Undergraduate / "Once I was arrogant.." - UC undergrad essay [3]

Hi, guys. I have a final essay for uc prompt#2. Now I have to reduce about 100 words or more. Could you guys tell me what part seems unnecessary & some feedbacks & edits?

Thanks!

Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?

I graduated from a middle school in which the students were very rich; the biggest problems in their lives were things like searching for new boyfriends or trying to lose five pounds to fit in a new dress. I, who did not have five different designer bags like most of my friends, complained about my middle class background whenever they whined about their "boring futures" of running a family business that was going to be handed to them.

After graduated from middle school, I entered high school which was in a much less affluent area. Once I realized that students in that school were not very well-off, I felt superior to everyone in my new class, for that I had an arrogance unconsciously developed from my inferiority complex among my middle school friends. However, during the lunch time, I found a girl who caught my eye. With an affable smile, she came to me and said, "Do you mind if I sit here?" Then, we talked about how crazy the first day of school was, and how mean our math teacher looked. As I talked to her, I found that we saw a lot of things the same way.

One day, she asked me if I could help her with English; I was quite surprised to hear that because most parents pay for their children to have an English tutor in Korea. Especially since I had watched some friends in middle school pay over a thousand dollar a month for a tutor, I could not understand why she would want a fellow student for tutoring. When I directly asked her about it, she began to tell me how she lost her father to lung cancer, and how her mother had to work in a small restaurant all day long to support the family. I was speechless. Her world seemed miles

away from my world, and even farther away from those of my middle school friends.

I decided to help her; we met three times a week, for a year. She memorized all the words that I gave her and studied English ceaselessly day and night. After our last exam of 10th grade, she proved that she accomplished what she had hoped-- her score increased by about thirty percent. Eating dinner together to celebrate our achievement, I asked her a question that I had been wondering about for a long time: "haven't you ever wanted to give up on everything, blaming all the difficulties you have faced?"

She looked me straight in the eye and answered me with something that I could never forget. "Well, sometimes. But I am okay with it, because I know this circumstance stimulates me. It makes me work harder and harder to prove that I am not weak. You know, it's something rich kids don't have, but I do."

Ashamed, I couldn't look at her eyes straight. I kept asking myself why I had ever judged people on their materialistic possessions. Why couldn't I see the truth of life beneath the surface? All of sudden, I felt my sense of inferiority and superiority faded as I realized that rich kids, living in their protective bubbles, would never come to this realization. They would never see what really matters. There is no one to be jealous of or to look down on. We all have different benefits and experiences that can't be compared to those of others.

This experience itself was definitely striking, but I was more surprised to see how I was changed through it. Once I was arrogant over materialistic betterment, but could fix it soon after I frankly acknowledged and felt shamed about my immature way of thinking. I was proud of myself to see that I became mature enough to build my inner beauty, graduating from the level to only care about how my appearance was looked. And this is me, who knows to acknowledge and learn from the past and cares for the inner beauty. Although I haven't overcome many of my flaws even now, I know that I will become better and better as I learn and fix through further experiences that I will face.

While I taught her 10th grade English, Eunji taught me one of the most important truths about life that I will carry with me forever.

Undergraduate / My hometown, middle school for rich - UC prompt#1 and #2 [3]

I am kinda afraid because my two essays are both about materialistic things in part. Also, i am worried if it looks conflicting if i describe the rich and the poor as living in a heaven and a hell while i say that judging people on materialistic term is wrong in the second essay.

One more concern: do i need to elaborate more about my community in my first essay?
Need help here.. Thank you in advance:)

Prompt #1 (freshman applicants)
Describe the world you come from -for example, your family, community or school - and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.

My hometown Ilsan is a city of extreme gap between the poor and the rich. Living here for 17 years, I saw both heaven and hell in terms of materialism in one place-some people spent millions for luxuries, while the others were kicked out from their houses to streets. Living in limbo, I could watch this horrifying gap between the rich and the poor in an objective prospective and I could tell that getting out of poverty didn't seem easy.

As a high school student, all I could was doing volunteer jobs at institutions for children with disabilities or visiting single senior citizens with church people. One day, I saw a piece of local newspaper attached on the church wall. It was an article that interviewed a senior woman who we once visited-Mrs. Kang was living with her 13-year-old granddaughter in a single room without electricity. On the article, she was saying "we live because we can't die."

I dreamed of becoming a reporter because reporters seemed to represent and call for the change in the social system for the poor. And this dream led me to a position as an editor on my school newspaper in high school. I believed that urging people to take an action was the most effective way to blur the economic gap in my community and, in broader perspective, in my country.

Although I was seeing more and more journalists criticizing about the folly of current system, I was also encountering more homeless people on the street and louder moans from people facing adversity on a daily basis. Although many people were pointing to the problems, no improvements were made. Actually, there was nothing done for whole 17 years. I realized that I was wrong. What these people needed was hope and someone who could bring a change-- it is the politicians who actually bring such changes. Realizing this fact, I started thinking an idea of becoming a politician someday, especially working for my hometown which grew my mind up.

Living in a city where light and darkness existed together enabled me to recognize the need for leaders who will instill hope among the people and to dream of becoming a power of the poor. Although I don't have deep knowledge about politics yet, I believe that I will achieve this significant dream after studying political science in the university because my community instilled a very strong desire to bring about change in my community and country in my heart.

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Prompt #2 (all applicants)
Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?

I graduated from a middle school in which the students were very rich; the biggest problems in their lives were things like trying to lose five pounds to fit in a new dress. I, who did not have five different designer bags like most of my friends, complained about my middle class background whenever they whined about their "boring futures" of running a family business that was going to be handed to them.

After middle school, I entered high school which was in a much less affluent area. Once I realized that students in that school were not very well-off, I felt superior to everyone in my new class, for that I had an arrogance unconsciously developed from my inferiority complex among my middle school friends. However, during the lunch time, I found a girl who caught my eye. With an affable smile, she came to me and said, "Do you mind if I sit here?" Then, we talked about how crazy the first day of school was, and how mean our math teacher looked. As I talked to her, I found that we saw a lot of things the same way.

One day, she asked me if I could help her with English; I was quite surprised to hear that because in Korea, most parents pay for their children to have an English tutor. When I directly asked her why she didn't take a professional tutoring, she began to tell me how she lost her father to lung cancer, and how her mother had to work in a small restaurant all day long to support the family. I was speechless. Her world seemed miles away from my world, and even farther away from those of my middle school friends.

I decided to help her; we met three times a week, for a year. She memorized all the words that I gave her and studied English ceaselessly. After our last exam of 10th grade, she proved that she accomplished her goal-- her score increased by about thirty percent. Eating dinner together to celebrate our achievement, I asked her a question that I had been wondering: "haven't you ever wanted to give up on everything, blaming all the difficulties you have faced?"

She looked me straight in the eye and answered me with something that I could never forget. "Well, sometimes. But I am okay with it, because I know this circumstance stimulates me. It makes me work harder and harder to prove that I am not weak. You know, it's something rich kids don't have, but I do."

Ashamed, I could not look her in the eye. I kept asking myself why I had ever judged people on their materialistic possessions. Why couldn't I see the truth of life beneath the surface? All of sudden, I felt my sense of inferiority and superiority faded as I realized that rich kids, living in their protective bubbles, would never come to this realization. They would never see what really matters.

This experience itself was definitely striking, but I was more surprised to see how I was changed through it. Honestly, I often saw myself as mainly focused on my appearance and academic scores, and even haughty in some ways at that time. However, after I frankly acknowledged and felt shamed about my immature way of thinking, I could fix it soon. I was proud of myself to see that I became mature enough to build my inner beauty, graduating from the level to only care about how my appearance was looked. And this is me, who knows to acknowledge and learn from the past and cares for the inner beauty. Although I am not perfect, I have a confidence with me because, as long as I carry this mind with me, I will become better and better through further experiences my life ahead of me.

While I taught her 10th grade English, Eunji taught me one of the most important truths about life that I will carry with me forever.

Undergraduate / Hopkins essay, a shopping addiction [6]

1. Write a brief essay in which you respond to the following question.
(freshman applicants only): Johns Hopkins offers 50 majors across the schools of Arts and Sciences and Engineering. On this supplement, we ask you to identify one or two that you might like to pursue here. Why did you choose the way you did? If you are undecided, why didn't you choose? (If any past courses or academic experiences influenced your decision, you may include them in your essay.)

About two years ago, I had a shopping addiction to Benefit cosmetics. I knew all of their new products and I spent most of my allowance buying them. Its pretty characters on commercials talked to me, 'get it and be like Gabby!' Yes! I always replied gladly and grab the new products; I didn't want anything but to be like Gabby and feel the limitless satisfaction. Even the high price was another attraction-a high price insures the quality and rarity.

Several months later, the spell broke, and I saw my closet full of expensive Benefit cosmetics-- I did not even wear makeup at that time. What was that magic?

Even its price I rationalized was a result of deliberation and calculation of marketing strategies. In fact, in other cases, I too found myself buying products chiefly manipulated by marketing which seemed to read my mind. Fascinate by the power of marketing, I longed to possess that power by becoming a marketing manager.

At first, I simply thought that I would major in marketing or business administration because that seemed, straightforwardly, what a marketing manager should study. However, as I explored why so many universities simply don't offer the business course and many adults advice to major in more academic subjects, my perspective changed-there is a greater thing I should understand before I learn specific knowledge of marketing: human mind. I don't want to only chew the knowledge that somebody found by himself and wrote down on the book. I don't want to be just one of common marketing managers who work only based on marketing strategies narrowly. I desire to be the one who truly understands the fundamental truth that lies beneath the marketing. In that way, I would be a marketing manager who knows what people think and want and appeal to deep inside of their heart by using that understanding. I can earn specific knowledge in graduate school or as I work. Thus, I decided to major psychology as my first choice. This is why I chose psychology as my first choice.

I chose my second choice as economics, the psychology of money, for the similar reason. Understanding economics as a whole will help me to broaden my sight, because marketing is only a part of an enormous concept, economics. What I believe is that in undergraduate school, in the age of building myself as an individual, I should work on broadening my sight and building the basic construction in me. Understanding either basic concept would prepare me as a brand manager person who can see a big picture, rather than who is confined by narrow perspective.

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it's my 2nd draft. do u guys think that i went over the marketing stuff too much?
what do u think about the voice?

Undergraduate / "a liberal person" - Brown supplement- [6]

1. Tell us about an intellectual experience, project, class, or book that has influenced or inspired you.

I often regarded myself as a liberal person, not so much bounded to stereotypes and social expectations. One day, however, I couldn't help but cast a doubt to this self-awareness as soon as I started to read Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, a story of a middle aged man's craving toward a girl. Could I really accept this book as a pure literary work, of a passionate love, over my uncomfortable feelings? What would I get from this adulterous story? Feeling like committing a crime, I gradually put myself into the story with seething heart.

At the beginning of Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, Humbert, the main character, falls for a young girl who is enough to be his daughter-- or even granddaughter. Such an unconventional theme was quite suggestive, as society expects two people in a relationship to be of a similar age. "What a perverted lunatic!" I exclaimed in a small voice, imagining this guy's following young girl with his corrupted eyes. His mad admiration for Lo, calling her as his "light of life, fire of loins, sin, and soul," and his masochistic self-deprecation reinforced my belief.

Over the time, I felt myself limitlessly absorbed in the character, and I finally became Humbert himself. Looking Lo's corrupted, angelic eyes vividly, I couldn't help but understood the beauty of Humbert's fervent admiration for Lo which I was uncomfortable with at the beginning; the more I read, the more I was astonished to feel the daunting weigh of this passionate love. When Humbert admitted the fact that Lolita would never love him, I was mesmerized with his ineffable sad obsession; whenever he said "oh my little nymphet, my corrupted goddess (Nabokov 228)," I felt my heart hurt with even more complicated emotions, that I could not explain. By the end of the book, I felt like I just rode the biggest rollercoaster, of emotion, in the world. The fascination I felt about this love sometimes led me to sympathize with him, sometimes evoked nausea, and occasionally caused me to feel his frustration. These various waves of emotions were something that I had never experienced before.

There have been countless books in which I have earned moral,
educational, or social lessons. However, no book had so challenged my belief and hardened my self-awareness through the challenge: yes, I could accept Lolita as a pure literary work, of a passionate love and scathing emotions, keeping my prejudice about the taboo of a man's love toward a young girl aside: I didn't care if Humbert was over a hundred years old or something-it just didn't matter, because no book but Lolita had absorbed me so deeply, introducing me to the world of seething emotions; and without a doubt, this book elevated the depth of my emotional experience significantly, and hardened my self-identification at the same time.

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i am not really crazy about my essay, because i can't hear much of my voice. How can i improve this voice problem? help!!!

Undergraduate / NYU supplement- In the year 2050, a movie is being made of your life. [4]

- In the year 2050, a movie is being made of your life. Please tell us the name of your movie and briefly summarize the story line.

Title: you will see someday.
_myname__ is an energetic granny who still works. One day, she finds herself absorbed at a picture of Himalaya, and remembers her father's old dream, mounting Himalaya, which she used to laugh at for being unrealistic. By an ineffable force, _myname__ declares to go to Himalaya. Her granddaughter derides at her, and tells her just go to Hawaii or somewhere to relax. However, _myname__ books a flight to Peru secretly. The movie follows _myname__'s travel to Himalaya, and shows how her age enables her to understand her father's dream, which she couldn't understand at her granddaughter's age.

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Is it too pointless and doesn't tell anything about myself?

Undergraduate / Notre Dame supplement- building a future of hope [3]

3. In a homily during his visit to the United States, Pope Benedict XVI stated, "Today's celebration is more than an occasion of gratitude for graces received. It is also a summons to move forward with firm resolve to use wisely the blessings of freedom, in order to build a future of hope for coming generations." How will a Notre Dame education enable you to answer the call to "use wisely the blessings of freedom, in order to build a future of hope" for others in your own way?

In Korea, parents usually limit their children's dreams to which they would have a "good" career- a lawyer, a doctor or a teacher. On the other hand, In terms of this fetter, I am free: my parents never force me for anything. They just want me to live as the God wills. I can study whatever I want in any place, and pursue my own dreams.

Living in a city with a large gap between the poor and the rich, I have desired to be the servant leader of the poor in my home city, Ilsan. Thus, I chose to use my freedom by studying Political Science at the University of Notre Dame, so that I can instill hope among the poor someday as a true politician.

Above all, the First Year of Studies of the University of Notre Dame will help me grow as a rounded expert through broad range of education; also, the school will empower me to grow different perspectives as the political science department makes students study in four kinds of fields, through 50 different courses. Moreover, various conferences provided to political science students and the school's extensive emphasis on undergraduate research, which will develop my argumentation skills, promises the university's strong support to pursue my dream.

Visualizing myself helping the poor in my hometown, I am glad that I have a freedom to what to study and who to be. Dedicating my freedom to a dream of politician, I am sure that the education at University of Notre Dame will grow me as the hope of the poor in my community.

Undergraduate / Magical Realism - Latin American Boom [3]

This is a supplemental essay for undergraduate college- so it wouldn't have the same quality that other essays in this forum have... haha
I feel like I have to reduce some words, so please suggest anything looks unnecessary.

Boom Literature: an independent, exclusive genre of Latin America

Gene Wolfe, a renowned fantasy author, described Magical Realism, Latin American Boom Literature, as "fantasy written in Spanish." However, although countless writers, including Alain Robbe-Grillet and Philippe Sollers, acknowledge that they were strongly influenced by magical realism, their works are clearly distinguished from magical realism. Boom literature is regionally limited to Latin America because only Latin American writers share an exclusive cultural perspective, coexistence of reality and fantasy, among themselves. Boom Literature is an exclusive genre of Latin America, clearly independent from fantasy, which can only be written by Latin Americans as a result of their cultural feature.

Magical Realism, when used as Boom Literature, is a literary genre that particularly bloomed during (in broad term) late 1940s to early 1970s, regionally restricted to Latin America. Magical Realism is a mixture of magical features and realistic features-magical features appear in realistic settings, that resemble "our world." Characters' attitude facing unrealistic events in realistic world are magical; although those happenings don't go along with realistic world at all, characters perceive them as casual. In his book axolotl, Julio Cortazar, a renowned Boom Literature author, blurs the boundary between the reality, going to an actually existing aquarium in France, and the fantasy, becoming an axolotl:

"There was a time when I thought a great deal about the axolotls.
I went to see them in the aquarium at the Jardin des Plantes and
stayed for hours watching them, observing their immobility,
their faint movements. Now I am an axolotl (Cortazar 3)."

Characteristics of Magical Realism become more obvious when compared to other genre. For example, the way that characters react to unrealistic events, in The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, is nonchalant, as that in Boom Literature is. However, Tolkien's fantasy is not Magical Realism because its setting is a created world which is a whole new world that doesn't resemble the real world. The fact that characters in The Lord of the Rings are nonchalant about unrealistic features is not so special because that's how the world they belong looks like. The distinctiveness and awe in Magical Realism come from the fact that an unrealistic feature naturally becomes a part of reality. Authors of fantasy explain magical events in their works as something usual in their created worlds or supernatural, but Boom Literature authors never explain anything: it's just part of "our reality."

Undergraduate / Cornell University- what do you value about the college's perspective? [3]

College of Human Ecology:
What do you value about the College of Human Ecology perspective as you consider your academic goals and plans for the future? Reflect on our majors that interest you as you respond.

My hometown Ilsan is a city with an extreme gap between the poor and the rich. Some people moaned facing adversities on a daily basis while the others spent thousands for luxuries. Living in between, I observed that current political system was abused to give more luxuries to the rich; this environment instilled a desire in me to be a true political leader who would bring power to the poor in my small hometown. However, even with strong desire to work for the poor, I can't help but cast a doubt: many of current politicians must have had the same desire when they were as young as I, but now they are being accused as corrupted and incompetent. Will I be the same? What should I do to keep my original purpose as well as be a competent politician?

I find the answer lies in having a broad perspective and practical knowledge in politics. And I value and appreciate that the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University also perceives importance of those two qualities. First of all, the college emphasizes exploring the relationship between people and the world "from a variety of perspectives," and practices the idea through its liberal arts education and off-campus opportunities. I know that not every college cares about building a broad perspective, or actually practice that idea; however, in the perspective of the College of Human Ecology, I can easily visualize myself being able to perceive my hometown's political problems in many aspects, not only in my aspect. I value the college's deep consideration about shaping students not only in terms of academic knowledge, but also in terms of a person with greater sight.

As the college provides various real-life opportunities such as Capital Semester, it exhibits its perspective that "experiential learning is another important part of the Human Ecology education." and I definitely agree to and value this conception. Through my internship at Voluntary Agency Network of Korea, I realized how studying and working are different-applying what I learned through books at the real world was not easy at all: You should deal with people, various incidents happen, and so on. Knowing how learning through paper and actually working are different, I value the college's idea that it takes a responsibility of providing a full of real experience to undergraduate students; it will give me the feeling of my dream, and teach me how to work with everything as a political leader of small city, not as a mere theorist.

For sure, the College of Human Ecology is perfect in terms of quality of education, setting, reputation, and diversity. Truly, however, it shines because it recognizes and practices building a broad perspective in students and preparing students practically. I am confident that those perspectives that the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University has will shape me as a competent political leader for the poor in my home town, leading me to the path of a true politician for my community.