Undergraduate / "strengthen me both physically and mentally" - WHY DUKE ESSAY [5]

Can you read my why duke essay and offer criticism where possible.Any help will be appreciated.Below is it:

It has always been my dream to go to duke. This dream to be in duke is as a result of my contact with a duke alumnus. Apparently, the guy came to my school as a volunteer and was teaching us biology. His teaching methods were quite different from that of our teachers. He always stresses on the need for research and tend to engage us in research by awarding points when one did an awesome research work. He was always well prepared and organized when teaching. Being Inquisitive, I approached him and asked him about how he came out with his method of teaching and he replied saying that it was something he learnt during his studies in duke. That was where my dream to be in duke suddenly emerges. Duke has an innovative and interactive curriculum, which will not only provide me with the requisite knowledge but also engage me as a student in the acquisition of knowledge. The Duke Engage program will provide me with service experiences requisite to becoming a good medical practitioner as well as offer me the opportunity to give back to society what I have acquired being a student of duke.

Duke has a very good pre-med program, which will make me a strong candidate for any medical school in the world. Duke's pre-med program has been rated the best in the US and this has been a result of the investment Duke makes in trying to produce medical students who impact society positively. My research about duke revealed a student to teacher ratio of 1:11 and this will offer me the opportunity to interact with staff and this will help me get a better understanding of certain subject areas and myself. It will also be a great experience interacting with the intimate, friendly and diverse student body. It will make me feel at home. Being someone who like sports, the outstanding basketball team and other sports played at Duke will help strengthen me both physically and mentally. Duke is just the school for me, a place where I can develop my medical talents as well as other talents inherent in me.

Undergraduate / The impact my dad's accident had on me. [NEW]

I need help with this essay: THE IMPACT MY DAD'S ACCIDENT HAD ON ME

Growing up as a little kid, it has always been my dream to be a medical doctor. This dream to be a medical doctor did not arise out of a vacuum, but rather from the deplorable medical health delivery system in Congo.

Congo belongs to a large continent, Africa, where preventive health is very poor. This situation produces a health picture of high mortality rate among children and the aged. There is also very high maternal mortality among women. This deplorable condition is greatly aggravated by the doctor to patient ratio, which stands at 1:5000.

I had no intention of specializing into any field of a medical profession. It had been my intention to be a general practitioner of medicine and work in a hospital in Congo to augment the poor ratio in the health delivery system. The raison d'ętre of becoming a specialist in the field of orthopedic arose out of a passion accentuated by an accident by an accident my dad had. Indeed, this accident was the driving force in my pursuit to become a medical doctor and an orthopedic surgeon at that. Here, the doctor to patient ratio was such that I saw my dad lay hopeless and helpless without any meaningful medical attention.

It was on the 25th December 2000, that we had information from the Korle -Bu hospital that my dad was involved in a tragic motor accident. We rushed to the hospital and tears started gushing down my cheeks at the mere sight of my dad. He was lying half dead with no kneecap and a broken pelvic bone. He could not take the excruciating pain and began shouting in pain. I rushed to call the doctor but the doctor looked me in the eyes and said, "My son, you may think I am neglecting your father but the fact is I just can't help it. I am the only orthopedic doctor at post now and for the records, 6 motor accidents occurred today so I can't attain to all the victims at the same time". The words of the doctor instigated in me a passion to be an orthopedic doctor and a wish to relieve my dad of his pain.

Though my dad's accident posed lots of financial problems to us, it made develop an altruistic personality. I used to be someone who cared less about things happening around me but from the day of the incidence, I became involved in finding solutions to problems around me. I took up post of health prefect when I was in the final year of high school to help take care of sick students. I think commitment and community service is what most colleges require of their students.

It never dawned on me that a tragic event like that of my dad will impact on me positively and help me unveil a hidden passion in me. It was an event that could be described as a blessing in disguise. It was an event that gave birth to an idea and to an aspiration to help humanity.

Undergraduate / "my dream to be a medical doctor since" - essay for ucas (medical school) [2]

This is for the ucas,

PERSONAL STATEMENT
It has always been my dream to be a medical doctor since i was a little kid. This dream to be a medical doctor did not arise out of a vacuum, but rather from the deplorable medical health delivery system in Congo.

Congo belongs to a large continent, Africa, where preventive health is very poor. This situation produces a health picture of high mortality rate among children and the aged. There is also very high maternal mortality among women. This deplorable condition is greatly aggravated by the doctor to patient ratio, which stands at 1:5000.

My passion to study medicine made me vie for the post of health prefect during my final year in High school. Though it demands lots of effort and commitment, I was able to discharge this duty to the satisfaction of the entire student body as well as the staff. It came to a point I had to skip classes to send sick students to hospital and this act of sacrifice and commitment is requisite to becoming a good medical practitioner. My strength does not only lie in my ability to adapt to stress but also ability to take up challenges. I took a combination of maths, biology, chemistry and physics in high school and at my time in high school only few student can afford to take these challenging courses and still excel in all of them. Currently I take a combination of chemistry, biology and maths at Higher level in IB. The chemistry and biology has developed my knowledge in the field of science. IB requires students to do internal assessments and research work, this has over the years broaden my knowledge about certain aspects of science and has provided me with the necessary sills to undertake experiments and research in the field of medicine. Taking English SL has improved my communication skills and my ability to analyze pieces of literature.

I had no intention of specializing into any field of a medical profession. It had been my intention to be a general practitioner of medicine and work in a hospital in Congo to augment the poor ratio in the health delivery system. The raison d'ętre of becoming a specialist in the field of orthopedic arose out of a passion accentuated by an accident by an accident my dad had. Indeed, this accident was catalytic in my pursuit to become a medical doctor and an orthopedic surgeon at that. Here, the doctor to patient ratio became grandiosely lucid that I saw my dad lay hopeless and helpless without any meaningful medical attention.

It was on the 25th December 2000 when we had information that my dad was involved in a tragic motor accident. We rushed to the hospital and tears started gushing down my cheeks at the mere sight of my dad. He was lying half dead with no kneecap and a broken pelvic bone. He could not take the excruciating pain and began shouting in pain. I rushed to call the doctor but the doctor looked me in the eyes and said, "My son, you may think I am neglecting your father but the fact is I just can't help it. I am the only orthopedic doctor at post now and for the records, 6 motor accidents occurred today so I can't attain to all the victims at the same time". The words of the doctor instigated in me a passion to be an orthopedic doctor and a wish to relieve my dad of his pain.

My dream to be an orthopedic doctor made me choose Hospital service as my community service and I opted to help out in the orthopedic during each session of hospital service. Working in the orthopedic ward has provided me with a prior knowledge about the work of an orthopedic doctor. It gave me much delight interacting with the patients because not only did I know what patients expect of a doctor but also what they consider good health care delivery. The best part of my service in the hospital was the fact that I come from an entirely different race and interacting with patients from a different race has broaden my scope and understanding of the different races in the world. Taking the IB program has helped in this vain too, I live with students from all over the world and interacting with them daily has helped in my knowledge about other peoples culture. This experience will make me a versatile doctor who can work in any part of the world. I am not only an academic person but I play a lot of sports during my leisure time. I played on the school team in both basketball and football. I was able to develop my mental strength as well as physical strength. The development in the field of sports will help me keep up the rigors of the medical profession.

I think my profound experience and ability to excel in all endeavors will make me an ideal student for your medical school. I have foreknowledge on the stress and the demands of medical school but with determination, commitment and hard work I can excel and fulfill my dreams to augment the deteriorating health care delivery in my country as well as render invaluable service to the world at large.

Undergraduate / 'Fate is a chance' - Johns Hopkins supplement [3]

Tell us something about yourself or your interests that we wouldn't learn by looking at the rest of your application materials. (While you should still pay attention to sentence structure and grammar, your response is meant as a way for us to get to know you, rather than a formal essay.)

Fate is a chance; it's either good or bad. The beginning they say could justify the end. It is rather sympathetic when some children of my "group" are born to pry into the intricate web of life. This everyone will agree with me, would eventually end up with them being frustrated on the fringe of these challenges.

Then I asked myself "should I be guided by what Cassius told Brutus in Shakespeare Julius Caesar that men, at sometimes, are masters of their fates and that the fault is not in our stars but ourselves?" How could I survive when I lived in an environment where education was not most parents' priority?

Since my arrival as a child into this world, the piercing cumulative winds have been the air I inhale. I could not tell whether it was an anathema, a malediction or a denunciation that was tagged on me. I, like most other children in Africa, was born into a polygamous family of 8 where our living all depends on my father's meager salary. My uneducated mother had to take up this role when my father was involved in a tragic motor accident. Notwithstanding all these, I tried to confront all these predicaments in a sturdy scheme of mind. I gave off my best at school and won a district scholarship to study in the top secondary school in Congo and again won the uwc scholarship to study in Canada.

I look forward to an environment where there is intimate and friendly interaction between staff and teachers. A place where the academic curriculum will equip me with the requisite knowledge for further entry into a medical school. I aspire to be part of the Johns Hopkins University's community and I hope this aspiration comes true.

Undergraduate / 'a volunteer work in a village' - williams college supplement [3]

Imagine looking through a window at any environment that is particularly significant to you. Reflect on the scene, paying close attention to the relation between what you are

seeing and why it is meaningful to you. Please limit your statement to 300 words.
My essay is above the world limit.I want suggestions on what i can exclude

I took up a volunteer work in a village located in war-torn Northern Congo. Ethnic feuds were prevalent in Northern Congo and the village in which I worked was previously war-torn.

I walked to the window of the hut in which we were staying and I gazed at the blue sky and the white clouds that hanged in a distance. Down the blue sky was a lonely beach that has blue and crystal water. The grains of sand at the beach were extremely thin and they burned after being exposed to the sun for a long time. Where the sand ended, there was a little jungle full of trees, flowers and palms and when I looked at the landscape carefully, it appeared green with dots of all colors you could ever imagine, which were flowers.

Also, there were series of high lands on the extreme right of the village. The highlands formed a gentle undulating plateau with deeply incised, heavily wooded valleys. The valleys appear heavily wooded due to the enclosure of smaller fields by hedgerows and the presence of riverside trees and copses. Much of the plateau is under arable construction with large fields separated by dry stonewalls. Most village buildings are constructed from the "traditional" stone, which ensures that the village blends well with the landscape.

Dwelling on the right side is a lonely tree rooted in a rock, which juts out of the land. The tree looks really old and dry. Some of the branches are broken and its trunk is twisted. There are soot marks along the trunk of the tree suggesting that it was once hit by lightening.

I contemplated on the adverse effect of war. Wherein lies the progress for the people who do not see themselves as one people? But the green and lively nature of the landscape gave me a strong sense of hope that there lies progress for war torn Northern Congo. Interaction between the different aspects of the landscape to give the landscape its grandiose look revealed to me that there can only be progress in Northern -Congo and Congo as a whole only if we work together, think together and inspire one another towards yonder hope.

Undergraduate / 'The bright moon' - help edit my williams supplement [3]

This is what i have so far but need serious help to make my ideas clearer. I try to be creative on the given question because williams is a long shot for me and i can only stand out if i have a very good essay.

Imagine looking through a window at any environment that is particularly significant to you. Reflect on the scene, paying close attention to the relation between what you are seeing and why it is meaningful to you.

It is our annual family routine to gather in my deceased grandfather's abandoned, brooding and neglected house during every New Year's Eve midnight. The slats of the window were mostly broken out. The slight breeze made the shutters tap against the hose and the hinges squeaked. I walked to the window and gazed into the open park where people were holding parties, dancing and drinking, to ring out the old year and ring in a new one.

The window, no matter how dilapidated it looked, signified a transition stage in my life. Behind me is the great wasteland of missed opportunities. The countless opportunities that came my way went either unnoticed or unappreciated. Most of these opportunities slipped away because I was unadventurous and not open minded enough to take advantage of them. In secondary school, I played around starting online businesses, but much to my chagrin never pursued it.

I contemplated on the challenges of the yesteryears. I could not tell whether it was an anathema, a denunciation or a malediction that was tagged onto me. My father was involved in a tragic accident, which posed financial problems for my family, and I lost two grandparents and an uncle.

However, encumbering myself with "what ifs and only ifs" would not bring back these opportunities. What lies ahead of me was the dense evergreen forest of hope. Gazing at the bright moon in the sky gave me a ray of hope and a gleam of delight. With determination and hard work, I will walk the meandering trajectory to the great oasis. The shattered and broken nature of the window unveiled my distorted view and skewed outlook on life. But by looking at the light that guided me, I overcame obstacles, took new challenges and walked different routes towards my ultimate destination.

I am really grateful.:)