"We are interested in learning more about you and the context in which you have grown up, formed your aspirations, and accomplished your academic successes.
Please describe the factors and challenges that have most shaped your personal life and aspirations. How have these factors caused you to grow?" (800 word limit)
I never appreciated the way the Sun and the sea seemed to be following me. Spending 16 years living on an island taught me not to take anything for granted.
On a hot winter afternoon, while I was walking on a street that felt endless, I made eye contact with a woman that who appeared to be mentally ill.) Coming from a third world country, it is normal to see people in not the best conditions on the streets by their own. I wasn't conscious of what I was doing, and neither was she. We held eye contact for less than four seconds, enough to trigger a reaction. The woman kept walking towards me and as she passed, she spat on me. The shock didn't last too long and luckily, she continued on her unknown path. I took a piece of paper from the notebook I was carrying, and tried to wipe out the substance temporarily, until I got home. My mind was reproducing the scene over and over again, asking questions that would never be answered. Maybe she was sick of how society was constantly avoiding the facts. I saw in her eyes a mad person, one consumed with disgust over what her eyes were contemplating. To try to decipher her perspective on the situation seemed pointless then; I was never going to know the truth from the look of her eyes. I didn't know what exactly happened or why, I just wanted to do something about it.
As cliché as it may seem, my parents have taught me not to give up on what I believe, just the same as they have taught me how to be a pragmatic person. Since that afternoon I started to view my surroundings with a different eye. In my community, negligence was all over the place; I started an inane research about the environmental and social factors that may impact people's behaviour and mental health such as hardships, calamities... in the blink of an eye I started to love people's nature, without necessarily following a humanist philosophy.
Reality finally popped the bubble I was creating. My family decided to leave the country and pursue their own version of the American dream. I was terrified of the big change; I was leaving my friends, my sister and the environment I was used to. Suddenly I was surrounded by a new atmosphere, language, culture. The idea of attending a new school in the middle of my junior year was overwhelming. I have a tendency of initially adopting a defeatist attitude to situations that overwhelm me; my mind was filled with negative thoughts, reminding myself the alternatives I had in my native country. I was experimenting with the nausea Sartre established in his novel. The language was a barrier I thought I was never going to break. The turbulent emotions I was having that hot winter afternoon of the encounter with the deranged woman were again flashing in front of my eyes. I didn't know what was going on or why; I just remembered her eyes and what I interpreted as disgust. I had two options: rely on the simulated alternatives I was creating or make lemonade out of lemons.
After my encounter with that woman, a new aspiration woke up within me. For a moment I thought that my skin was the one that was disseminating sparks throughout the place.
I never appreciated the way the sun and the sea seemed to be following me. However, once I gained the notion of the situation I was finding myself being involved in, I started to stand up firmly for the things I believed.
I face a constant wrestle with my reclusive and defeatist side. Spending 16 years living on an island taught me not to take everything for granted; but if there's something I can affirm, it is that staring blankly at the ceiling will not yield the answers to any questions.
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I think I will reduce this to trash due ambiguity.
Any thoughts? Your help would be appreciated!
I agree that this essay is a little vague, even though it is written very well.
Your goal is to discuss 1. factors and challenges that impacted you while you grew up and 2. how they shaped your personal life, aspirations, and growth. You focus on a factor, the way your country neglects the needs of people with mental health problems. The story about the woman is attention-grabbing, but you need to write more about how your native country treats the mentally ill in general. Also, you don't really elaborate on how this setting shaped you. Are you interested in pursuing a career in mental health? Do you want to go into public health and solve the negligence that is happening in your country? What clubs or classes have you taken in high school that support these interests?
You also discuss a challenge, moving to America. Write more about the language barrier; what language did you speak? Were there people to interpret for you? What parts of American culture are different from your country's? How did you and your family cope? You did a fairly good job describing what you felt during this time. But then suddenly, you connect it back to your memory of the woman, and the connection is pretty weak. I guess you want to say that you felt the same frustration and confusion both that day and when you were in America; you should make this idea clearer. Then you mention how you decided to stand up for the things you believed in and make lemonade out of lemons. How did you do this after you encountered the woman, and how did you do this after you came to America? Drawing these connections in your essay will make it much less vague.
bumping this due a concern:
do you think the main part of this essay could work with this prompt: "Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical
dilemma you have faced and its impact on you"?
