Undergraduate / Describing my future project; 'to end and satisfy the hunger for money and food' [2]

prompt: The iSchool recognizes leadership, innovation, and diversity as especially significant and critical for graduates entering the field. Describe a single project you have worked on or would like to work on that exemplifies one of these values. The project might be a class assignment, a job responsibility, a hobby, or other extracurricular activities. (500 words or a 90 sec video)

My essay: Immediately after picking up my friend, Henry, from a weeklong term in jail in the South Seattle area, he had tears in his eyes when he first sat in my car.

"Freedom." He said calmly, as tears ran down his face along with the tiniest and most awkward smirk I've ever seen him give. A moment of silence followed.

He then broke the silence by choking up more words: "All that hood shit, like stealing, robbing, mugging, fighting... it don't get you anywhere but closer to becoming an animal trapped in a cage. I don't want to live like this anymore, why do I got to live like this?" I have never seen him cry harder in my life than this moment of his emotional redemption. I didn't know what to do or how to respond but kept thinking of a soothing way to relieve his damaged ego. Long silence followed again; no more words were spoken but the uncomfortable sounds of his sobbing and sniffing for the rest of the drive to his house.

His thrilling words resonated in my mind, making me contemplate about his life in my point of view as a long time friend. While growing up on Beacon Hill in South Seattle, police and ambulance sirens were the music of melancholy for us; there was always trouble in the concrete jungle during day and night. In a community full of poor and hard working families, I would always hear about many of my teenage friends going in and out of jail for stealing cars, major drug dealing, mugging innocent people, fighting, and possession of lethal weapons. Unfortunately, partially influenced by the peer pressure of gang members that surrounded him, Henry was seduced into his own greed and selfishness. He would rob and steal from stores because he couldn't afford to pay for such items and wanted to gain high reputation for the gang members that surrounded him.

After his arrest, I contemplated about the art of street life in my community: An appetite for true happiness within a realm of poverty can really change a person's perception on reality, that people will do anything, to win the fight for survival. After observing many of my troubled friends, I learn that with every great mission comes with great risks. My observations in my community brought me vast motivation to accomplish a mental project for my future that many people say that's impossible: to end and satisfy the hunger for money and food in all communities of the world, where everyone is happy and secure with themselves and each other. Moreover, I plan on learning what and how technology can make society and the world a better place. As a warrior for social justice, equality, and world happiness, I will face the risk in sacrificing everything I have in order to make everyone happy with the sword of my knowledge and voice, because I believe that I will never know true happiness unless I give to the world.

Undergraduate / 'fear and paranoia had closed my lips' - USC, personal statement [3]

USC personal statement prompt:

In approximately one paragraph (given 3500 characters), please address the following prompt:

Describe your academic interests and how you plan to pursue them at USC. Please feel free to address your first- and second-choice major selections.

My eyes were wide open, fear and paranoia had closed my lips, and my body was sweating fumes that lured life robbers to my helpless soul as I walk through my community, South Seattle, Washington. My broken and crude sword of my mouth has made me weak, thus being preyed on by the powerful men in power, like the police department. From growing up in my neighborhood, I learned that the sidewalks of my city are more than just regular cement; they are a part of history, a foundation of capricious battlegrounds and revolutions. I grew up with police sirens as my music, and been mugged for my weary belongings as a norm in my community. However, there was one scene that I have witnessed that seemed to spark my passion; to be a lawyer for social righteousness. A couple of years ago, I saw a police officer manhandle, and punch a young woman in the face as a punishment for jaywalking, right next to my high school. I conformed to the crowd, silenced by the vicious and malignant actions of the police officer. Because of this and many other situations of excessive force, the Seattle police department is being investigated by the Justice department. But as I contemplated the punch and mistreatment enforced by the officer, I suddenly learned that silence is worse than all the violence; fear is an undesirable pestilent that controls our mind to be weak. This new intellect had sharpened the blade of my mouth; I dreamed that I stood up and slashed the officer's excessive force with my sharp speeches, and stopped his brutality. But as a novice in the art of assertive communication and voice needed for a lawyer, I hopefully will learn how to wield the sword of my mouth to fight for social justice - and the battle zones of my community, at the University of Southern California.

Undergraduate / 'propaganda on the Japanese culture' Stanford Supplement (intellectual vitality) [5]

Prompt: Stanford students possess an intellectual vitality. Reflect on an idea or experience that has been important to your intellectual development.

My essay is exactly 2000 characters, which is the max limit.

Please leave any critical comments or corrections. Thank you for your time, and Happy Holidays!

Essay:

Baptized under my grandma's propaganda on the Japanese culture of how hateful they were, I grew up thinking that I would never forgive any human of the Japanese blood. During the Japanese invasion in China around the time of World War II, my grandma's childhood was taken away; she saw the eye of death down the barrel of a rifle from a Japanese soldier, forcing her to give all her belongings of weariness as a token to live. I was convinced that the Japanese were apathetic people.

Desperate for community service hours, I was offered a volunteer spot by my friend, at a place I was unfamiliar of, called the "Nisei Veterans Center." As I entered this center, I realized that it was a Japanese veteran memorial hall of world war two. There were Japanese veterans that were looked up as heroes by assistants, while I thought of them as enemies who contributed to my grandma's oblivion. I stood in awe and melancholy, until a Japanese veteran came up to me, and asked "Hi, you look bored, want to see some World War II guns?" I instantly responded "Sure!" I entered a new realm full of real guns used in the war, and the Japanese veteran picked up a Thompson rifle, and said "I was a young Japanese soldier who had to be deployed to Japan and fight against my own blood raced people. But I guess I rather fight than to stay in that horrifying nasty internment camp, where I had nothing except my family (he sighed and paused). It seemed as when every bullet shot out, a tear came out of my eyes. I was also in a battle in my mind, whether to betray my American allies, or to betray my Japanese culture (he looked as if he was about to cry)."

His words changed my perception on the Japanese; I became unbaptized from my grandma's words. This Japanese man fought for the soil I live on, America, against his own kind, even knowing that the Americans tossed his life behind bars. In consolation, I put my hand on my head, and saluted him. I then gave him a handshake, and stated "You are a heroic man."

Undergraduate / 'the Justice department' - Stanford Supplement - What matters to you, and why? [7]

My essay is about 50 characters over the limit (2000 character max limit).

Any critical feedback will be HELPFUL!

Thanks, and happy holidays!

Prompt: What matters to you? And Why?

What matters to you? Why?
From walking through South Seattle, I learned that the sidewalks of my city are more than just regular cement; they are a part of history, a foundation of capricious battlegrounds and revolutions. I grew up with police sirens as my music, seen many fights, and been mugged for my weary belongings. As I walk through the night alone in my community, I feel scared, that the darkness would swallow me, and I would be scarred with fear and paranoia. All my life, I have been looking for a positive change; to live with purity and safety. I have always neglected the violence and brutality in my surroundings whenever I walk through my community, not saying one word to even try to stop it. However, these haunting resonations had fueled me for my new inspiration, a new mission that I want nothing more to be accomplished: social justice.

For years as I walked through this battle zone full of excessive violence forced upon by police officers, social equality has always been a question that lingers in my mind. After witnessing a police officer punching a woman in the face for jaywalking, or after watching on TV that a police officer beat and stomped on a Mexican man, and yelled "I'll beat the Mexican piss out of you!" because the police officer thought that the man was a suspect, but was innocent, made me contemplate and ask another question in my mind, "Has the mission that mattered to me now not a mission for all?"

As the Justice department is investigating the Seattle Police Department for excessive violence and abuse to the minority and poverty, I ask myself, where was I in these situations? I was just a silent cowardly young boy, letting the violent pestilence take over my community; I now realized that silence is worse than all the violence. My dream now is to become a warrior for justice; a civil vigilante of social equality. Hopefully at Stanford University, I will learn how to wield the sword of my mouth to fight the power for social justice; that I will become the warrior David, and the powerful hierarchy as Goliath.

Undergraduate / 'we could name ourselves a new rap group' - Stanford your future roommate [6]

Stanford supplement prompt- note to your future roommate.

To my future roommate,
As you search for our room that destined us together, you will hear loud music and lyrical rhythms spill out into the hall. The notes of the songs will wrap your hips and sway them, putting your mind in an ecstatic musical sensation. Your feet will follow the music, kicking our dorm door, begging for more. Once I open the door, you will enter not just an ordinary dorm, but another dimension; a new world full of underground hip hop, living the experiences and adversity of rappers and historical figures expressed through rap. As you embrace and settle into this new universe full of this new musical genre, the mainstream media will hopefully not invade our 'earth,' as they are poisonous to our culture in this new 'home'.

Before I was exposed to underground hip hop, the venomous fangs of mainstream media had injected me with their poison of music, infecting my mind and soul that life was all about 'living the Scarface fantasy,' or 'the Wiz Khalifa dream.' Women, money, and partying were my conviction; my poison was spreading throughout my body, making me into a mental slave to the media. But one day in school, my U.S. History teacher had played a song called 'Freedom of Speech' by Immortal Technique to my class. The millions of lyrical bullets hit me, breaking my chains of my mental slavery, and I was reborn into a new fanatic of underground hip hop; born into a new universe of a different cultural music.

I then looked deeper into Immortal Technique and other underground hip hop artists, and fell in love with this genre. My poison was cured, and I was less ignorant about the mainstream media, that they are a bunch of sheep, told what to do by their shepherd: the music industry. My mind was then saved.

And so to you, I hope you will enjoy underground hip hop just as much as I do. I guarantee you will learn new facts and literature once you listen to this music. Together, we could name ourselves a new rap group, and pretend to rap like the Wu-Tang clan, or Jedi Mind Tricks.