Undergraduate / 'Exchange in Italy' - University of Washington [2]

Personal Statement (required)

The Personal Statement is our best means of getting to know you and your best means of creating a context for your academic performance. When you write your personal statement, tell us about those aspects of your life that are not apparent from your academic record:

a character-defining moment
the cultural awareness you've developed
a challenge faced
a personal hardship or barrier overcome
Directions
Choose either 1 or 2. Recommended length: 2 pages. (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.

- OR -

Tell us a story from your life, describing an experience that either demonstrates your character or helped to shape it.
Tips

Some of the best statements are written as personal stories. We welcome your imaginative interpretation.
You may define experience broadly. For example, in option 2, experience could be a meeting with an influential person, a news story that spurred you to action, a family event, or something that might be insignificant to someone else that had particular meaning for you. If you don't think that any one experience shaped your character, simply choose an experience that tells us something about you.

---------------Sitting in the passenger seat of my dad's old hand-me-down car, I looked into the night at the dimly lit hotel in front of us. Our small town of Poulsbo only had a few inns but this one is where they decided to meet me, maybe because it gave an impression of a Norwegian cottage as the heritage of the town. A few members of Rotary Club were in there waiting for me and other teenagers. A few weeks before, I sent my application to these exact individuals to become an exchange student, with sending all my hope in the envelope I wasn't sure if I would be granted an interview. This September night, I had my first interview and started my experience.

Over a year past that fortunately fateful night, I sit here in pure gratefulness, for today I am in Italy.

The duration of my junior year of high school in America was spent in intense preparation. From that interview in little Poulsbo, I was sent to many interviews with the Rotary District headquarters. These interviews and meetings turned competitive as I was one of the 35 students who wanted that one chance to be sent to Italy. Constantly, my priorities were being challenged as I balanced family, school, work, extracurricular activity and preparing to graduate high school. My brain fried as I tried this juggling act with a mindset of leaving and starting an entirely new life from the one I had been trying to succeed in.

Past all the stress and goodbyes, I arrived in Italy. I arrived completely lost, as I expected. I arrived as an outsider, as they told me. I arrived completely new, as I wanted to learn it all. As my Italian mamma says about my first month here, "She did not understand nothing!"

With the area I live in, I not only get to learn to speak Italian but learn dialect of the region, Friulani. Languages are so very interesting to me and I love learning different phrases from all over the world. Being in Europe, I've met many people from different countries. I am able to say "Thank you" in more languages than on both my hands, this is the best souvenir I'll be able to bring home.

Starting from "not knowing nothing", I can learn more here than ever. I get to witness and become educated on different cultures; the way people live, love, connect with each other. I have an Italian family who I love as mine. My life here consists of the same activities I had done before, but with Italian flavour. School: learning the language and making friends. Family: becoming close with the people I live with and discovering my relations to half of the town. Sports: playing tennis on classic European clay courts and getting to say "I'm sorry for breaking the tennis net" in another language. Church: travelling many kilometres to find those who share my faith.

But even with the same daily duties, and similar aspects of living, each day for me is full of incredible experiences. Just being here is unbelievable to me.

****I need to add more to the end, any ideas of which direction I should go? This is also 100 words short from the maximum, so I am definitely up for constructive criticism!

Scholarship / 'To grow in my spiritual strength' - BYU SHORT essay: Describe a setback [2]

Describe a setback, how've you've gained or become stronger from it (paraphrase due to lack of time)
Please keep in mind that BYU is a religious institute. THANK YOU.

Thinking back to the fall of my freshman year of high school, I don't think I knew the potential I had to grow in my spiritual strength. Many things have brought me to the state I am now, different friends, several different schools, and altogether new experiences.

Later, in the winter of that year, my good friend Noah died. I was sitting in seminary when I recieved the phone call from his sister. The instant I picked up the phone, I started crying. The sound of her voice explained all.

See, Noah wasn't just some average teenager. Throughout his life, doctors had told him he couldn't participate in games like the other children, his heart was too weak. When I met him, I would have never known. Noah played every sport he could and he never stopped to try and play it "safe". I think he knew more about his role in life than I could have imagined.

The weeks following Noah's death are difficult to describe. It seemed as if the whole school was in limbo, that with this one empty space we all couldn't balance.

The defining moment for me in this experience was directly after the funeral. In our time of comforting each other, I caught a phrase in which the bishop said "...he's where he is needed, where he is called." Noah was meant to die? He wasn's supposed to be here, enjoying life? He died for a purpose? And then it clicked. I had always heard growing up that there is a greater picture, that we may not know our purpose until we have fulfilled it. Noah was meant to serve us and others in heaven. Now I am trying to do my best, so that I can live up to my purpose like my dear friend Noah.

-----This is my second try at this, the first one described more but was over 400 words. This one is 303 words. UGH. Help! Am I going in the right direction?

-------My father also corrected it and said I should shoot more in a more general direction...Is there a way I can combine these gracefully?

A particular setback that I can recall had to do with the death of one of my good friends during my freshman year. I was sitting in seminary when the call came from his sister saying he had passed away.

The weeks following Noah's death were difficult. The whole school was in limbo...that with this one empty space we all couldn't balance. The defining moment for me was directly after the funeral. I caught a phrase in which the bishop said "...he's where he is needed, where he is called." Noah was meant to die? He wasn't supposed to be here, enjoying life? He died for a purpose? Then it clicked. I had always heard that there is a greater picture, that we may not know our purpose until we have fulfilled it. Noah was meant to serve us and others in heaven.

I have learned to place trust where trust belongs. It belongs to a Heavenly Father who is the only one with all the answers. I have learned that some days that trust is all there will be. Like Noah, I just need to focus on the Lord and do all I can to serve those around me.