Undergraduate /
Women's Safe House, volunteering - Common Application Essay [34]
Hi everyone the revised version of my essay is below. Tell me what you think. Your comments are appreciated.
Walking down a street in New Delhi, India for the first time, a person can only notice a few things: the filth, the population, and the traffic. These three things alone can inundate a person. The experience as a whole is more tiring to most than anything else. This is exactly as I felt during my first trip to India. I felt disconnected from the basic facilities I was used to in my American suburb. Moreover, I only saw India for what it lacked: order, infrastructure, and cleanliness. Even subsequent trips left me disappointed in the condition of the country I am from. However, during a recent trip to India, my perception of the atmosphere in India has completely changed.
On previous visits to India, traveling outside was what I hated the most. I was restless sitting in our small car on the road, where hundreds of cars were crawling like ants. I would shudder to see and smell the mounds of garbage in markets, no doubt a reflection of India's burgeoning population. I used to cringe as my family and I moved with the crowds of people at temples and bazaars like fish in a school, unable to breath in the body odor of the beggars around us.
As trying as my trips to India became, I asked myself how was India still a thriving nation even with all its apparent downfalls. When I stopped to reflect on this question during my recent trip, I tried to soak in all of my surroundings and open my mind. Suddenly, I had understood. When I stopped to listen to India itself, I found my answer in one simple word: energy. I sensed it from the streets, the houses, and most importantly, the people. Once I noticed the positive energy, I felt it surging within me. I felt inspired to do my part to improve the country while I was there. My serendipitous realization made me feel that it made no sense to complain about how India is. By doing my part, my continued effort could begin to reduce the inequality and poverty in India. Rather than closing my eyes to the vulgarity of India's poor and assume that it has no future, I decided to open my mind and try to make a difference, to finally do my job as an Indian.
While I was just one person with new and exciting hopes for India, I believed I could still take effective action. With my new found open mindedness, I became a volunteer for UNICEF, an organization whose efforts to help the destitute are renowned. Additionally, I started to do research at a United Nations lab in India to help understand the diseases that left so many incapacitated and to ultimately find their prevention. Suddenly, the congested traffic was no longer just traffic. It was the blood of India flowing through its veins. I saw it as the excitement of activity and life reverberating from every corner. I had not become blind of India's neglected roads, people, and buildings, but aware of what I could do to help India rise up from where it had fallen. I had seen its potential in the people from working in a lab in New Delhi; their hard-working attitudes could easily be used to better their nation.
During my trip to India, I was able to do my part. By working in a United Nations lab, I researched the Tuberculosis disease. It is rampant in India because of a lack of clean drinking water. Hopefully in the future, the research I assisted the lab do will lead to drugs and medicines to reduce the numbers suffering from this ailment. Once disease in India is controlled, sick beggars can become healthy workers. By becoming a volunteer for UNICEF, I have sent countless letters to my senators to allocate more money to UNICEF so that it may help the vagrants of India and other such peoples. It has also opened my eyes to the horrendous conditions so many people all over the world face daily. With time and dedicated effort, India will hopefully be able to improve its infrastructure and reduce the number of needy.
Once I became open to differences and willing to see the potential in things, I saw a change in myself. To me, the crowded Indian markets, with people chattering and children laughing, were no longer a nuisance, but much more. The incessant honking on the streets was no longer noise pollution, but India's voice screaming out to anyone willing to listen to it. That it was ready for change if anyone else was ready to do his or her part. This trip to India opened my eyes to the world around me, and taught me the value of doing so in my daily life. Not only had I finally connected with India, but I also connected with myself.
I never thought I would learn from the filth, the population, or the traffic in India, not for what they are, but from what they represent. They represent the average Indian surroundings. They are a beacon of its potential and verve. They are the pulsating heart of India, alive and beating to the unique rhythm that I had always failed to feel. Not only that, but they alone have taught me the value of being open-minded and ready for change; to be able to see past a crude exterior and appreciate what value it may still have.