What are “Lived Experiences” vs “Exeriences”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:isn't lived experiences redundant? Colleges should be encouraging students to be clear, concise writers by avoiding such phrases.

No, it’s not redundant. Read the thread. Plenty of explanations.

Do you have an example of a personal experience that is not a lived experience?

Lived experience refers to experiencing something yourself rather than obtaining knowledge about something passively, ie through media or secondhand.

Writing about a non-lived experience in a college essay would be ridiculous. Agree with the person above who said the word "lived" is redundant.

An "experience" is going on a mission trip to "help" people in poorer countries. Lived experience is actually growing up in those conditions. You're welcome.

The meaning is exactly the same if you take out the word lived. It’s unnecessary to make the point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:isn't lived experiences redundant? Colleges should be encouraging students to be clear, concise writers by avoiding such phrases.

No, it’s not redundant. Read the thread. Plenty of explanations.

Do you have an example of a personal experience that is not a lived experience?

Lived experience refers to experiencing something yourself rather than obtaining knowledge about something passively, ie through media or secondhand.

Writing about a non-lived experience in a college essay would be ridiculous. Agree with the person above who said the word "lived" is redundant.

An "experience" is going on a mission trip to "help" people in poorer countries. Lived experience is actually growing up in those conditions. You're welcome.

The meaning is exactly the same if you take out the word lived. It’s unnecessary to make the point.

Damn, you must be a real joy to work with and live with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A “lived experience” is how you’ve moved around in the world. For example, if you’re a white, straight, middle class male, your “lived experience” is likely one where you’ve enjoyed a multitude of privileges and very few road blocks such as discrimination. You’ve likely never been profiled in a store or stopped by the police simply because you’re walking down the street. The images and role models of success that have been in the media since you were born have mostly looked like you.

An “experience” is just that. It’s a one-time event. An example might be that you were mugged on the way home and it caused you to think differently about your life in a profound way. Or maybe you had the “experience” of volunteering in a homeless shelter and learned things about yourself.

No one is trying to “get around” the SCOTUS decision. If you’ve read it, you’d know that Roberts laid the groundwork for this approach. Colleges want a student body filled with diverse experiences, and there’s nothing illegal about soliciting information about its applicants as they build their next incoming class.

So, what if you were white and had a pretty crummy life and not one of privilege?

Write about it. How did you overcome your challenges?

Not everyone can. That's the point. Not everyone takes vacations, has privileged internships, jobs, etc. Ironically everything you list is those of privilege. If someone mugged me they'd be pissed at what they got.

No one wants to hear about your vacations or internships. That has nothing to do with overcoming challenges or lived experience.

The problem with that is some things are private

Of course! Fortunately, the options are wide open. There's nothing prescribed and nothing proscribed. Really, the only thing they're asking is that however you answer, you show some minimum degree of introspection.

And you know this how?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:isn't lived experiences redundant? Colleges should be encouraging students to be clear, concise writers by avoiding such phrases.

No, it’s not redundant. Read the thread. Plenty of explanations.

Do you have an example of a personal experience that is not a lived experience?

Lived experience refers to experiencing something yourself rather than obtaining knowledge about something passively, ie through media or secondhand.

Writing about a non-lived experience in a college essay would be ridiculous. Agree with the person above who said the word "lived" is redundant.

An "experience" is going on a mission trip to "help" people in poorer countries. Lived experience is actually growing up in those conditions. You're welcome.

Here’s another one:
An experience is volunteering in a homeless shelter and helping clients deal with addiction. A lived experience is growing up with an alcoholic parent and the impact that has on a child.

That’s asking a lot to expect a young adult to process that experience and serve it up for the consumption of an admissions officer who wants to be entertained by a “compelling” application.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:isn't lived experiences redundant? Colleges should be encouraging students to be clear, concise writers by avoiding such phrases.

No, it’s not redundant. Read the thread. Plenty of explanations.

Do you have an example of a personal experience that is not a lived experience?

Lived experience refers to experiencing something yourself rather than obtaining knowledge about something passively, ie through media or secondhand.

Writing about a non-lived experience in a college essay would be ridiculous. Agree with the person above who said the word "lived" is redundant.

An "experience" is going on a mission trip to "help" people in poorer countries. Lived experience is actually growing up in those conditions. You're welcome.

Here’s another one:
An experience is volunteering in a homeless shelter and helping clients deal with addiction. A lived experience is growing up with an alcoholic parent and the impact that has on a child.

That’s asking a lot to expect a young adult to process that experience and serve it up for the consumption of an admissions officer who wants to be entertained by a “compelling” application.

Nobody is reading these essays to be entertained. If they were entertaining they'd be all over TikTok. And nobody is reveling in your kid's melodrama. They have their own lives to suffer through. The only question is whether or not the essay writer is self reflective and able to share themselves. They are a great way to figure out if the kid will be a good classmate. Someone who can hold a conversation about real life.

OP / PP - where is the issue?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A “lived experience” is how you’ve moved around in the world. For example, if you’re a white, straight, middle class male, your “lived experience” is likely one where you’ve enjoyed a multitude of privileges and very few road blocks such as discrimination. You’ve likely never been profiled in a store or stopped by the police simply because you’re walking down the street. The images and role models of success that have been in the media since you were born have mostly looked like you.

An “experience” is just that. It’s a one-time event. An example might be that you were mugged on the way home and it caused you to think differently about your life in a profound way. Or maybe you had the “experience” of volunteering in a homeless shelter and learned things about yourself.

No one is trying to “get around” the SCOTUS decision. If you’ve read it, you’d know that Roberts laid the groundwork for this approach. Colleges want a student body filled with diverse experiences, and there’s nothing illegal about soliciting information about its applicants as they build their next incoming class.

So, what if you were white and had a pretty crummy life and not one of privilege?

Write about it. How did you overcome your challenges?

Write about those challenges! In detail. Show (don’t tell)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:isn't lived experiences redundant? Colleges should be encouraging students to be clear, concise writers by avoiding such phrases.

No, it’s not redundant. Read the thread. Plenty of explanations.

Do you have an example of a personal experience that is not a lived experience?

Lived experience refers to experiencing something yourself rather than obtaining knowledge about something passively, ie through media or secondhand.

Writing about a non-lived experience in a college essay would be ridiculous. Agree with the person above who said the word "lived" is redundant.

An "experience" is going on a mission trip to "help" people in poorer countries. Lived experience is actually growing up in those conditions. You're welcome.

The meaning is exactly the same if you take out the word lived. It’s unnecessary to make the point.

Damn, you must be a real joy to work with and live with.

Because I don't use excess words to belabor a point? Maybe you need to work on your communication skills if your points are hard to make.

[Anonymous]

My kid is a type 1 diabetic. Has been for years. For a long time, I calculated every insulin dose, gave every injection, counted every carb, rushed to her side every time she needed an emergency infusion of juice. There's a statistic from Stanford that T1D requires an additional 180 decisions every day, and there was a period where I made every single one.

She and I both "experienced" diabetes. But we have different lived experiences. Hers is that of being a type 1 diabetic. Mine is that of being a parent to a type 1 diabetic.

If I were to write about T1D, my essay would be about monitoring, and sticking a needle into my child's flesh 20+ times a day as she howled, and learning so I could teach, and navigating lab tests and medical appointments, and standing in endless lines at the pharmacy, and arguing with insurance companies, and packing a medical go-bag every time we left the house, and giving over a third of my earnings to the juice box industrial complex. Her essay, obviously, would be different. This would be true even if we focused on moments where we were right by one another's side.

It's the first-person experience of an "experience." That's what makes it not redundant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is a type 1 diabetic. Has been for years. For a long time, I calculated every insulin dose, gave every injection, counted every carb, rushed to her side every time she needed an emergency infusion of juice. There's a statistic from Stanford that T1D requires an additional 180 decisions every day, and there was a period where I made every single one.

She and I both "experienced" diabetes. But we have different lived experiences. Hers is that of being a type 1 diabetic. Mine is that of being a parent to a type 1 diabetic.

If I were to write about T1D, my essay would be about monitoring, and sticking a needle into my child's flesh 20+ times a day as she howled, and learning so I could teach, and navigating lab tests and medical appointments, and standing in endless lines at the pharmacy, and arguing with insurance companies, and packing a medical go-bag every time we left the house, and giving over a third of my earnings to the juice box industrial complex. Her essay, obviously, would be different. This would be true even if we focused on moments where we were right by one another's side.

It's the first-person experience of an "experience." That's what makes it not redundant.

We get it, anyone with reading comprehension abilities can tell the difference. I stick a needle into my child's flesh is not the same as a needle was stuck into my flesh daily.

[Anonymous]

A "lived experience" is your normal life. Your life circumstances, your challenges, the way things have been for you - it's impact and lessons learned. An experience is something you did once.

[Anonymous]

Isn’t every experience “lived”?

What else is there “dead experiences”?

I hate these pretentious questions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is a type 1 diabetic. Has been for years. For a long time, I calculated every insulin dose, gave every injection, counted every carb, rushed to her side every time she needed an emergency infusion of juice. There's a statistic from Stanford that T1D requires an additional 180 decisions every day, and there was a period where I made every single one.

She and I both "experienced" diabetes. But we have different lived experiences. Hers is that of being a type 1 diabetic. Mine is that of being a parent to a type 1 diabetic.

If I were to write about T1D, my essay would be about monitoring, and sticking a needle into my child's flesh 20+ times a day as she howled, and learning so I could teach, and navigating lab tests and medical appointments, and standing in endless lines at the pharmacy, and arguing with insurance companies, and packing a medical go-bag every time we left the house, and giving over a third of my earnings to the juice box industrial complex. Her essay, obviously, would be different. This would be true even if we focused on moments where we were right by one another's side.

It's the first-person experience of an "experience." That's what makes it not redundant.

+1
Amen
AND bless you.

All of that real life and someone else is having fits over whether or not the word "lived" is superfluous.

[Anonymous]

Trauma porn.

[Anonymous]

If anyone is looking for a great resource to help articulate to your kids the difference between experience and lived experience, I recommend last week's episode of The Daily podcast about Taylor Swift.

For much of the episode, Michael Barbaro and Taffy Brodesser-Akner discuss Taylor Swift in fairly general terms. The songs, what these songs mean to fans, the experience of going to one of the Eras concerts. But there's a precise moment when Taffy shifts from the general to the personal.

It really illustrates well that many people can experience the same thing, but a lived experience is singular.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:isn't lived experiences redundant? Colleges should be encouraging students to be clear, concise writers by avoiding such phrases.

No, it’s not redundant. Read the thread. Plenty of explanations.

Do you have an example of a personal experience that is not a lived experience?

Lived experience refers to experiencing something yourself rather than obtaining knowledge about something passively, ie through media or secondhand.

Writing about a non-lived experience in a college essay would be ridiculous. Agree with the person above who said the word "lived" is redundant.

An "experience" is going on a mission trip to "help" people in poorer countries. Lived experience is actually growing up in those conditions. You're welcome.

The meaning is exactly the same if you take out the word lived. It’s unnecessary to make the point.

Damn, you must be a real joy to work with and live with.

Not college material, that much is clear.