Dear forum members,
I am nonnative speaker and this year I am applying to a bs. This is my first post on the forum. I would kindly ask you to provide your suggestions regarding one of the essays I need to submit since I know that many things evident for me are not that evident for others. Also, some ideas I mention in this essay are explained in others so that a person who reads the entire set of essays will understand, but I do not explain them here, e.g. the issue of trading.
Thank you
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"...Success is failure turned inside out... "
"Don't Quit", Author Unknown
One of the most important episodes of my life concerns Work&Travel USA Program. Once I learned about the program in December of 2002, my decision was immediate. The main reason I wanted to participate in the Program was to earn capital to start trading. Of course, there were other reasons: to see the country, get new experience, improve language skills. However, these were subordinate. I have studied all the information I could get from peers and internet and made a business plan: what kind of job I needed, how much I had to spend, and how long to work to be profitable. In accordance with my plan, I had to spend in US more than 3 months of summer vacation between my 3rd and 4th college years. Thus, I wrote a letter to a Chancellor asking to finish my current academic year earlier and start the next one later. I was quite lucky to find the job in a family X business. Running ahead, I should say that I have fulfilled my business plan.
During those 5 months I did everything: from building trailers to cooking to serving customers. However, my beginning wasn't smooth at all. Without going too much in detail, I must admit that I did wrong many things that I was asked to do. Some mistakes were insignificant (once I forgot to put equipment back in the barn and left it under rain), other were more serious. One of them is crashing a golf cart. My boss, Mr. H, often had ache in legs and having a cart for him was sooner a necessity. In contrast to most mistakes that I committed because of either cultural barrier or simply lack of knowledge how to use stuff, that is, mistakes that I did only in first couple of weeks during my adaptation, crashing the cart was different story. When you are 19 and you come to US for the first time expecting to gain perhaps the best experience in your life and earn money that you would never earn at home in such a short period of time, you believe that this is a success. You think, "Finally I achieved something significant. I always tried, and finally I get what I deserve". Thoughts like this soon bring you to a state close to some sort of euphoria; you lose a feeling of reality to certain extent. And I just started having fun without thinking of consequences, which put me back to ground very fast. I must say, however, that my boss, Mr. H, was a good teacher. Every time I though "This is it. Tomorrow I am flying home if he won't kill me", he would give me another try. He wasn't gentle, he just believed in my potential. Sure, I had to work hard to justify his trust, and I did. Although sometimes it was not easy: in summer we had a 2 week flooding and then a forest fire, which destroyed our barn, trailers and damaged a house. Still, by the end of the season, I became one his favorite workers. When I was leaving, he gave me a frame with that poem "Don't Quit". I still keep it on my table together with letter Mr. H wrote me on our last day together.
That summer I learned two important lessons, which I now value much more than money I earned. First, feeling of success may be dangerous for unprepared mind. Being successful does not imply that you are allowed to be irresponsible; never lose your reality check. Second, failure is not the end, just don't trust your emotions at the moment you understand you have failed and go on, tomorrow you will thank yourself.
I am nonnative speaker and this year I am applying to a bs. This is my first post on the forum. I would kindly ask you to provide your suggestions regarding one of the essays I need to submit since I know that many things evident for me are not that evident for others. Also, some ideas I mention in this essay are explained in others so that a person who reads the entire set of essays will understand, but I do not explain them here, e.g. the issue of trading.
Thank you
----------------------------------------------------------------- ----- ------------
"...Success is failure turned inside out... "
"Don't Quit", Author Unknown
One of the most important episodes of my life concerns Work&Travel USA Program. Once I learned about the program in December of 2002, my decision was immediate. The main reason I wanted to participate in the Program was to earn capital to start trading. Of course, there were other reasons: to see the country, get new experience, improve language skills. However, these were subordinate. I have studied all the information I could get from peers and internet and made a business plan: what kind of job I needed, how much I had to spend, and how long to work to be profitable. In accordance with my plan, I had to spend in US more than 3 months of summer vacation between my 3rd and 4th college years. Thus, I wrote a letter to a Chancellor asking to finish my current academic year earlier and start the next one later. I was quite lucky to find the job in a family X business. Running ahead, I should say that I have fulfilled my business plan.
During those 5 months I did everything: from building trailers to cooking to serving customers. However, my beginning wasn't smooth at all. Without going too much in detail, I must admit that I did wrong many things that I was asked to do. Some mistakes were insignificant (once I forgot to put equipment back in the barn and left it under rain), other were more serious. One of them is crashing a golf cart. My boss, Mr. H, often had ache in legs and having a cart for him was sooner a necessity. In contrast to most mistakes that I committed because of either cultural barrier or simply lack of knowledge how to use stuff, that is, mistakes that I did only in first couple of weeks during my adaptation, crashing the cart was different story. When you are 19 and you come to US for the first time expecting to gain perhaps the best experience in your life and earn money that you would never earn at home in such a short period of time, you believe that this is a success. You think, "Finally I achieved something significant. I always tried, and finally I get what I deserve". Thoughts like this soon bring you to a state close to some sort of euphoria; you lose a feeling of reality to certain extent. And I just started having fun without thinking of consequences, which put me back to ground very fast. I must say, however, that my boss, Mr. H, was a good teacher. Every time I though "This is it. Tomorrow I am flying home if he won't kill me", he would give me another try. He wasn't gentle, he just believed in my potential. Sure, I had to work hard to justify his trust, and I did. Although sometimes it was not easy: in summer we had a 2 week flooding and then a forest fire, which destroyed our barn, trailers and damaged a house. Still, by the end of the season, I became one his favorite workers. When I was leaving, he gave me a frame with that poem "Don't Quit". I still keep it on my table together with letter Mr. H wrote me on our last day together.
That summer I learned two important lessons, which I now value much more than money I earned. First, feeling of success may be dangerous for unprepared mind. Being successful does not imply that you are allowed to be irresponsible; never lose your reality check. Second, failure is not the end, just don't trust your emotions at the moment you understand you have failed and go on, tomorrow you will thank yourself.