Undergraduate /
UC prompt #2 - my academic experience [4]
Applying UCLA, moved to U.S 4years ago, majoring in art. Thank you!
Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?
"But you don't understand!" Michelle groaned in exasperation, turning nearly crimson. "I really tried, but I guess I'm just not good at Korean. I mean, I literally spent hours trying to figure the verbs out, but I..." she sighed. "Just can't do it. You really can't understand; it's so hard for me."
I paused. Don't understand? Me? I asked myself; just how many times did I repeat those phrases-"I can't do it; I'm bad at this"-during my first few months in the U.S.? Having studied English for a few years in Korea, I was absolutely content with my basic understanding of the language until my family had to move to the U.S from financial troubles. And after my first week at the Pacific Lutheran High School, of which halls and classrooms contained not a single Korean soul, I was daunted to say the least. I remember my pitiful attempts at completing homework assignments, trying to understand the directions with a pen in one hand and an electronic dictionary in the other. Although I knew that learning English would be an enormous task, I was hopelessly lost. Since I had no idea what the directions said in the first place, I spent numerous nights repeatedly punching in letters into the dictionary and making flash cards of the words. Yet, despite my efforts, my analysis about Huckleberry Finn written in Korean and then translated into English not only sounded awkward but also was full of errors.
My academics wasn't the only thing that suffered from immigration; my social life ceased to exist from the lack of communication, and I was often left alone in the biology class during lunchtime. And day after day, I came to school to face others' teasing and dragged my tired body home for another pile of assignments and a whole lot of dictionary goodness. I wanted to give up, call it quits and return to Korea, where I was perfectly content with speaking the language I first learned.
However, as time went by, I began to actually remember some words that I previously searched for. My English still wasn't perfect, freckled with glitches and misused idioms, but it definitely improved. And after a while, I was fluent in English and Korean, which led me to TA at my church's Korean school, where I tutored many elementary school students, including Michelle.
And now watching Michelle take leaps and bounds from when she was struggling with the alphabet and teach Korean to other kids makes me wonder what I would have become without the experience of living in a whole new environment and learning a new language. Only through exposure struggles that accompanied the first few months at the school, I could have learned to be fearless in whatever I try. Instead of shutting off myself from others' criticism or fearing failure, I made a decision to stay in the school and challenge myself. And the experience taught me how to find true happiness, not lazy contentment. Exposure to pain and adversity, in turn, helped me appreciate life.
