Undergraduate /
"The Melting Pot" - Common app Main essay [5]
ESSAY TOPIC:::A range of academic interests, personal perspectives, and life experiences adds much to the educational mix. Given your personal background, describe an experience that illustrates what you would bring to the diversity in a college community, or an encounter that demonstrated the importance of diversity to you.
The Melting PotSurvival is the one thing that all living creatures in this world are bound to have in common. Living in Miami, I have had to put my survival skills to work. No, not those survival skills, I mean the kind that people are not necessarily aware of. The ones that are innate in humans, and the ones that allow us to adapt to different living environments in which we might not be used to living. I see the world today, and I notice that things are getting hard for us human beings. I mean, there are so many different kinds of people in this world and yet we (for the most part) tend to simply venture no further than our back yards. This can become a problem living in Miami. Here you get to experience almost every single Latin American culture there is, and then some. In order to survive in this world of culture, the most important rules to go by are the ones that are 'unwritten'. In order to go by these rules, one must find the skills necessary to survive. Finding these skills is unfortunately harder for some people than others. I consider myself to have been lucky enough to have been handed these skills when I was little. Living in five different countries throughout your life can do that to you. The first step to putting these "unwritten" rules to work, is to acknowledge and appreciate the experiences your life has put you through. By taking this first step, you have now immersed yourself into the world of cultural acceptance and you are now ready to work your way into surviving in this place that we like to call "The World".
Believe it or not, your family plays a very important role in the development of your cultural skills. For example, in every country we have lived in, my parents have taken us on various vacations; in which we explore our city's culture and learn to take advantage of what is around us. I never really understood the point of taking five-hour train rides through the tequila region of Guadalajara, Mexico; or why we had to travel to Venice by car when we could have easily taken a plane. And when I was younger, I never quite seemed to understand why exactly everyone in my family would get so riled up on new years as soon as the up-beat merengue sounds would blast through the speakers into our crammed, humid living room/ dance floor. Or why they would dance all night, each with their own "copita de aguardiente" getting happier by the hour? I would just sit there, a shy five year old with no clue of my surroundings, watching, and dreading the moment my uncle would ask me to go dance with him, and then wondering why I had the most bizarre family in the world. Fortunately for me, I grew up. And I grew accustomed to those crazy customs; I learned to embrace the music and the festivities of that night. It was through those (lets just say; "more than festive") new years reunions that I learned to appreciate the music of my culture, and I am very proud to say that I no longer dread those new years dances with my uncle. It is through these quirky experiences that you learn to adapt to the strangeness of this world.
By accepting your own culture and where you come from, you learn to open up to different ones, and you become more aware of the differences that surround us. With that, I conclude our second step towards becoming 'world connoisseurs'. I don't know how many steps or "rules" you were expecting, but from my gatherings, there are just these two simple things to remember: acceptance, and open-mindedness. Now that I am done lecturing you, you can fearlessly venture into the world. Just make sure that you at least take some the things that I have said with you.
