Undergraduate / Cuba Experience - PENN STATE ESSAY REVIEW [3]

Penn State is the top school I want to get into for college. I feel like my essay can be stronger but I have no idea how to edit it that way. Thank you!

Please choose one of your activities or another experience you would like to share and provide a short description of its importance to you. Include why that commitment could be relevant to your student experience at Penn State.

Fulfillment yet emptiness, happiness yet sadness, pride yet humbleness. These contradictory emotions struck me as I boarded my plane away from a place that had changed my perspective in one short week. As the plane leaves the ground and moves further and further away, I begin to see the shape of the beautiful island of Cuba and reflect back on the eye opening opportunity I had experienced.

The mission to Cuba began with a small team trying to bring hunger awareness into a high school in New York. Through hard work and dedication to the cause, the members of the team, including myself, had orchestrated a friendly competition among the different grades in our high school. On one specific day of the schedule, the school cafeteria would set out a cheaper meal, based on a daily budget of those in poverty, for the students. The money that would have been used to buy a bigger meal were donated to hunger awareness. In addition, the team went to three churches of the Blessed Trinity Parish and discussed the cause and goal for our team. In conclusion, the team had raised $12,000 in donations for those in poverty, especially in third world countries.

The donations prompted the mission to Cuba to give a gift to our Cuban neighbors in need. Although Cuba is colorful and cheerful, it lacked resources to those who need aid financially. During our stay in Cuba, we had the privilege to meet the recipients of the donation, a single father with two young daughters and Salesian sisters. We were welcomed into Mr. Acosta's home, a small and dilapidated apartment with a friendly atmosphere and learned of his story and hardships in raising his two daughters morally,The experience with the Salesian sisters were similar as well. Although we were strangers to them, they greeted us warmly and with open arms. Their petite figures and ingenious eyes allowed us to immediately be at ease and they also began to tell their story of their struggles of building

facilities that could benefit poor Cuban communities around them. Both recipients chose to go through their challenges selflessly, as

Each person I had encountered in Cuba had their own struggles that they faced, especially economically, yet still kept a huge smile on their face and a friendly demeanor to everyone they met. I realized during our mission that despite hardships and obstacles, hope and perspective of a situation is the key to overcoming and solving the hurdles in life. The mission to Cuba allowed me to reflect on my own situations and adjust my attitude towards the many obstacles that paled in comparison to those of the Cuban people. In my change of perspective, I know it has positively impact my ability to succeed in Penn State and the future. The ability to change my outlook on situations and have hope during what will seem to be hopeless times will give me strength to conquer old or new circumstances in my academics, service and life. Even though Cuba had given me the contrasting feelings of fulfillment, happiness and pride for meeting and helping those in need and the humbleness, emptiness and sadness for leaving a country with warm and cheery people with imperceptible and unimaginable hardships, the most significant present Cuba had gifted me was the souvenir of perception and the tools to defeat obstacles occurring or will occur in my life.