Joanna's Essay 'String Theory'

College Essays are a crucial element of an admissions application at selective colleges such as John Hopkins. In Joanna’s application essay “String Theory”, she uses time and metaphor to demonstrate how accomplishing something as simple as tying a cake box can provide her with the confidence and tenacity she needs to excel in all aspects of life. String theory is the idea that the entire world is made up of strings. Joanna compares this idea to the struggle of learning to tie cake boxes.
When Joanna was hired at her local bakery she didn’t expect tying cake boxes to be the most difficult part of the job. Day after day she repeatedly failed to achieve the perfect knot. Snarky customers would comment and give looks of dissatisfaction after receiving their poorly wrapped boxes. Joanna argued that she had learned much more difficult things, like mastering organic chemistry and calculating the anti-derivatives of functions. Yet she could not figure out why she
Joanna notes that she never thought tying a string would be as difficult as it turned out to be, “I never thought that it would be the benign act of tying a box that would become both my biggest obstacle and greatest teacher”. Joanna makes it clear that she struggled with tying the boxes for longer then a couple of days, “After a months effort…” her “skills slowly began to improve.” Snarky customers fueled Joanna’s practice with their unwelcomed comments. For example after she “discreetly shoves half-tied cake boxes into plastic bags” a customer would comment on her poorly wrapped cake box, “oh you must be new”. Reader’s can relate to the feeling of being called out by a customer, this feeling provides insight of how it motivated Joanna to work quicker. Although Joanna admits, “there were days when (she) wanted to throw all of the string in the trash and use scotch tape." Her customer’s doubts made her success feel even