Undergraduate /
Volunteerism: Working in an Orphanage - Common App Essay [3]
Hi everyone, I just finished my second draft for my common app essay. Its just over a page (3 sentences over a page or so)...so I would like to know where I'm rambling/talking unnecessarily.
please feel free to comment and critique it as harshly as you like. I'm open to all criticism! :)
Prompt: Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you."So," I asked the one hundred and five girls sitting in front of me, "what do you want to be when you grow up?"
Eager chatter spread across the group of children. I heard them all calling me at once. "Akka, akka, guess what I want to be?" One little girl raised her hand, stretching it as far as she possibly could so it could be seen in the midst of the restless group. Her name was Manasa, and she was eight years old. She was rather short for her age, so she struggled to be noticed in the crowd. She flailed her arm back and forth to catch my attention. Once I saw her, I told everyone to quiet down. As the children came to a hush hushed, Manasa put her arm down and answered my question with a wide smile across her face. "I want to be a doctor, akka," she said slowly, "because I want to save lives and make my parents in heaven happy."
For five weeks, I worked at the Chinmaya Vijaya All-Girls Orphanage in Guntur, India as a part-time caretaker and tutor. I taught during study hours every day from 5:30 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. and from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. I remember reciting the English alphabet at least twenty times a day not to reinforce my failing memory of the alphabet but to hear the fervent echo of the children after every letter I uttered. I remember that "eleven" was the toughest number to spell, and the word "slipped" was the hardest to pronounce. And I remember each of their smiles distinctively. I remember the wide beams of accomplishment each pre-school orphan showed me when she recited the alphabet and numbers up to twenty without mistake. I also remember the satisfactory grins of the older girls when they finally understood the abacus system of numbers and counting. They learned with interest, passion, and dedication. From my experience at the orphanage, not a single protest was voiced about school. Not once did I hear that a child did not want to complete her homework or prepare for a test. They were teeming with questions and curiosities, constants bombarding me with their inquiries. Their passion to always learn was prominent and it drove them forward as students.
What used to be a hundred and five strangers became a family to me. What used to be a mere teacher-student relationship quickly transformed into a sister-sister relationship, and soon I found myself looking upon all one hundred five girls as my own siblings. We shared laughter when we were together and tears when we were to part. I created a bond with these people that will never bend or break.
As I walked away from the orphanage in July, I began to question my outlook on life. Why are these girls in India, with nothing but cracked cricket bats, always laughing and smiling, while my friends and I, with our comfortable houses, video game consoles, and computers, are always wishing to have more? Why is there such a sense of community and family in a group of orphans, while I often feel alienated and alone? Why did I never see them shed a tear about their heart-wrenching pasts when I often find myself upset over trifling matters?
They never took anything for granted; they happily played outside with rubber balls, bent hula hoops, and crumbling pieces of chalk. They found the greatest joy playing with rocks in the middle of the road under the blazing Vijayawada sun, inventing complex games every day. They ate their meals without wasting food because they cherished the luxury of being given meals every day. They treated their education dearly because they would have never had a chance before coming to the orphanage. Despite their distressing histories, they lived each passing day with smiles on their faces.
Although I was the tutor at the orphanage, I was taught a very important lesson from these hundred and five girls. Happiness is about how one interprets what is in front of him or her. It is how proud one is of the way one lives his or her life and how willing you are to enjoy simple pleasures, even if things are not perfect. I have not always done this well, but from now on I choose to focus on the good-both in the world and in myself.