Just some background, I am planning to transfer to the University of Washington from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Currently, I am a computer science major, but if I do get accepted I am planning to switch my major to user-centered design and engineering.
My concerns:
1. I'm not sure if I should write Hawaii with the okina (Hawai'i), this changes the way you would pronounce Hawaii. It would be pronounced like how it would be pronounced by locals here if the okina is written. Also, from what my friends told me, they said that it would add more credibility that I know a lot about Hawaii's culture.
2. The logical flow of the personal statement. I wrote this in chronological order, but I'm not sure if it follows a chronological order from another person's perspective.
3. The last paragraph seems a little drawn on/It feels a bit wordy. I'm also not sure if I concluded the personal statement firmly.
Prompt:
1. Academic Elements (Required)
- Academic History
- Major/Career Goals
- Prepared to enter major
- How will UW attain your academic goals
2. Personal Elements (Required)
- Cultural Understanding
- Personal hardships/Educational Challenges
- Describe your community
- Experimental learning
3. Additional Comments (Optional)
Walking down the Waikiki strip, I could hear the sounds of different languages intermixing. English, Japanese, Filipino, French-there were so many languages going off left and right. I wished, at that moment, I could understand it all. Growing up in Hawaii is nothing like how the media portrays it to be. The media focuses a lot on the beautiful scenery, beaches, and food of Hawaii, yet they pay little attention to the vibrant community and history that Hawaii has to offer. Hawaii is home to many ethnic groups, which create small communities to support each other and future generations. During the war in Vietnam that my mom and grandma emigrated from Vietnam to Hawaii. Though my mom and grandma were only educated up until middle school and could not speak English, these established communities helped them adapt to Hawaii by providing them jobs, housing, and education.
As a child, I did not have many toys like other children often have. My mom and grandma were poor, but they continued to work hard to support my education. My mom was the driving force that pushed me to further my studies. During the fifth grade, she bought me a new computer and a dial-up connection with the money she saved up. Every day after school, I would rush home and be on my computer experimenting to see what would happen if I were to push certain buttons or click certain things. By the end of fifth grade, I was already learning how to making simple websites using HTML and CSS. In middle school, I discovered Craigslist and found a gig to set up a WordPress blog. When I presented my client with the final product, he was incredibly pleased with my work, and he paid me a large sum of cash and treated me to a pizza. I felt triumphal that for once in my life, I was able to help someone while doing something I love.
When I started high school, I already knew what I wanted to be when I grew up: a web developer. My passion for web development and design led me to look for classes in them, but to no avail. I was upset about not being able to find any classes in web development at my public high school. In spite of the situation, I decided to direct my attention to other computer related topics to diversify my knowledge in the computer field. I took computer hardware and network security classes to further my understanding of hardware and networking interact with each other and the Internet, and I took computer programming to learn more about coding for applications. I even joined the school's cyber security competition and eventually became captain of the team in senior year. Through the classes and activities that I engaged in, I came out with a better understanding and a wider view of the computer disciplines.
With new perspectives on computers, I entered the University of Hawaii to pursue a degree in computer science. Initially, I believe that with project-based learning, I was able to engage with other like-minded students in creating robust projects that would impress the professor. However, the projects were very mundane, and they did not require peers to participate heavily and cooperate with each other. And along with that, they did not incorporate real-world applications of the concepts we learned in class. I felt that the classes stifled my creativity and overvalued uniformity. I needed a change and a big one.
During the summer after my first year of college, I returned to web development but focused more on the artistic side of web development, such as design appeal. I was inspired by looking at websites that I have made before and comparing them to current sites. My designs that I had before were functional, but they were not aesthetically pleasing or usable on mobile devices. While researching for ways to improve my designs, I found an article about user experience design. The article's explanation of incorporating user experience design into web design is what I wanted to do with websites: make them appealing, functional, and accessible.
While taking the bus home one day, I used the state's bus app to search for the bus stop number to check when the bus would arrive. I had to navigate through so many screens to find the real-time arrival time that it felt difficult to use. It was then that it occurred to me that my experience with the app was not the best that it could have been. When I got home, I started drawing concepts of how the bus app could be improved using the techniques that I learned from researching about user experience design such as wireframing and ask for feedback. When I showed my friends the prototype of the interface, they were surprised on how much more streamlined my design was than the state's current app.
I came to realize that focusing purely on computer science was never my passion. Though I enjoy programming and learning the backend of computers, computer science never fosters the creativity and the human connectedness that I desire. And through researching more about user experience design, I found the University of Washington's User Centered Design and Engineering program. The University of Washington's program better suits my needs because of its interdisciplinary academics that not only focuses on technology's role in human lives, but also designing and engineering interactive and engaging systems that actively changes people's thinking, behavior, and communication. Furthermore, with the program's Capstone project, I will be able to apply the material that I learned throughout the program in a cohesive hands-on project. And with the experience gained from working on the Capstone project, I want to return to Hawaii to innovate how communities in Hawaii would communicate and engage with each other through improved technological design and engineered systems. Considering my past experiences and knowledge that I have obtained, I am confident that I am prepared to enter the University of Washington with an opened-mind.
Thank you guys in advance for providing feedback!
Alexander, how you spell Hawaii out in the essay is a personal choice. Believe me, regardless of the special diction emphasis that you provide on paper, the reader will still read it the way that he wants to. The paper doesn't concentrate on how to pronounce Hawaii anyway so don't stress over it. Just concentrate on the other parts of the essay that you should be developing.
Now, there are some universities that expect the students to provide the essay discussion in the same form as the outline they provided in the application. Others, are not so strict about how you portray the information. My suggestion is that you contact the university and ask them how you are expected to deliver the discussion. That way you are sure to edit the paper in the expected manner.
Your essay pretty much presents all of the elements required per discussion. However, I did not see any personal hardships or obstacles indicated in your essay that could help better present the kind of personality that you have to reviewer. You need to better present an obstacle or hardship because that is one of the most important aspects of this essay. This tells him the kind of student you will become. How you react to pressure, stress, the demands of daily life and academics, or anything else that could affect your performance as a student at their school. The better you portray you story of overcoming the obstacles and hardships, the better an image you will have as a potential student.
Aside from that part which I feel is lacking in the essay, all that is left is to correct some minor grammar issues. I always hold back on those revisions in case there are changes to be made or additions to be made in the essay. There is no sense in correcting the grammar twice when you can do it just once :-)
@vangiespen
Thank you for replying!
There isn't any format the personal statement has to be, other than it should tell a story that includes what is in the prompt.
*** Sorry I don't know how to edit the original post but everything from hardship to experimental learning is optional, only the cultural understanding is required.
I felt that the obstacles were too personal to include because it did not reflect who I am as a person. That's why I decided to leave it out and I tried to focus more on my academic goals and personal goals. I didn't exactly have a lot of stress throughout high school and college so far, mostly because I manage my time efficiently. However, I do get stressed over really personal stuff which I don't think it's appropriate to include in this type of writing.
Alexander, my apologies for thinking that the essay required the portion about your personal hardships and educational challenges as they were indicated in your posting as being part of the required element of the prompt:
2. Personal Elements (Required)
- Cultural Understanding
- Personal hardships/Educational Challenges
- Describe your community
- Experimental learning
Anyway, since you don't really wish to present that sort of personal information to the reviewer, then that is your prerogative. However, that being the case, I would like to suggest that you remove the part about the history of your mom and grandmother as being migrants of the Vietnamese war. You see, the cultural understanding that you should be discussing in the essay is your cultural understanding of what makes you as a Vietnamese-Hawaiian-American a unique person. What is it about your culture, the mix of these cultures, that make you stand out? How does it help you to better understand those around you? What are the aspects of your culture that you are most proud of. Help the reviewer understand your mixed culture better. you are not solely Hawaiian, American, or Vietnamese. So who are you in terms of your cultural understanding?
Don't discuss it as just a summary or a reference point for your academic development. Try to introduce yourself to the reviewer in the way that you are most comfortable doing. That means, your personal information that you feel contains sensitive information is off the table. This is your preliminary interview, so be as open as possible with the reviewer. How else can he assess how you might be an asset to the university upon your admission? That is the main purpose for this essay so you should respond to it as best as you can.
