Prompt- Diversity-
A range of academic interests, personal perspectives, and life experiences adds much to the educational mix. Given your personal background, describe an experience that illustrates what you would bring to the diversity in a college community, or an encounter that demonstrated the importance of diversity to you.
I have been working on this essay for a week, and I finally wrote the first word of this essay last night. I honestly sat and read it out loud to myself tonight and I am seriously not understanding what is going on with me.
I feel I did not even touch base with either of the choices I had to focus my writing on. Therefore, I'm turning to you all. I am in dire need of all the help I could get. Please. If i need to just delete this file from my computer let me know. PLEASE.
Over the course of the past few years, I feel, I have grown to become an open-minded individual. It is through this I have been able to give importance to diversity. I was not born in America. In fact, it was not until the tender age of 8 years old did I step foot on American soil. Prior to this occurrence, I was living in a small house in the capital of Haiti, my homeland. I was attending church and school with children very much like myself. I was used to my usual surroundings and had a habit of marveling at anything, or mainly anyone I had not seen before. This included those with skin of lighter color than mine, smooth-textured hair and those who spoke languages other than the two I grew up speaking.
Thinking of diversity, I find I can easily identify which of my life events was my first, conscious, encounter with this asset. When I first entered school in America, I was in a state of astonishment for just about the whole school year, precisely. The many different cultures I was surrounded with, the languages which I had never heard, the clothing that the children possessed; all, left me in amazement. Little did I know this would be the very beginning of my learning the true value of diversity. Growing up in Haiti for the commencement of my life, I was unfortunately but also unintentionally hindered from having the privilege of being encompassed with the different viewpoints and outward appearances of others in the world, this in part being due to Haiti's underdevelopment. Thus, awe, in terms of my reaction to all I was seeing at my first school in America, is greatly an understatement.
However, as much as I was bewildered by the diverse nature of my elementary school, I did not quite understand the different ranges of diversity. Just a little over a year ago, I fell into a hopeless depression which required me to visit different facilities as part of my treatment to overcome this predicament. Through this, I came into contact with all sorts of mindsets, outlooks, point of views; understandings. One of the facilities I went into left me with a deep comprehension of the lesser-focused-area of diversity. At this place, I met other young girls, such as myself who each, undeniably had their own personal grasping of life. Some were suicidal, some homicidal, some neither; but did not really care to live or not, and some truly hungered for a reason to live, as they were too blind to see it. This facility helped me to grow drastically. Hearing the stories of those, who all their life, had known the darkness I was temporarily feeling, changed me. There, I learned to look pass the outward, visible variations of my peers.
See, when the term diversity is further explored or simply put, broken down one may come to find they possess a bit of ignorance, as diversity comes in all forms. Differences such as gender, spiritual belief, race, class, physical or mental ability, make up a mere spectrum of the word diversity. What I have come to recognize though, is experiences alone, may pave the way for many other forms of diversity. What I mean by this I will now explain. Personally, living in Haiti for the time I did, blessed me with the ability to say I am multilingual. Attending school in America bequeathed me with the opportunity to grow a profound love for variety and uniqueness. As far as experiences go, I can only credit them for molding me into the person I am today. The person I am today is one of open-minded, understanding, self-motivated, and determined character.
Being an 18 year old, multilingual, black, Christian, female, who has endured all that I personally have, I can honestly say the portion of the illustration I can draw in the diversity of this college community will cause it to be a masterpiece. "Darling, hold your breath until we get up the escalators, once there, take the breath that will count as your first breath into your new life!" Those were the words spoken in my native language by my father at the airport the day we first arrived to the United States. I was only 8 years old at the time, and flying from the capital of Haiti to New York; my parents gave me the greatest gift of all by opening all sorts of doors that would lead to endless opportunities. It was up to me to choose my path, and I have, and my love for true, deep-leveled diversity has played a key role
