Undergraduate / "be more responsible and understanding" - UW Personal Statement [5]

Choose one topic from below (500-650 words)

* Discuss how your family's experience or cultural history enriched you or presented you with opportunities or challenges in pursuing your educational goals.
* Tell us a story from your life, describing an experience that either demonstrates your character or helped to shape it.

Sometimes, I wonder who I would be if my life had taken a different direction.
When I was younger, I used to have to constantly share my room with another family member. We never had a lot of money, but at least we had a place to call home. My mom was out of work due to back injuries and my dad was in and out of work in construction according to job availability, meaning we almost always had a semi-stable flow of money. I should have been happy with the way things were; when I turned 13, we lost our home due to foreclosure. I remember crying after my parents said we had to move, even though, at the time, I didn't realize how much worse it could and most likely would get. We moved into my grandmother's house, and shared what little space she could offer. It was cramped and depressing; I never had any time for myself - it was all spent being around everyone else.

I remember not being able to buy many new things while we lived there; when all the other kids were out playing with the next biggest thing, I was just trying to hold on to what I had. I also didn't usually get new clothes, and what I was able to get was from second-hand stores. Sometimes people noticed and made comments about it, but I eventually learned not to care what others thought about my possessions.

After two years living with my grandma and basically having domain wars with my siblings on a daily basis, my parents had scraped together enough money from my dad's new job to be able to move us out. As glad as I was that we were moving, the newly rented house didn't show much more promise in space than my grandma's did. This marked the very first time I had been given my own room. My parents defined it as a dorm or an army bunker because of the limited space I had. The space became something that wasn't too concerning because I had adapted to having little elbowroom already; I was just proud to say that I had my own room for the first time in my life.

Even though times were slowly looking brighter for us, we were still having troubles with being able to afford some basic necessities. Take food for example; many times we were just barely making enough to be able to buy enough food each week.

Knowing that we were living from paycheck to paycheck, I wanted to help. I had to. The day I turned sixteen, I went out looking for a job. Anywhere and anyone that was hiring was all that I was searching for. I started working at McDonald's, and tried to help pay any bills that my parents may have needed assistance with using my miniscule paycheck. Week to week, things almost seemed to become a little bit better.

After two years of living in that too-cozy home, and working for a few months, we were able to put together enough to move out. The house we live in now still isn't exactly a home, but at least now everyone has their own rooms. Mine is no longer this cramped living space that sometimes floods but a place that I can actually go into and feel safe and comfortable.

I'm happier now with the way that we are living, but I hope to someday be able to help my parents get into a home that they can call their own.

As a young teenager, I saw the whole situation through hopeless eyes, but now, I've come to see that this experience has not only taught me to be more responsible and understanding of how to handle situations, but has also created more motivation for me to make something of myself in the future.