Undergraduate / Broken down apartment; UC Prompt # 1 World I come from - MaoTai road [8]

Wake up to the sound of a smartphone alarm; shower in a soothing stream of steamy hot water; get dressed and greet some delicious breakfast downstairs. What a wonderful morning routine! However, my life wasn't always this way. The world I come from, the world of MaoTai road, marks my identity.

When I was in elementary school, my family lived in a broken down apartment on MaoTai road, the old and shabby part of Shanghai. It featured unpainted walls and naked electrical wires of red, white and yellow running wild on all sides. Electricity and heat were so regularly down that I'd known them as luxuries until the midst of middle school. In the mornings, my brother and I washed up in a lightless bathroom no bigger than 2 square meters; shampoo three times a week, that was all. In the evenings, whenever the electricity goes down, the place became pitch black since moon light wasn't welcomed by those filthy, tiny windows. Just before I would start tearing to the darkness, my brother always shouted "Zhuo Mi Cang!", tricking me to believe that the lights were only off to play hide and seek; this had always kept me quiet.

The MaoTai Road world permitted no childish complaints or defiance; my brother and I often had to step away from the kids' world to manage our entire apartment, fix dinners, or take on other types of grownup responsibilities because my parents were too busy trying to get us out of that life. One night in August, 2005, a typhoon blew out our living room windows, and it rained so heavily the drain pipes leaked into our apartment. As two clueless nine-year olds left to deal with this situation, my brother and I stayed up for 27 hours, taking turns emptying buckets of water as they were quickly filled up by the pouring rain. With experiences as such, I am molded to appreciate any and all improvements in life and grasp any opportunity that nears my sight.

As years passed, life improved drastically for my family, eventually evolving into today's comfortable life that my parents provide for me. Still, when I see people living in shacks lit by a dim lightbulb, memories of MaoTai road swarm into my mind, and this thought occurs to me: surely my parents and I were not the only ones who lived in a place like MaoTai road, and certainly there are others who endure much harsher livings. Presented with invaluable opportunities like university, I am obligated to help people, to benefit society. Currently I envision computer science as my major because I enjoy it wholeheartedly and it has the potential to greatly ease the lives of other people. But who knows? I say it is too early to pin down on a single pursuit. What I do know is that I want to be a useful individual; I plan on contributing to society and know that wherever life brings me, I will always be that MaoTai road youth.

Undergraduate / Frustrations with an internship. UC prompt #2 Describe an experience. [4]

Hey guys. Any advice or criticism is greatly appreciated. Thanks you so much for reading.

An office job at a multibillion-dollar corporation, that is the dream job, right? Not necessarily.

In the summer of junior year, I took a paid internship at a multibillion-dollar international logistics firm called Global Logistics Properties.
After a prolonged elevator ride to the 43rd floor, the doors opened and the stern office smell took over the scene. The men and women, dressed in appropriate attires, greeted me with politeness and professionalism, as if I were a real employee.

I was pleasantly surprised by the type of work handed to me; they were not the usual "copy this, scan that; print this, deliver that" type of high school intern work, but legitimate company tasks that held responsibility. I worked diligently to live up to my supervisor's trust: 18 translated PPTs, 6 company annual income summary reports, and hand-typed Excel spreadsheets that extended over 2000 cells horizontally and vertically. These were some of my trophies from the internship, safely stored in my computer.

To my own surprise, my work was not the significant part of the internship. Situated in a fully air-conditioned office building high above pedestrians, overlooking the bund, one of the most desired views in Shanghai, and getting paid a good amount, I was somehow miserable. Every morning just the mere thought of stepping into my glorious work space made me sick. There was some inexplicable frustration about that job, like choking on the thick, humid air after a mid-July drizzle.

At the end of my internship, I had to ask my supervisor.
"I know this is a high-paying job, but working 9 hours a day like this is truly exhausting. How do you cope with it?"
"Well, as far as I know, no one in the office has to cope with anything. We genuinely enjoy the nature of the logistics industry. The wage is merely a bonus."

Suddenly, a quote from an autobiography struck me. "The only way to do great work is to love what you do.", I guess Steve Jobs had warned me already. He was exactly right; it truly matters to do things for passion, or else misery will become the theme of your life.

I was proud of the fact that for the first time, I was able to challenge my upholding of money through firsthand experience. To some, this may seem trivial, insignificant or even childish; but to me, it was a great leap forward and a vital correction of my values.

This experience had taught me a lesson, perhaps the most important one: know your priorities. I am no longer that money-driven child who prioritized income over passion. Now that I'm free from that constraint, I am open to pursue my true interests.

That unexpected frustration, that unexplainable fatigue of the "dream job", was the greatest treasure from my internship.