Growing and Changing through Life - Admission/Application Essay Example

Growing and Changing through Life While I believe it is true that many expand their viewof the world in college, I do not think all students who enter college are as sheltered from different cultural, economic or academic experiences as others. I remember living in Taiwan before my family moved to the United States and have spent my entire life living with two cultures, the one of my parents and the one of my friends. It is difficult for me to imagine what life would be like without this experience. For that reason, I think it would be very beneficial for me to meet a fellow classmate or student who is experiencing this shift for the first time in their life, perhaps someone who has come to the United States from somewhere in Central or South America with a language other than English. The reason I feel this would be beneficial is that I moved to the United States when I was still a child, so many of the new cultural experiences I had have been lost in the carefree childhood of a young boy constantly playing in his makeshift lab within the family home. To see how this new culture is affecting someone else’s growth would be very enlightening to me. I would remember things that had surprised me regarding other people when we first moved here and I would see how these things helped to modify the other student’s behavior as they learned to assimilate into North American society. In many ways, I think that would help me to realize how my own personality and life has been shaped by my living in the United States. At the same time, I realize many people in the United States still tend to view people from further south with a certain degree of prejudice, which was something I, too, had to overcome at one time. In being able to witness this in a student new to the experience, I would be further able to understand some of my own prejudices and how they have formed a part of who I am today. My association with this hypothetical student wouldn’t be beneficial only to me, as my previous experiences and understandings might be able to further help someone just entering the country. While we would have several language barriers to work out, since I don’t speak any forms of Spanish, which would probably be closest to their native tongue, I would be able to help them make the adjustments necessary to become a part of the general community at the college. I have always been very involved in extracurricular activities and would be able to help guide this student to those activities that interested him/her without presenting a judgmental face. As a child, freshly moved to a new country from Taiwan, I had many new experiences to understand and not many friends to help me with them. As a result, I spent a great deal of my time playing within my home, experimenting with different household chemicals such as soaps and shampoos, mixing them together for different effects, such as the creation of a super bubble with many colors. Thanks to an indulgent mother, I was always permitted to conduct these experiments despite the many trips to the store my mother was forced to take as a consequence to replace the items I had put to new uses. As I grew, although I lost much of my shyness and began to move about in the world a little more, I never lost this early fascination with new discoveries. It was not only the abundance of these supplies that encouraged me to take an interest in science, but my parents’ decision to move to the United States provided me with tremendous opportunities to explore just what science meant to me, as well as helped to focus my attention on the idea that this was the field that most captured my passions. By moving to the United States, my parents provided me with an opportunity for an excellent educational environment in which I was able to excel as much as I wanted in the fields of my choice. It was difficult to make the adjustment at first, since I didn’t exactly blend in with my Virginia neighbors right away, but these early experiences in my parents’ home and the encouragement I received from them helped me overcome the challenges of making new friends and encouraged me to pursue the chances an American education could provide for me in accomplishing my dreams of one day becoming an important scientist. I remembered my earliest experiences in Taiwan and realized I had been given a wonderful chance to expand my horizons further than I might have been able to in our native country. The schools I attended offered classes that were targeted for different learning levels of students and I never lost the chance to take advantage of these opportunities, always taking the highest level classes that were available to me no matter what the other kids thought about whether I was ‘cool’ or not. My early experiences had taught me the value of these opportunities and I was not going to waste them for the sake of popularity. I knew from experience that a good education was something that would stay with me for the rest of my life while popularity was, at best, a fleeting thing. It was not always easy to remain true to these goals as other, more popular students made fun of my activities or involvement in the higher science classes, but in time I began to see the benefits first-hand instead of simply knowing they would come. I was able to help younger students learn new skills in language, math and science because I had learned my own lessons well. I was given the chance to join organizations that encouraged exploration of other cultures and beliefs, which further helped me expand my mind and see beyond the constrained barriers of middle school and high school. In their own unique ways, these types of activities helped me to understand science a little better as I watched the many parts of the machine interact with each other, attracting and repulsing to create a single entity called a community. Because of these experiences, I was able to take a step back from the general scene from time to time and see the beauty and artistry of what was happening around me just as I was able to see the beauty and artistry of the functions of a living creature while participating in its post-mortem dissection. While my parents’ decision to move to the United States perhaps placed the greatest challenge of my life before me, the opportunities this opened up for me and the challenge of taking advantage of these opportunities have made me a stronger, well-balanced human being eager and willing to take advantage of the next opportunities that come my way. Read More