Undergraduate / "a great opportunity for me to mature" - Peace Corps Essay: Motivational [5]

Hello all,

Below is my essay in response to "Reasons for wanting to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer; and how these reasons are related to your past exp. and life goals"

Please critique my essay and tell me anything I can improve. I felt my transition from paragraph to paragraph is very weak, would you guys please comment (on anything at all would be greatly appreciated)?

Thank you sincerely.

------------- Essay:

Dear sir/madam, how are you doing today? Please forgive me for opening my essay in such an informal manner, for I'm afraid I might begin and bore you with a cliché. The Peace Corps has always been a growing interest of mine since junior year in college. I see the Peace Corps as a special opportunity for me to make positive impacts on those who are underprivileged and to grow as a person while experiencing life in a different country.

As a college sophomore, I was a peer tutor for Pre-Calculus and Calculus at the university learning center, where I assisted fellow students who had difficulties with the subjects. Some needed help with homework and some needed help with new mathematic concepts just learned in class that day, so I explained the concepts, or at least tried to, in a simpler way than the professor to them, showed them how to tackle homework problems, and as the last resort, solved the problems for them. It was a great experience because not only I was able to help out my fellow students; I also help them to help themselves. It was a wonderful feeling to see someone solved math problems that he used to have trouble with before on his own, or when a student came in and said he did well on the test because he understood a theorem better and was able to apply it correctly. However, self-gratification was never the goal in my mind; it was only a by-product of the effort and willingness to help those who in need of help. I'm simply glad that I left a real and positive mark in my schoolmates' study.

One of the main reasons I wanted to be part of the Peace Corps is that the Corps presents a great opportunity for me to mature, in most aspects, as an adult, one equipped with the understanding and the desire to make something out of myself - to carve my own place in the society. I want take what I learned in school to the world, not only the textbook knowledge, but also the interpersonal and social skills, and see how useful I can be.

I am confident that I can satisfy all 10 of the Peace Corps Core Expectation as they are very reasonable and fair. I am open-minded and respectful of others and their culture. I believe that I can quickly adapt to the new environment and be helpful to all whom around me. If accepted and deployed, I hope to make positive influence on the destination community, and hope to learn from them lessons that can't be taught within the classroom walls.