Undergraduate / "I have no idea what world I come from" - UC prompt #1...again [5]

Hi, I notice a lot of people are having issues with the same prompt. Here is mine, and I am open to suggestions. I know that I am taking a risk with the more philosophical answer, but I am OK with that. Still, if you have comments regarding the content within the framework of the piece, it could be helpful. Thanks.

I have no idea what world I come from. I do not think that I ever have. Perhaps if I did I might be better able to better identify the world I am meant to impact. My search for a such an environment is what has been a defining influence in my life.

Ever since I have been truly aware of my own existence in an abstract sense, I have wondered of the memories of my life, but somehow I have never quite felt absorbed into a community. I have always felt somehow out-of-solution. I do not know, perhaps this is just part of being an introspective introvert, or simply part of human existence. Maybe everyone feels this way, but even if that is true, I cannot genuinely identify myself as being "from" somewhere, in a figurative sense.

I could write that I come from an intellectual community, or that I come from a place of real ideals and values, but I do not think that tells anything about who I am. And how could it, these places are not what has shaped my dreams and aspirations. Rather, it is the lack of belonging to a community that I believe has shaped me most.

Contrary to the saying, I view myself as an island. I see myself as isolated, with the world changing around me. Because of this apartness, I have been motivated to learn as much as possible; when I am the only constant in my life, the only way to move successfully into the future is through self-improvement. I have studied hard in my free time, particularly in the last few years, reading books with authors from Victor Frankl to Friedrich Nietzsche to Alan Watts.

My studies to this point and, as far as I can see, from this point forward have been aimed at finding a way to effectively stop moving with the general river of the populace, isolated yet pushed along like a stick in the water, and instead become part of the riverbed, shaping the world around me. It makes me cringe to quote a Hollywood movie in this context, but there is simply no better way to put it than the way that Frank Costello did in The Departed: "I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me."

Undergraduate / 'My dealing with depression' - University of Washington Personal Statement [3]

Here goes, and though I know it is a topic that people may be reluctant to jump in on, but please do, I am all ears. Thanks.

The hardest period of my life I have ever had to go through was my freshman year of high school. When I was in eighth grade, I was tentatively excited about moving on to high school. I loved my small Montessori school, and sometimes I still wish that I could slip back into the small group of students and just start my old classes again. Still, I had gone from an average student to an A/B student in my last couple of years, and I was feeling good about a new challenge. I was cagily optimistic about the move away from my small school, which had become a kind of second home for me, to a totally foreign and much more demanding environment.

The first few days at my new school went fine, though I mostly felt like I was just holding it all together. Transitions have always been hard for me, but I was determined to do my absolute best to give the school an honest shot, and to keep my mind as open as possible. I did do my best, I don't know what else I could have done, but within a week, I was in a pit of despair. I had never experienced anything close to this feeling of hopelessness. I could hardly make it through the morning without breaking down in one of my classes. I dropped out of school for a few weeks and, with my parents' support, sought help. I became a "504" student on the circuit of figuring out why life was suddenly and unexpectedly so challenging for me. I was eventually able to return, and came back as a regular student in my second semester. This depression would come in waves for my whole freshman year, most of my sophomore year, and even the very start of my junior year.

For me, dealing with depression meant getting out of my school. In reality, it is a decent high school, but because of the difficulty of my initial transition, I always dreaded the place. I set a goal in my freshman year to do whatever I could to get into the Running Start program, and start a more independent course of study. Finally, the end of sophomore year came, and I signed up to attend North Seattle Community College the following fall. Even then I was uneasy; I thought that it might just be easier to tolerate two more years of my current school, rather than dive into another transition, but I knew that I had to try something different in order to feel something different.

North Seattle Community College was very different from any other experience I had ever had before. After the initial transition period had passed, I realized how much I liked what I was doing. I was now taking classes with people who actually had signed up to be there. The teachers did not have to spend any time getting people to quiet down or pay attention; the responsibility to pass the class was the student's. This current period has been one that is challenging, but also triumphant.

My depression has been the biggest challenge of my life. It was the hardest and, in some ways, the most humiliating period I ever had to get through. But I have been getting through it, and I am proud of the path I have chosen. My individual progression into a college environment has been, and is, an incredibly shaping and influencing event. It is much more academically and socially challenging, as well an independence-developing experience. As well as helping to lift me out the darkest period of my life, it has fostered my sense of independence, and developed me into a much more critical thinker.