My college application essay. It's about NSider. Seriously.

[Zovistograt]

My heart dropped.  I sat back in the chair I leapt from, refreshed the page.  It was the same thing: a simple apology for destroying my cultural home for the past few years in an instant.  I was only on NSider Forums the day before, and there was no indication that something like this might be happening.  People had been saying for quite some time that the end may be near, but I did not believe that our community could be thrown into complete disruption this suddenly.  I lived there for over two years.  How could it be gone?  And yet, my panic set in as I realized that an entire subculture was uprooted and that I was extremely attached to it, being a regular.  It was as if Atlantis was washed over and the survivors were on small floating rafts, navigating blindly in a fog.

After the period of panic settled, I drew into a reflection.  Why had I gone insane over an Internet message board community shutting down?  From an outsider's point of view, my emotions do seem somewhat superfluous.  However, these people are just outsiders and would never understand the attachment found in a community of people where I felt I belonged.  I had never been part of the "cool" crowd, and I still hang out with mainly the gamers and the otaku in our school, to put it simply.  I thought I was a rare breed until I discovered Internet communities, beginning with NSider, which seemed to be filled with people who have the same interests as I did.  I stayed with NSider as my kind of "home base" on the Internet, and I soon began to develop tastes from the suggestions of others on the forum.  I can trace my favorite genres of music, my love for Japanese culture, and my overall Internet-savvy behavior to my time on NSider.  I think, more than anything else, that forum made me what I am. 

It is understandable, then, how I felt when I saw that NSider was closed.  I was not alone in this, either; I found people who felt as uprooted as I did, and we regrouped.  Currently my "home base" of sorts on the Internet is a small offshoot forum called NSFCD that is composed of former regulars from NSider, plus a few equally-intriguing newcomers.  However, I do not think I would have appreciated the amazing effect NSider had on me, a very positive effect in my opinion for it made my daily life more enjoyable, if the administrators had not destroyed it.  I feel I am one with the Internet, and by extension, with computers and technological advancement.  NSider, then, demonstrated my current mantra in life: to live life to the technologically fullest.



I sent it in with my application to RPI yeterday.

[Nayrman]

was there a word limit I assume?
Can you also send in the question in particular? Just curious.
Pretty good essay but it depends on the question asked XD

[Macawmoses]

Simply inspiring. You've taken something no one would care about it, and possibly, attached them...bringing them into our world. I only wish there were more to it, but your points are there.

[Zovistograt]

was there a word limit I assume?
Can you also send in the question in particular? Just curious.
Pretty good essay but it depends on the question asked XD

it had to be over 250 words but not so long that the reader would just skim it and say "TL;DR LOL"
there was no real question but if there were one it would be "talk about an event that was important to you" or something because I based it on that question