UC PROMPT #1
Describe the world you come from ï for example, your family, community or school ï and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.
From my relationships with my family to my dreams, the automobile has been an important part of both. My household values family very highly; we always eat our meals together whenever possible and we do family activities frequently. Every summer since I was two, our family went on vacation for about a week or two, visiting different parts of the country, mostly by car. I despised these road trips because of their continuous lackluster cycle; driving while seeing nothing but desert, eating fast food, driving more, visiting a national park, driving to the motel, then sleeping. However, as I grew older, these road trips became more bearable, as my constant nagging and complaining slowly turned into conversations; I passed the time talking with my parents and brother, getting to know them better. After a while, I began to realize how much I had learned from my family during these road trips. One summer, my father taught me all the traffic rules and street signs even though I was years away from driving. Spending the few precious days together crammed in a minivan meant so much because that gave us time to bond and learn something new about each other, something difficult to achieve during the hectic school year.
While my world consists primarily of my family and school, there is one family member, my father, who has helped make a difference in my life by shaping the groundwork for my dreams and aspirations. His influence towards my dream started at a very early age. I can remember he would often take me to the gas station and, once there, I would look outside the car window from my car seat and see cars of all sorts everywhere, big cars, little cars, loud cars, old cars. My fascination with cars started at an early age, but it wasn't until I got older that my fascination really went into overdrive and started to research cars on my own. After learning all the different car parts by text, I wanted to apply what I had learned by working with those parts. To fulfill this, I acquired an internship at a local auto repair shop. Here, I learned all the basics of auto mechanics such as learning how to do oil changes, working the lift, learning the different tools used, and techniques that are learned through experience. As with learning the basics, I also helped my mentor with the more difficult tasks such as rebuilding and swapping engines. My experience as working as a mechanic, for the time being, has helped me to learn many new things and has cleared confusion I had towards some parts. While learning the trade of being a mechanic, I began to see that this is what I want to do and finalized my dreams and aspirations to become an automotive engineer.
While many people see the car only as a source for reliable transportation, I see automobiles as something more than just a piece of metal moving you from one destination to another. Underneath the hood of the car, I see something that can be continuously improved in order to provide a better experience for the family and to make life easier for the mechanic. Because of this, I wish to help improve cars by becoming an automotive engineer.
Any criticism would be much appreciated
Your first para seems like a brainstorm of ideas... you should come up with one theme for the essay, and promote it right from the start:
Solidarity! My family is like a tight-knit unit of professional people; my parents taught us all to attend to one another.
Let it be an essay about a concept, and let each paragraph forward that concept. Keep the same info, but use topic sentences to keep the focus on family solidarity, and at the end make a connection between family solidarity and your career choice/intended major.
