Undergraduate / College Essay about a story of me getting lost at Salzburg [4]

Hi, I am planning to use this essay for my fall regular applications. Please share any suggestions, critique and feedback, I'm REALLY open to ANY criticism!!

Finding an own place in a community

"You can't create harmony, because you don't listen to each other!" our conductor yelled, his voice hysterically shaking.
Bad Ischl International Choir Competition was in two days, and we were practicing on the bus on our way to visit Mozart's Home. Before we arrived, he instructed us with the most basic school trip precautions: never to leave the group, never to go anywhere without permission and never to leave his field of sight.

Perhaps as an instinctual survival tactic, people tend to keep distance between them and anything they aren't familiar with. Especially Turks, whose notion of safety is distorted in light of the ongoing terrorist attacks, tend to take even more precautions. Some of these repeated warnings make perfect sense, whereas some make a person question their benefit. But either way, as the famous Turkish proverb goes: "Bir musibet bin nasihâtten evlâdır." (One calamity is more effective than one thousand advices).

The trip had begun, but little did I know that my feelings throughout were to fluctuate so greatly, from remarkably in-awe to downright intimidated. We were walking around, taking photos, singing along and things were going smoothly, until I-as a result of spending way too much time trying to choose the perfect bracelet for my grandmother's liking-lost sight of my group.

Panic quickly overcame me. I felt my hands starting to sweat. I even remember thinking that if I was granted a once-in-a-lifetime right to beam myself up, I would've used it there and then. Yet, while the idea of getting lost also made me anxious, the main reason of my discomfort was simply the lack of confidence resulting from the absence of my friends. Now I was alone amongst people I didn't know, hearing a language I couldn't understand. I frantically searched for something familiar to cling to. I retraced our steps but found no one. Finally, dehydration and exhaustion overwhelmed my anxiety, and I had to sit down for a second to catch my breath.

Then it struck me: I wasn't going to come back here anytime soon. While wasting my time and energy trying to find the group, I was missing the moment. Instead of appreciating the uniqueness of the city, I was avoiding it. That thought made me see the irrelevance of my momentary fear. Only after that realization did I start to notice the crowd and the attractions around me-a group of singers dressed as a deck crew on the sidewalk, love locks hanging all over the bridge spanning the Salzach River, propagandists trying to distribute brochures of a political party, and myriads of unique Viennese. I even got to meet the creator of the SalzBurger.

It wasn't that I suddenly felt like I belonged there; I just didn't have to anymore. I had found solace in that foreignness. I felt confident and sheltered like I was home; only now, my haven was the entire world and not merely my comfort zone.

Life is filled with doubts and fears; but only if we take the initiative to put ourselves out there, listen to people from different backgrounds, realize the beauty of diversity and unite our individual strengths, can we create harmony. Then, and only then, we can genuinely experience the status of being a well-educated individual: a person able to express and defend her ideas, truly relate to people and serve as a team player. We might not have the same interests, goals, cultural backgrounds or beliefs, yet we have our minds to share.

To me, the concept of belonging to just one single community is just a legacy of tribalism and the breeder of xenophobia; and I know for a fact that I will never be, neither intellectually nor spiritually, satisfied by the limited world of the familiar. Because now, I feel like a true citizen of the world.

Undergraduate / Syracuse: What influenced me (advanced writing) [4]

These are my 3 250-word supplement essays for Syracuse University. Any help or comments are appreciated, thank you!

•Who or what influenced you to apply to Syracuse University? (Maximum: 250 words)

The Advanced Writing Class

I was first advised to apply to Syracuse University by my counselor. She knew what I really wanted my college to be like: a place for people to challenge, improve and discover themselves -all while being part of a diverse and expressive community. Having been impressed deeply with what I heard about SU, I contacted an alumnus of our school who is currently at Syracuse University. He told me about the hospitality of the people on campus, the legendary school spirit, and the intellectual rigor of professors in classes. Once again, I had confirmed: Syracuse University possesses all of my aspirations. As an outgoing and cooperative personality, I feel ready and motivated to put all my efforts in such a dynamic environment, both as a student and a part of the community.

The polyphonic choir and the orchestra I attended during high school provided me with valuable experiences and friendships. I want to keep playing my cello and singing in college, besides other extracurricular activities. With SU's wide variety of clubs and organizations, I will have numerous opportunities to express myself and contribute to the school spirit.

In my senior year I took the Advanced Writing class and discovered my passion for writing. With SU Magazine, I'll have the opportunity to share my writings with an intellectual community and seek their feedback.

With experiences and insights Syracuse will provide me, and with a world-class education from Syracuse University, I would feel confident to build a rewarding life after graduation.

Undergraduate / Project with Syrian Kids - critical thinking story / Why LMU? (LMU Supplements) [3]

Here are my two supplement essays for Loyola Marymount University, and their prompts. ANY help is appreciated and I will gladly provide feedback to anyone who helps me. Thank you.

Supplement #1:
Prompt
Speaking about education, Dr. Martin Luther King once said, "The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education.''

Critical thinking

Prompt question:
Critical thinking is a central goal of Jesuit education, and at LMU you'll be asked to think critically and intensively in every class. Dr. King suggests that critical thinking results in our ability to inform intelligence with character, and strengthen character with intelligence. Please talk about a situation that demanded critical thinking from you, and how your choices or decisions integrated intelligence and character.

Of the many problems with the world, there is one grand harsh truth that humanity has yet to resolve: War and violence reign all around. Syria, a neighboring country to my homeland, has been suffering from a civil war since 2011. As a result of the unbearably violent incidents occurring every day, many children had to migrate to Turkey in hopes of finding better life conditions. In the summer following my junior year, I spent a week doing a community involvement project (CIP) with those unfortunate kids.

Even though I had previous experiences doing CIP's with kids, the problems I had to deal with were quite different in this one. One of the many challenging complications I confronted was the kids' attitudes towards each other: sometimes surprisingly mature, but sometimes downright harassing. Siblings were fighting all the time. Older kids, especially boys, were physically abusive to younger ones. Even the simplest thing, like a place on the lunch table, was a reason to fight. The kids would actually and intentionally hurt each other.

One kid in particular, the 11-year-old Hassan, was so violent and bullying towards his friends that we had to speak to him in private. We told him that what he was doing was wrong and that he was hurting people. At the end of the talk, I smiled at him, and he looked up at me with big innocent eyes, a bit scared. I wasn't sure if it helped in any way, though; we still decided to have the school nurse nearby just in case.

Fortunate for me, I was already prepared for a chaotic environment because I had made my educated suppositions about the project beforehand. I had read A Long Way Gone, and I was expecting this. After all, they were psychologically damaged after everything they witnessed, or so I thought. I blamed it on the usual culprit: the war.

I was wrong.

At the end of the second day, when it was time for kids to get on buses and go home, Hassan had went missing. The advisor teachers instructed couple of us to go look for him. I frantically searched everywhere, until I found him somewhere in the woods, sitting under a tree, just about to cry.

"Is there something wrong, Hassan?" I asked. He was frightened to see me.
"No, nothing."
"Well, the buses are about to-" ...at that point, I decided that whatever this kid was worrying about was more important. The buses could wait.

I sat by him, trying to present myself as a friend, not just another boring grown-up telling him what to do. Slowly, he opened up:

"I hate that translator. I am going to kill him when I grow up."
Hesitantly, I asked: "Why? What makes you hate him?"
He averted his gaze to the yard, and replied: "He beats me if I don't behave."

There have been very few moments in my life that I felt as lost as I did when I heard him say it. I didn't know what to do. It was getting late and I had to take him to his bus, but if I were to do that, I would be putting him in the same vehicle with the translator once again and there was the chance that he would get beaten again since he was late and didn't "behave". On the other hand, not doing what my teachers told me was a crime that could get me expelled from the project, besides if I didn't take him to the buses his family would get concerned could blame me for the incident later on. But this time it wasn't just a matter of what would be the most efficient way to solve the situation. This kid was counting on me for help. If I let him down now, I could impact his life negatively; moreover, I would have let that translator to get away with what he did.

I took Hassan's hand, and I took him to where the buses are. The translator he was talking about came towards us quite angrily and attempted to pull Hassan's arm and take him to the bus. I shouted: "STOP!"

All of the advisors were looking, Hassan was terrified, and I had to say something.
"I was the one who kept him late. I was the one who decided not to bring him here, because he was afraid that you would beat him again."

Everyone was looking at me now.
"Whatever you do to him, he does to someone else. You say you are trying to eliminate violence but you are the one who's in fact provoking it. This kid is only 10, and how he is behaved to and taken care of can have permanent damaging effects for the rest of his life. Thank you for volunteering, but I don't believe you are fit for being around children."

Neither did I have the right to keep Hassan late, nor tell the translator how to do his job. I knew that I was very probably going to get a punishment for this. But nevertheless, I would it again. Because at school, we are thought that psychological effects of violence include a chain effect that keeps a person doing it to someone else, helping it spread. I am not the one to be indifferent to this when it's happening right in front of my eyes.

After that day, the translator was replaced and another volunteer took his place. Hassan was much more responsive and happy. The last day, before he went home, he ran out of the bus, hugged me and said: "Thank you". At that moment, I knew: I did the right thing.

Supplement #2: Please briefly state your reason for wishing to attend LMU and/or how you came to select your major.

Whether it be a single person, or a large cultural group, I want to understand why people act the way they do, how their mental process works, and what the psychological causes are hidden in their unconscious. I seek to be a person who is an expert at analyzing patterns of behavior and is able to use her knowledge to unravel the core reasons of an issue. For these aims, I chose psychology as my intended major; and I believe that Loyola Marymount University would be the most beneficial guide through my intended journey.

LMU is a place where I could challenge, improve, and discover myself academically and socially-all while being part of a diverse and expressive community. The rigorous academics of LMU would be an invaluable source for the knowledge that I seek. The intellectual rigor of professors in class and the small student-faculty ratio would allow me to share my thoughts and engage in scholarly conversations. Besides theory, LMU would also provide me numerous opportunities, such as research and creating community service projects, which would allow me to experience what I had learned and demonstrate my skills outside of the classroom. With a world-class education from Loyola Marymount University, I would feel confident that I could build a rewarding life after graduation.

In addition to the academic aspects, with the numerous clubs, extra-curricular activities and student organizations at LMU, I would have the opportunity to continue to fulfill my passions for music (singing and playing cello) and writing. With LMU Magazine, I would be able to share my writing with an intellectual community and seek their feedback. As an outgoing and cooperative individual, I feel ready and motivated to put all my efforts to LMU's dynamic environment.

I believe that I am an innovative individual that has the potential to make a difference; and I know that Loyola Marymount University would be the best guide through my journey of achieving my aspirations. After all, if you want to be a lion, you have to train with lions.

Undergraduate / Loyola Marymount Supplement - The primary purpose of education [3]

Guys, this is urgent, due in2 hours!! Any help will be much appreciated!! Here is the prompt and essay:

Prompt 3
A motto often associated with Jesuit and Marymount schools is ''Educating men and women for others.'' Fr. Pedro Arrupe, the former head of the Jesuits, once said that ''our prime educational objective must be to form men and women for others, who believe that a love of self or of God which does not issue forth in justice for the least of their neighbors is a farce.''

Prompt 3 question:
What do you think Fr. Arrupe meant when he said this? Please give an example of someone you know, other than your teachers and parents, who works for justice for the least of their neighbors.

Self-Love

We don't live in an age where everyone has to hunt fish all day to ensure that they stay alive. We don't have to stay inside a protected cave in order to be safe. We don't live in an age where no one has enough time to offer care to the world outside of themselves. Thousands of years have passed since then, and the fish we had to hunt became our goals, caves we had to hide in became our comfort zones. The only difference is that we now have time and opportunities to reach out to the less fortunate part of the society, or as Father Arrupe put it, "the least of our neighbors."

But still, it's easy to encounter occasions where people's actions are driven not by a global cause, but by a mere desire to obtain personal gain. Maybe it's the result of ungratefulness that makes people regret ever trying to help anyone, or maybe they simply don't care about other people; either way, the behavior eliminates kindness and compassion, leaving behind a world that's lonesome and a society that no one feels belonged to. Ironically, in the resulting society where there is no room for love and consideration, everyone is impacted negatively. Simply put: People need each other, even for their own benefit.

Fortunately, not everyone is blinded by selfishness, and there are people who are able to see beyond their private profit and take action to serve the social justice. One of the first examples that comes to my mind is the psychologist Sündüz Atay, my mother's colleague. In her free time, using her knowledge and abilities, she helps post-traumatic people recover -as a volunteer at the EMDR Humanitarian Assistance Programs. When asked about why she does such a generous act, she states that she sees it as her responsibility: after all, the people she helps don't have the education, information and talent that she has, and they cannot afford professional help after an incident. She finds it ethically incorrect to be indifferent to these people -the least of her neighbors.

In his quote, Father Arrupe does not say that loving oneself is wrong. He says that isolating yourself from the world to solely focus on your own needs and desires is a farce, and that the prime educational objective of Jesuits must be to form people who work for the bigger picture and have a greater purpose. Fr. Arrupe's definition of "men and women who believe that a love of self or of God which does not issue forth in justice for the least of their neighbors is a farce" refers directly to people like Sündüz. She is an educated individual that has love of both self and God, but she does not limit this love within herself and reaches out to the society. I see her as a great inspiration, because her and I share a common belief: ignoring people who have conditions of life less favorable than ours and simply concentrating on our own benefit is a threat against social justice; and the distortion of social justice affects all of us.

In the modern world, all we have is each other. The money, the reputation or anything we might work hard to gain does not mean anything in the absence of other people. That means to use our minds and to be able to see beyond our self-seeking needs and desires is the most important asset to have as a 21st century human being. However, not only this asset is frowned upon, the rare population of selfless people are crushed under tyrants that have a higher social standing. What I believe is that even under these conditions, we, the select few, should take on the duty to break this chain and pass our ideas onward. I believe that this motivation should be education's primary purpose as it is with Jesuits; for selfishness has always been the underlying cause of any problem in the world.