Undergraduate / University of California Application essay prompt 2 - "Perseverance" [4]

Hey guys just wrote the essay below. Review and comments would be extremely helpful. thanks

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?

As I sat down to write this essay I began to dig into the past. I looked past the high and lows with great enthusiasm and managed to figure out the one thing that made my journey from the low to the high possible. Perseverance.

I used to wonder what it would be like to be a whiz kid like Jim Sturgess (Ben Campbell) from the movie 21 or someone who never has to break a sweat to get good grades. Unfortunately, as far as my memory goes back I have always someone exactly opposite in character to Jim, studying literally 24 hours a day before an exam. One particular experience that I doubt I'll ever forget happened this past year during my GCE AS Level Examinations and the dreaded SATs. Load shedding was at its peak and generators could only do so much to supply backup power. During the days of my examination such was the case that I was found more on my roof than perhaps my own room, clutching my father's torchlight in one hand and the Kaplan's SAT word list in the other, with the cool breeze against my face, trying to get some of the high frequency words into my head.

It's safe to say working assiduously is something that is engraved in my personality regardless of the task. This was evident before my physics examinations. Although I am passionate about the subject and study it rather than anything else I have never been able to give a physics exam without studying till the last minute before the exam no matter how easy I found the syllabus of the examination. I was never satisfied with my preparation so I worked progressively harder approaching the exam.

After every examination I have grown in confidence knowing I can take on any predicament life throws at me even if I have to tackle it head on time and time again. Being termed as 'workaholic' by my friends and family was something that I was not content with considering I have always dreamt of being a 'laid-back' genius strolling through life, but I have learned to embrace it as my strongest suit and could not be any more proud of it. I've been counting on it for the past 17 years and I'm pretty sure the next 50 or 60 will not be any different!

Undergraduate / Dhaka is really close to my heart! -Stanford- What matters to you and why? [4]

Hey guys. just wrote this essay. comments would be really helpful

I somehow still remember glimpses of the days when my father used to take me out on a drive in our Nissan March at night because that was the easiest way to make me fall asleep. I guess seeing the peace and tranquility of this wonderful city as we went around was what really did the job. Now as we go for the same drive I see hundreds of people sleeping on the roadsides and slums covering massive areas of the city and that is infinitely more depressing than peaceful.

Dhaka is a city, I hold really close to my heart. I have seen gradually become an increasingly ugly,urbanised mess with a massive divide between the rich and the poor.I feel that a major step to helping this city get back to the way it was would be helping the latter people of the divide and it is helping these people, the "urban poor" section of my beloved city that really matters to me.

I've grown up playing football with boys who were not fortunate to have proper homes and were always roaming around on streets. Playing with me over the years, they have established a soft spot in my heart and I have tried to help them whenever I could but they were just a handful comprising a minute portion of the unfortunate population.

In an effort to help these people I came up with a simple idea of Share2care, a trust that a Trust that collects small donations (minimum 20 taka) from customers at high end restaurants and distributes them to charitable organisations as a small measure against income inequality, sitting in my father's restaurant, Spitfire. I really feel that the immensely rich folks of this divided city can definitely spend a meagre portion of their wealth on the less fortunate to make this city as wonderful as it was.

I am truly passionate about how I can make a positive impact on this city that I love so much and I really want to see it go back to its glory days.