Undergraduate /
"Growing up in two cultures" - Rice supplement- Perspective Essay [3]
Please read over mine and give me tips and suggestions. I am not that great of a writer and I need a lot of improvement. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks
Prompt: The quality of Rice's academic life and the Residential College System are heavily influenced by the unique life experiences and cultural traditions each student brings. What perspective do you feel that you will contribute to life at Rice? (Most applicants are able to respond successfully in two to three double-spaced pages.)
"I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed. Inaction, no falsifying dream... The air's buoyancy and the sun's ray are of advantage to me; and the earth's face upward for my inspection (Hughes)." The perspective I share is that of a hawk. A hawk perceives the work completely different from that of any other animal. A hawk soars through the skies with the ability to observe on two levels. Growing up in two completely different cultures has taught me how to navigate between them.
A hawk observes unique aspects of the world that most people don't. Living in two cultures has given me the opportunity to visit my motherland, India, various times. When I visit India I don't stay in the lavishing hotels, visit the luxurious white beaches, or even view the prominent Taj Mahal. I stay with my cousins and see the genuine side of India. My cousins live in a small town in India, called Nagpur, where they don't have all the luxuries that we have in America. Most people in their whole lifetime don't get to see the poverty struck part of the world, but I did at the age of 7. There is nothing wrong with the lifestyle that there is in India but it is completely different from that of America. As I advanced through my life I realized these differences and this in turn gives me a great attribute, the ability to easily accept others who are different. I am not saying that people who are brought up in one culture cannot accept others who are different, or course they can. But if you have lived in the middle of two cultures your whole life it makes it a great deal easier to accept others for who they are. As a hawk glides through the sky it witnesses all the animals in their individual environments. From deserts to forests, it views the globe and accepts the world as it is.
It is easier for a person who has lived in two cultures because they have a hybrid or variable perspective on life. A hybrid perspective is a perspective that integrates two cultures viewpoints and way of life into one. In my life there is one way to do something at school but a different way to do it at home. In school I speak, write, and read in English but at home I speak fluent Hindi with my family. The reason I include this is because it shows how there is a different way of carrying out tasks in both cultures. The perspective I hold gives me the ability to distinguish the fact that there is more then one way to perform, experience, and believe in something. There is more then one manner to view the world; there is room in the universe for many perspectives.
The experience and knowledge from my cultural experiences aids me in integrating each of my cultures perspectives into a single one that allows for far greater understanding and usefulness. In the Residential Colleges at Rice I plan on using my understanding, that stems from the ability to accept others and distinguish the countless ways to perceive, to promote cultural diversity. At Rice I hope to use my unique multicultural identity to dissolve boundaries and unite people, regardless of their race, nationality, interests, or backgrounds. At the same time, I look forward to have my fellow peers be able to view the world just as I do, through the eyes of a Hawk.
