Jasmine855
Jun 14, 2017
Undergraduate / Giving back to society and making a difference. Personal statement for university scholarship! [5]
Personal Statement (Describe an outstanding achievement or highlight something you are passionate about):
I am passionate about giving back to society and making a difference. One of my principles in life is to make positive impacts in this world in my lifetime. I was inspired by an article about how life is like a candle that will ultimately burn to ashes, but the only difference between the candles is the legacy one leaves behind. Thus, I set my mind to live my life meaningfully by helping people whenever I can.
In Junior College, joining the Red-Cross-Humanitarian-Network has exposed me to many opportunities for volunteer and community work. I've volunteered as a first-aider in various school events and external events like First-Aider-On-Wheels. We were also involved in community work like visiting the elderly home.
Since then, I could better appreciate how helping others could be so enjoyable, as I realised that I also have the power to make a change. The fact that people can benefit from my help is not the only reason why I like volunteering. Helping those in need also serves as a reminder for myself to live with gratitude, which is important as it enables us to be optimistic and feel contented with life. Moreover, I believe that giving and receiving is an invisible cycle. As long as I have the ability, I wish be the one starting a cycle of kindness, helping many others along this cycle. Hence, knowing that helping people and giving back to the society is beneficial to both myself and others, it is something that I am very passionate about.
In addition, I am passionate about lifelong learning. I could identify closely with this quote by Michel Legrand, "The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know." Going through the school years, I realised that there are a lot of things that I didn't know beforehand and knowledge has no boundaries. With a rigid syllabus to follow and important examinations at stake, we, students, tend to forget about the presence of this huge sea of knowledge that is constantly expanding. However, we can actually find joy in exploring this knowledge. Personally, I enjoy learning beyond textbooks, so I'd research on certain topics online after classes. Although I am a science major, it's always interesting to learn more about this world, regardless of the branch of knowledge.
Besides, I think we are at an advantage compared to animals. With human intelligence, we have the cognitive abilities to learn, form concepts, and apply logic. So, it's a privilege to be able to understand the world better than animals, and I hope to make good use of this privilege. My goal in lifelong learning does not only apply to academic knowledge, but also other things, such as hobbies and skills. I find that as we pick up new skills, what we are learning is not just the skill itself, but we can also learn other values from it. For instance, when I learned how to play netball with my classmates, I understood that we need to cooperate as a team and support each other to play the game well.
Personal Statement (Describe an outstanding achievement or highlight something you are passionate about):
human intelligence advantage
I am passionate about giving back to society and making a difference. One of my principles in life is to make positive impacts in this world in my lifetime. I was inspired by an article about how life is like a candle that will ultimately burn to ashes, but the only difference between the candles is the legacy one leaves behind. Thus, I set my mind to live my life meaningfully by helping people whenever I can.
In Junior College, joining the Red-Cross-Humanitarian-Network has exposed me to many opportunities for volunteer and community work. I've volunteered as a first-aider in various school events and external events like First-Aider-On-Wheels. We were also involved in community work like visiting the elderly home.
Since then, I could better appreciate how helping others could be so enjoyable, as I realised that I also have the power to make a change. The fact that people can benefit from my help is not the only reason why I like volunteering. Helping those in need also serves as a reminder for myself to live with gratitude, which is important as it enables us to be optimistic and feel contented with life. Moreover, I believe that giving and receiving is an invisible cycle. As long as I have the ability, I wish be the one starting a cycle of kindness, helping many others along this cycle. Hence, knowing that helping people and giving back to the society is beneficial to both myself and others, it is something that I am very passionate about.
In addition, I am passionate about lifelong learning. I could identify closely with this quote by Michel Legrand, "The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know." Going through the school years, I realised that there are a lot of things that I didn't know beforehand and knowledge has no boundaries. With a rigid syllabus to follow and important examinations at stake, we, students, tend to forget about the presence of this huge sea of knowledge that is constantly expanding. However, we can actually find joy in exploring this knowledge. Personally, I enjoy learning beyond textbooks, so I'd research on certain topics online after classes. Although I am a science major, it's always interesting to learn more about this world, regardless of the branch of knowledge.
Besides, I think we are at an advantage compared to animals. With human intelligence, we have the cognitive abilities to learn, form concepts, and apply logic. So, it's a privilege to be able to understand the world better than animals, and I hope to make good use of this privilege. My goal in lifelong learning does not only apply to academic knowledge, but also other things, such as hobbies and skills. I find that as we pick up new skills, what we are learning is not just the skill itself, but we can also learn other values from it. For instance, when I learned how to play netball with my classmates, I understood that we need to cooperate as a team and support each other to play the game well.
