Undergraduate / Self- Reflection Personal Statement For UC admissions [4]

UC Admissions Personal Statements: (Required word count - 1000 words maximum)

Hi guys, I am relatively new to this website so please forgive me if the format is wrong. I have been working on my personal statement throughout the entire summer and I just finished noting all of my ideas down. However, I have trouble condensing both of my essays to meet the 1000 word requirement for UC personal statements. If any of you guys can offer any feedback on condensing my essay or how to improve my essay, then it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You.

Prompt # 1: 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.

Many people regard their childhood to be the most important years of their life. It is common for people refer to their childhood years to be the best year of the life; however, to me it was a mixed bag. Although there were some memorable moments in my childhood, a majority of the moments were overshadowed by my shyness and social anxiety.

I have dealt with the issue of social anxiety for almost a huge portion of my life. This fear I had with myself sucked the joy out of my life as I could never really fit into a crowd. I had always felt that I was the odd man of a group even with my closest friends.

In an attempt integrate me into social circles with my peers, my parents decided to buy me a video game console so I would have something in common with my peers. At the beginning, playing video games was great as I bonded with friends over it. However, over several years, my fascination with video games had turned into an addiction that almost took over my life.

I carried this emotional weight of social anxiety throughout my adolescence but always tried to ignore it by holding my social anxiety up in a bottle and trying to throw it under the rug. Videos games, at that time, were a place where I could vent and remedy my own problems. I was disillusioned by the reality that video games brought into my world and was sucked into it.

However, once my grades started to decline steeply, my parents had stripped me of my video game privileges for the remainder of my high school life. At that point, I was a broken man. Video games were the only motivations for me to do well in. But once my video games were taken away from me, I lost all motivation all of a sudden and struggled in school, dealing with the emotional baggage for several months after the incident.

After realizing from my mistakes, I felt deep regret for what I had done. All that time, I was studying for exams for the privilege of indulging in video games instead of embracing education in which other people strived for in another country.

All of these negative feelings resulted in anger. I was angry at the fact that I could not be the man my parents wanted to be and was angry at myself for all of the mistakes that I had committed.

I tried to turn to my parents and friends for help but felt too ashamed to admit my mistakes.
During the lowest point of my teenage life, I managed to find a new which was martial arts. After searching for several schools, I had finally joined a Tae Kwon Do dojang which turned my life around.

Martial arts had saved my life in a sense that it gave me purpose to continue on a path of academics. Instead of wandering around in the cloud of my own problems, martial arts helped me break through those obstacles and opened eyes to a world I never thought was possible which was being able to socialize with people without fear.

Before my martial arts journey, I often wondered of what purpose I had in life and felt as if I were just a living soul, wandering in the world of the living with no real goals or ambitions. I had quit many of the classes that I had no passion for, in which my parents enrolled into, which only worsened the feeling of not being someone who had achieved something in life. But training under my master's guidance, I realized that main goal aside from doing well in school was the get a black belt.

After persevering through my master's intense regime, I had finally obtained my black belt by my junior year of high school. To many people, getting a black belt indicates a symbol of mastery and prowess. However, to me, it signified the long journey I had to endure to achieve a goal that was worthwhile.

My training in Tae Kwon Do has motivated me to stay true to myself and tackle all of my academic obstacles with a new found sense of confidence. Instead of letting my failures of my get the better of me, I decided to defy against my own fears and other peoples belief that I would not live up to their expectations.

Reflecting back on my marital arts journey, the only regret that I have about training in martial arts is not being able to join sooner. Although my time for training in martial arts is limited due to the fact that I will be starting my last year of high school, I am still determined to make the best of all of the opportunities I have to train and try to keep an open mind to what Tae Kwon Do has in store for me.