In order to assist us with selection of community members and appropriate roommate placements, please answer the following questions. The combined answers should be no more than one page.
1. Why do you want to live in the Students Crossing Borders community, and how would living in this environment enhance your experience at the University of Minnesota?
2. What experiences, ideas, and characteristics will you contribute to the community (including language(s) spoken, study abroad experience, international travel experience, interest in cross-cultural experiences, etc)?
Here's my essay:
After researching about housings through the Housing website and asking other "Gophers", I know the Students Crossing Borders community is the place that fits me, where learning beyond the classroom means learning from roommates and friends. I will have the opportunity to improve my English from listening and talking to my roommate to a point that I will have no accent. Moreover, spending my first year in college with a roommate who has the desire to explore another culture is a privilege and living together will be a learning experience for both of us. I can learn more of American culture that can benefit my career in doing business in the States in the future.
Not only living with my roommate, the Students Crossing Borders community allows me to make connection with a diversity of friends, especially other international students whom I can explore new culture and language. Through the community, I hope to have a French friend so I can improve my French language and culture to help in my studying abroad in France for the international experience requirement from the Carlson School.
Joining the Students Crossing Borders, I am eager to contribute my experiences as well as personality to a growing community. Before the fall of 2013, I have been in the States for over two years staying with a host family in Boise, Idaho. Staying away from home, I have to be independent in both thinking and living. I cook Vietnamese cuisine, introduce Vietnamese culture to my host family, and hope to contribute the same idea to the Students Crossing Borders community. Moreover, I love to travel because every trip is a learning experience. Two years in the States, I have been to 15 different states in the U.S. both with my host family and by myself. Dallas is a vibrant and young city while Washington D.C. has its own formal and historic atmosphere. Crossing the Mississippi river border between California and Arizona, I can see the contrast between a desert land and the fruitful soil. Each trip gives a different view of the vast diversity and culture in America. Not only travelling inside the U.S., I have also visited four countries in Asia with my parents and last August, I explored Seoul, South Korea by myself in 10 hours while transferring at Incheon Airport in Seoul. France will be my next destination and that led to my decision to take French class, which will be my third language, besides Vietnamese and English. Although I am in second year of high school French, but skipping French II and learnt it myself over the summer helps me to graduate high school with French III. In the free time, I also play the guitar and have been studying for over two years.
Students Crossing Borders community provides opportunities that fit my future plan as well as I have a chance to contribute to the community and help to make it a growing community.
*I need help with the transitions between ideas and how to improve my last paragraph. Thank you and appreciate your help*
After researching about housingsaccommodation through the Housing website and askinginquiring from other "Gophers", I knowfound the Students Crossing Borders community is the place that fits me, where learning beyond the classroom means learning from roommates and friends.
Moreover, spending my first year in college with a roommate who has the desire to explore another culture is a privilege and living together will be a learning experience for both of us
[
i]Moreover, being someone who loves to explore other cultures I find it is a privilege to live with a roommate who could share many things about his culture with me.[/i]Through the community, I hope to have a French friend so I can improve my French language and culture to help in my studying abroad in France for the international experience requirement from the Carlson School.
I am really looking forward to have a French friend, which is obviously possible at University of Minnesota, so that I can also improve my French linguistic skills and learn about French culture that would help me with my studying abroad in France in order to fulfill international experience requirement of the Carlson School.