Undergraduate / 'Rejection letters after rejection letters' - UC #2 [6]

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?

Rejection letters after rejection letters, are all I received in the mail throughout my senior year in high school. With those rejection letters in my hand I would often think to myself, "I heard college isn't for everyone...maybe college just isn't for me." After graduating high school, I spent countless summer days pondering the thought of attending a community college to open more doors for success in my life. I know that a good education provides great opportunity and advantages to anyone who pursues it. I define success as, a never-ending stride to continually improve who you are in every aspect of your life and to always put in your best effort. Deciding to improve myself to fulfill my willpower to succeed, I decided to enroll to a local community college. Attending college was no easy task at hand. I had to learn how to balance my time between working and going to school. Working part-time and attending college part-time is one of the most time-consuming activities that I have experienced. Hard work always pays off in the end so I stuck with staying in school despite the difficulties I had in some of my classes. My willpower to succeed was all I needed for gentle reminder to keep on pushing to further improve myself. I take my struggles day by day and now it has paid off. I will receive an AA degree in business by spring 2012. Now entering my third year at Ohlone Community College, I also have the great opportunity to apply and attend a University.

Attending a community college to further my educational goals and myself is an accomplishment that I am proud of and will never regret. My willpower for success and my accomplishment of enrolling and staying in a community college go hand in hand. I was able to overcome the obstacles that life had to offer and will continue to keep pushing forward. I am confident that I will be successful no matter what path I choose to take in my life. Vince Lombardi once said, "The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will."

Undergraduate / 'find an interest in anything that makes you happy' - UC 1 [2]

Throughout my life, I have been told to find an interest in anything that makes you happy and pursue it. Through all of high school and my first year at my community college the main goal I was trying to achieve was to find a profession that made me happy no matter the amount of the salary. My interest in my intended major first developed when I started taking some business classes to see how I would like them. When I finally found a profession that I liked and could get excited about, it felt like I had hit the lottery. My main interest in business is the marketing aspect of it. Being in a team and pitching ideas to people really appealed to me.

I use to work at a local frozen yogurt shop, where I would be the only one running the shop during my shift. My days would drag on as I ran the cashier and cleaned up after people all by myself. At times, being the only one working there was something I looked forward to. As I continued to work at this yogurt shop, I soon realized that I need a job that has more communication with other people. My favorite part of the job soon became going out into the streets to advertise and bring customers inside the shop which was uncommon amongst the other co-workers. Something I realized while working there was that I really need to be communicating with others and have tasks to accomplish to make my day go by faster and also being around others makes happy. At my new job, I am a server for weddings and other large events. I work with a staff of over thirty people and I love it. Just as marketing requires teamwork so does working at my current occupation. I have no problem working with others; in fact it makes me happy. I am a team player and I get along with people very easily. Being a team player doesn't mean I am a pushover however. When needed, I learned at my job that I need to give directions, discipline, and teach the less experienced. Interacting with others to achieve a common goal is something I have been trying to perfect.

Day to day I always analyze people to try and figure out how they think and what their intentions are. Figuring people out has become some what of a hobby of mine even if it seems a bit odd. Like putting together a puzzle piece I like to sort things out to get the best end result. I'm interested in marketing because of all the interaction the profession offers and the concepts of selling a product to a target market. In a target market you need to figure out what the customers will find most interesting to make a sale which is similar to my hobby of analyzing people.