at the examples above. The Stanford prompt says that you can reflect on “an idea or experience,” but the Pomona prompt only asks for an “academic passion.” The Brandeis one is different yet, asking you to focus specifically on critical thinking and giving you the freedom to talk about a number of ways your academic interest has manifested.

The wording of the prompt will affect the options you have to choose from, so be sure to read it carefully.

Step 2: Decide on an academic interest.

After you’ve narrowed down your options based on the prompt, next you have to think about your application strategy.

If you’re applying to a particular college major , you should choose an academic interest that is related to your preferred major to emphasize your intellectual curiosity for that subject. Alternatively, you could pick an unrelated academic interest that shows your interdisciplinary inclinations (but that will probably be less effective). What you decide will depend on what kind of school you’re applying to and what other strengths you’ve strewn throughout the rest of your application narrative .

Step 3: Outline & Write

I. Introduction: Hook your reader into your topic with your first sentence, and expand on your academic interest throughout your introduction.

II. Body: Provide more details and introduce your reader to the problem, question, puzzle, or implications that keep you intrigued. III. Body II: Connect your academic interest to an activity you've been involved in. Use this essay as an opportunity to show a connection between your resume and your academic interests.

IV. Conclusion: Reflect on why your interest matters and why your interest in the subject is personally meaningful

Academic Interest Supplemental Essay Mistakes

There are two frequent mistakes applicants make when writing Academic Interest essays, and they typically happen when students aren’t paying enough attention to their application strategy.

Being too academic or too personal.

All college essays are tricky because they require you to balance a number of things. Academic Interest essays are no different. They are a balancing act between intellectual curiosity and personal meaning.

The first mistake applicants make is failing to find this balance. Too much or too little of either, and your essay comes across as too academic or too personal.

You don’t want to be the student who rambles on about a math proof and leaves your admissions officer without any sense of meaning to hang on to. Similarly, you don’t want to dive too deep into meaning and completely neglect to address the details of what interests you. Finding balance is essential.

Being too general.

So you want to “solve the world’s problems” or “find practical solutions to climate change.” That’s great! But when it comes to Academic Interest essays, the key is specificity. Anyone can have general interests in any topic. It’s the niche and particular academic interests that set applicants apart.

Focusing on one very specific interest tells admissions officers that you’re committed enough to your interest to have done thorough research on it. Your specificity shows familiarity with and dedication to a topic—both things that all colleges look for in their students.

If you’re too general, you run the risk of your Academic Interest essay not actually serving you. Too vague, and it’ll be like you didn’t write the essay at all.

So rather than trying to capture all of your interests or solve all of the world’s problems at once, hone in on something that you just can’t stop thinking about. Your future self (and your admissions officers) will thank you.

Academic Interest Supplemental Essay Examples

Example: what do you want to be when you grow up.

Brown: Brown’s Open Curriculum allows students to explore broadly while also diving deeply into their academic pursuits. Tell us about any academic interests that excite you, and how you might use the Open Curriculum to pursue them while also embracing topics with which you are unfamiliar. (200-250 words)

"How was school and what do you want to be when you grow up today?"

My mom asked me this two-part question every day when she picked me up in second grade.

One day I wanted to be a chemist because of an episode of Bill Nye the Science Guy. The next, I wanted to be a teacher like Miss Frizzle, or a paleontologist because of the dinosaur episode we'd just watched. Or maybe I wanted to produce cartoons for kids.

The idea of really learning something and trying to master it has always excited me. My only issue was that seemingly every subject was the next shiny thing I wanted to learn.

Brown's Open Curriculum is uniquely suited to satiate my broad interests–many of which I have maintained since I was a kid. I still love chemistry and have had the privilege of experiencing an advanced academic lab at UVA studying infectious diseases. I will certainly explore chemistry courses and seek out more research opportunities. I know I want to study abroad, and I'm most interested in the “Dinosaurs, Dry Bones, and Digs" course and trip that Brown archaeology professor Schultz hosts each spring to search for new dinosaur fossils in Brazil. Producing my school’s senior film with the help of my advanced filmmaking team has prompted me to also try on modern culture and media coursework at Brown and participate in the Campus Reel competition in the fall.

While my academic interests have evolved since I was seven, I look to college as a time to explore fields of interest, discover new ones, and maybe after four years have a better answer to that question, “what do I want to be when I grow up?”

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what are my interests essay

How to Write an Essay about Your Interests

what are my interests essay

Are you looking for a quick and simple way to write an essay about your interests? Then you’ve found the perfect tutorial for you!

Writing such an essay can be fun, but it can sometimes become challenging if you’re unsure how to approach it. So, in this tutorial, I will show you how to write an essay about your interests in five simple steps. We’ll write an example of such an essay, too.

Let’s dive in!

Step 1. Plan the word count for each paragraph.

Planning the word count for each of your essay’s paragraphs will help you organize your ideas, which makes it simpler and quicker for you to write any essay.

Essays have three important parts:

  • The introductory paragraph
  • Three body paragraphs
  • The concluding paragraph

So, for example, if you need to write a 300-word essay, you can follow the diagram below to distribute 300 words across the five paragraphs in your essay:

what are my interests essay

Step 2. Choose your essay’s main idea and its supporting points.

Before you start writing any essay, you need to come up with a main idea that will overarch your three supporting points. 

To do this, you can think of three distinct interests that you want to talk about in your essay. Then, think about what they have in common. Do these interests help you relieve stress? Do they help you find a balance in your life? 

Whatever you choose will be your essay’s thesis . It will be your basis — the main point.

For example, we can say, “My interests offer me a creative outlet.” This is enough for now because you’ll better understand how to expand it in the next step.

Next, you’ll divide the thesis using the Power of Three to support your claim.

what are my interests essay

The Power of Three will help you divide any essay’s main idea into three supporting points. It’s a three-part structure that helps you write your body paragraphs .

Let’s try it for our example with the thesis: “My interests offer me a creative outlet.”

  • I like drawing .
  • I like dancing .
  • I like scrapbooking .

Great! Now we’re ready for the next step.

Step 3. Write the introductory paragraph.

Writing an essay usually starts with the introductory paragraph . Here are the important components you must include:

what are my interests essay

The introduction , the first sentence, catches your readers’ attention and makes them want to know about your interests. The rest will be your thesis and its three supporting points.

Let’s look at an example:

Introductory Paragraph

“Having interests allows us to pursue our passions outside of work or school and engage in activities that help us relax, relieve stress, and stay happy. In my case, my interests offer me a creative outlet. Drawing has always been one of my passions since childhood, which is a great way to express myself visually. I also like dancing, which allows me to express myself through music and movement. And I also like scrapbooking, which helps me preserve my thoughts and memories in a creative and meaningful way.”

Note how it goes from general to specific . It started with a general statement, the introduction, followed by the thesis, and its three supporting points.

Step 4. Write the three body paragraphs.

After writing your introductory paragraph, you will write the body paragraphs that contain your main idea’s supporting points. Here’s a structure you can follow to make things simpler for you:

what are my interests essay

As you can see, writing a body paragraph for any essay starts with a topic sentence . Then, you will explain it briefly and illustrate it using example/s .

Paragraph 1

“I like drawing because it is a great way to express myself visually. With drawing, I can communicate my thoughts, ideas, and emotions. When I draw, I can convey a message without using words and express myself in a way that is both creative and meaningful. I like drawing whenever I feel upset or depressed. For instance, I drew an elaborate doodle when I felt anxious and stressed at work yesterday.”

In this body paragraph, the first sentence serves as the topic sentence, which gives context to our body paragraph. 

The following sentences explain the supporting point. The rest of the paragraph illustrates the topic sentence with examples.

Paragraph 2

“Dancing is a creative outlet I enjoy. It allows me to express myself through music and movement. It also helps me feel in touch with my emotions and connect with myself and the world around me. When I danced to a slow and emotional song last Sunday, I felt like I was releasing my sadness and expressing myself through my movements.”

Paragraph 3

“I like scrapbooking because it allows me to express my creativity and preserve my thoughts and memories. It is a therapeutic activity that helps me relax, relive memories, and tell a story through pictures. For example, I took photos of beautiful scenery and my family when we hiked a mountain last year. When we returned home, I spent hours selecting the best pictures and choosing colorful papers, stickers, and embellishments to create stunning scrapbook pages.”

Like our first body paragraph, paragraphs 2 and 3 follow the same structure, which starts from a general statement and proceeds to more specific points.

Step 5. Write the concluding paragraph.

Restating what you’ve already stated in your introductory paragraph using different words is the simplest and quickest way to write a concluding paragraph.  

It is a time-proven method, so it always works! 

Let’s try it for our sample essay:

Concluding Paragraph

“Engaging in interests outside work or school can help us stay happy. For me, drawing, dancing, and scrapbooking are interests that allow me to express myself in a creative and meaningful way. Whether I am drawing to communicate ideas, dancing to connect with my emotions, or scrapbooking to preserve memories, my interests help me relax, unwind, and find a balance.”

Note how we only restated the points already made in the introductory paragraph, but they are worded differently, which makes writing the concluding paragraph pretty simple. 

And that’s it! I hope this tutorial has been helpful. 

Now go ahead and write a brilliant essay about your interests!

Tutor Phil is an e-learning professional who helps adult learners finish their degrees by teaching them academic writing skills.

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Home / Essay Samples / Life / Skills / Exploring My Skills and Interests

Exploring My Skills and Interests

  • Category: Life
  • Topic: Interests , Skills

Pages: 1 (392 words)

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Synergy between Skills and Interests

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