Undergraduate / COMMON APP - the importance of diversity to you [3]

prompt: 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.

My addition to the diversity in a college community comes in the form of real-world experience, coupled with my family background. My connections to the working and middle class separate me from the usual teenage aloofness and sense of entitlement that is often associated with the prospective college student.

My personal experience comes from working as a secretary at a real estate office, which undeniably feels first-hand the pressure put on the real estate market from the current financial crisis the economy is suffering through. Foreclosures and the mortgage crisis are the topics of everyday conversation, and my knowledge and direct interaction with those who have already lost their homes or are on the brink helps me to appreciate how difficult it is to maintain an income that supplements even solely essential spending.

My father's job and life as a self-made small business owner building and selling homes also illustrates to me the hardships faced and overcome in a world where nothing is handed out. My father grew up in Poland; technically I am a first-generation American. He came to the United States at seventeen with his father, who worked as a taxi driver in the Polish capitol city, Warsaw. They brought with them two suitcases and no knowledge of the English language. My father attended high school and worked two jobs to pay rent in a tiny apartment in New Jersey and sent whatever money was left over to his mother and sister, who remained in their own tiny apartment in Warsaw. Eventually putting himself through what is now known as Union County College for two years, he then graduated with a Bachelor's degree in business from Upsala College and continued working for everything he owned.

Hearing these stories and seeing firsthand those who struggle to keep their financial heads above water gives me a fresh sense of appreciation for the things I do have, and an unbridled sense of earning the things I want.

I don't care as much about grammar and semantics as much as if the general essay actually answers the prompt.