Undergraduate / 'Making up the lost time' - UC prompt 1 [7]

Describe the world you come from-for example, your family, community or school and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.
When I was a kid, I have always told the people around me that I wanted to become a teacher. In response, they would ask me why, but my answer had always been a simple, "I don't know". Eventually, this desire gradually subsided as I passively observed my dad.

About seven years ago, my dad co-operated a business with a friend. This business consisted of them receiving orders from restaurants to construct or repair pieces of kitchen related stainless steel equipment. It was not a big business of any sort, but their business did decently well. But after a while, my dad had decided to end the partnership because he felt that he was being taken advantage of since he did 99% of the business's work while his partner did nothing to benefit the business. So after leaving the partnership, my dad decided to run his own business, and it was not difficult to start over because he already had connections and contacts with many of his clients from before. But in 2009 when my dad broke his leg at a job location, he had to withdraw himself from business for a year and just let his employees operate the business. His disability to work had brought my family a period of financial stress and worry, but after nine months, my dad had inserted himself back to work in order to continue providing financial support for my family. Although he was not fully recovered, he insisted on doing whatever his body would allow him to. And from then on, my dad has spent every day except Sunday working for over ten hours a day, hoping to make up for the loss time.

Although my dad and I do not spend as much time as we would like to because of his late work hours and my early school hours, nonetheless, he still has taught me invaluable lessons. My dad's dedication and perseverance has inspired me to what I want to become in the future. After many years of declaring my dream job as a teacher, I now want to major in business. From my dad's business experience, I learned that if I want to succeed, I have to be resilient and confident. These characteristics will help me endure and overcome any obstacles or adversities in life. And even after his accident, my dad did not give up. His actions showed me that I should allow things to inhibiting me from doing what I want. And that is why I am currently enrolled in my school's marketing class. Through this class, I hope to learn about a specific business field and prepare myself for the future. Seeing how dedicated my dad is in order to financially support the family inspires me to pursue a dream of my own that would allow me to do the same.

Undergraduate / 'Understanding myself through music' - UC Prompt #2 [6]

Piano= me= confidence and learning to express myself,

I have years of experience with the violin, flute, piano, and GuZheng, a 21 stringed instrument that represents my culture, but specifically, piano is the most important to me because it has been in my life for as long as I could remember, and it has become my ultimate passion. But as cliché as it sounds, music is my life. Music has helped me to understand myself and to create the person that I am today.

When I was eight years old, I was not one of those kids who enjoy being in the limelight or hammering away at piano keys. Contrary, I often refused to perform at recitals and during my piano lessons, I played so softly that my teacher often asked if I was afraid that I would hurt the piano. The truth was, I felt insecure and uncomfortable with expressing both the music and myself by performing the various dynamic signs, the abbreviations used to signify the music's volume. I was too timid. But things changed in 2004 when I began studying for the ABRSM exam (an international bench marked standard exam that tests for piano playing skills, comprehension of music theories and the ability to sight read and sight sing) almost every Saturday afternoon. I remember after I began preparing for the exam, my piano skills improved significantly because I was motivated to wanting to succeed. Ultimately, my improved piano skills increased my confidence and my ability to express the music and most importantly, myself.

Playing music is not just simply following all the printed dynamics and other musical elements; it requires the full interpretation of the piece in order to express the appropriate mood of the song.

And today, I am proud to say that I am not that timid girl that I once was. Through these many years of studying music and piano specifically, I have not only acquired musical knowledge but I have also enabled myself to do things that I was incapable of doing before. I am no longer hesitant to accept requests for stage performances because I now enjoy sharing my music with people. I want to use my music to connect with my audience and have them feel the mood of the music that I am playing. Stage fright is not an issue for me now. Playing music is not just simply following all the printed dynamics and other musical elements; it requires the full interpretation of the piece in order to express the appropriate mood of the song. After years of playing the piano I have accumulated more confidence and communication skills. Piano has taught me to release and express myself and enjoy everything that I do, because I know that with everything that I do, I will eventually benefit from it. My passion and persistent efforts for piano has helped me to grow as a person and to understand the importance of the ability of expression. In the spring of 2013, I will be taking Grade 8, the final exam. I am confident that I will pass the exam because I know I have acquired a sufficient amount of experience and knowledge that will allow me to perform well on this final exam.

Undergraduate / UC Prompt 1: how to tie it up? 'my resemblance to my father' [3]

Describe the world you come from-for example, your family, community or school and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.

i feel like im not describing enough about my "world". what do you think?

When I was younger, I hated comments about my resemblance to my father. My mom always told me, "you look like your dad" and that statement would irritate me, causing me to cry in response, "No! I do not want to look like my dad. I do not want a mustache"! Ironically, my dad does not even have a mustache. But regardless of physical appearances, today, I do not mind being like my dad.

As the older child of two born into an Asian immigrant family, I have many responsibilities. But unlike typical immigrant households where the oldest child is just responsible for helping with the bills and reading letters, I do more than just that. I am my dad's home secretary. My father is an entrepreneur whose business involves restaurant orders for the manufacturing and repairing of stainless steel kitchen equipment. Though it is not a large scale business, it does well to support my family. But because my dad speaks minimal English and is computer illiterate, I offered to help him type up contracts and order receipts, send emails to clients, order job equipment and pay the bills. So at a young age, I was exposed to what operating a business is potentially like. Aside from assisting my dad with his business, I also help manage my parents' bank accounts, in terms of helping them track their expenses and credits through online banking. And gradually, I began to develop an interest for business.

Although my dad and I do not spend as much time as we would like to because of his definite work hours and my school hours, nonetheless, he has helped me make one of the most invaluable decisions of my life. Being able to work for my dad has given me the taste of what a business potentially is like, thus inspiring me to pursue a business major. Although sometimes the stereotypical reasons to wanting to become a business major are based solely on money and greed, for me, it is not just about the materialistic rewards. From my dad's business, I learned that to succeed, it will take a lot of dedication and perseverance. These characteristics will help me endure and overcome any obstacles or adversities in life. Seeing how dedicated my dad is to his business to support the family inspires me to pursue a dream of my own that would allow me to do the same. I want to major in business not only because I want to start my own business one day, the same way my dad did twelve years ago, but also because I know this major can also open many doors to the world for me. So this year, I am enrolled in my school's marketing class to learn about a specific business field that will help prepare for my future career.