Find Your Problem = Find Your Story

I’ve written a lot about how to use your past problems to power your college application essays.

Here’s the formula: once you think of a problem, big or small that you experienced, you’ve also found a story.

Sharing a real-life story, especially to open a personal statement, is often the best way to hook a reader fast. And that’s exactly what you need in a college application essay. You’re supposed to stand out from a million other applicants — but if you don’t grab the admissions reader’s attention right away, there’s little chance they’ll read the rest of what you have to say.

So hook them with a story. Share something that actually happened to you.

Here’s the thing: something only “happens” — to you or anyone else — when you encounter a problem. And if you later tell someone about it, you’re telling a story.

Problems = something happened = story.

Guess who ran into a lot of problems? Odysseus. Have you read the book, or seen the current blockbuster movie? Then you know what I’m talking about.

Problem: Odysseus and his men get trapped in a cave with a one-eyed Cyclops.
Problem: he wants to hear the Sirens’ song, but their beauty lures sailors to their deaths.
Problem: he has to sail a narrow strait guarded by two monsters — Scylla, a six-headed beast, and Charybdis, a deadly whirlpool.

Those are just the most famous ones. The poor guy, just trying to get home, hit problem after problem. And when the Greek poet Homer wrote it all down, he had one hell of a story — some say the best ever told.

And with director Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey dominating theaters this summer, it’s a good moment to revisit what Homer actually knew about grabbing a reader’s attention.

How to Find Your College Essay Topic

Problems = something happened = story is a nearly 3,000-year-old formula for finding your own material — and it still works as a college essay brainstorming tool today.

If you’re hunting for a college essay topic, start brainstorming problems you’ve faced. Problems can be small and everyday — losing your keys, sleeping through your alarm. They can be internal — a fear, an obsession, a phobia, a distraction (like the Sirens?). If you’re facing a large life problem—financial challenges, racism, mental illness, divorce, death, etc.—those are often life-defining and can work as well.

Or they can come from outside you — an argument with your dad, a mistake at your summer job. You just don’t need monstrous problems those to write a killer essay.

If you can tell someone about it–“Let me tell you about the time this happened…,” it’s a story. All you need is a good one that reveals something defining about who you are.

Building the Rest of Your College Essay

Here’s the best part: problems get even more useful once you’re inside the essay. Not only can you use one as a college essay hook at the start — you can build the rest of your college application essay around how you handled it, and what you learned about yourself in the process.

That’s exactly what Homer did. Cyclops, the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis — Odysseus had to face each one. That’s the rest of the story. And he came out the other side changed.

That’s the essence of essay storytelling. So if you’re ready to tell yours:

Share what happened.
Explain how you dealt with it.
Reflect on what you learned.

It’s that simple.

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