Wayne State University Medical School

2003 Application Essay:

There are many different styles and types of books, and every person has different tastes. Literature to self-help books, magazines to textbooks, and journals to pamphlets are all covered in the class of books. The most interesting book I ever read was a very specific book. I did not read it cover to cover like most books but rather flipped between different pages depending on where I was. Sometimes I would study one page for days, and at others I would merely glance. It took me three months to read this book, and to this day I still have not seen every page of this book. The book was published by National Geographic and it was a North American Road Atlas. I read this book on a trip around the United States by motorcycle with my closest friend.

In order to fit it in a saddlebag, this book did not have the normal size, but it was still detailed enough so that we would not lose our way. Where this book lacked the size, it made up for it in the memories that we had with it. It will always stick out in my mind, and it was the most interesting book I have ever read because it became symbolic of the trip we had, which I will remember forever. We studied each page as we passed through the state and experienced what we could and what we wanted. We camped and stayed with family and friends through thirty-one states and two countries. Thirty-four rolls of film and an indefinite number of memories later we finished the book as we finished our trip. After the trip was over I looked back through that road atlas and realized how much I had learned about myself going around the country and how much I had changed. No other book had such an impact on me, and that is why this book interests me above all of the others that I have read.