Undergraduate / VCU essay: "Education and Life: A Personal Statement." In this essay, discuss your educational goals [8]

the essay topic is
"Education and Life: A Personal Statement." In this essay, discuss your educational goals, including why you wish to study your chosen major.

May I ask you to check if my essay is on topic and make sense?
is it interesting or not? please tell me how i should improve it !!
this is for scholarship consideration so.. please help me !!

I was in the sixth grade when I first immigrated to the United States of America. The classroom walls were decorated in a language that was foreign to me. What I saw was completely unfamiliar to my way of life. At first, my American life was very hard because of the English language and also cultural differences with many American students. I lived in South Korea for 13 years. Therefore, the transition of cultural and social ways of life created a great impact in my life. However, my first American friend Rachel was truly helpful to me. Despite of my broken English, she understood my situation and tried to help me. That is how we began to share a friendship diary. It was not a typical diary. This was our ideal way of communication because we could not communicate to each other verbally so we used drawings. Through this, I discovered my passion in art and the American culture.

While I was living in the United States, there were times when I could not explain myself verbally to others. For instance, Rachel and I were talking about what we ate for New Years, and I did not know how to explain "Kimchi", a Korean traditional food. So I illustrated the picture of it. Although Rachel did not know the word "Kimchi," she had a visual understanding of what "Kimchi" was. It gave me hope to know that I could communicate with others by simply drawing pictures. I realized that art is a universal language and that gave me confidence that I could accomplish anything in life.

It was not long ago that I made the decision of pursuing my future in art. I never noticed my passion for art until I realized that I never became sick of it. My hard work and passion paid off when I received a Gold Key and American Vision Award in the Regional Scholastic Art and Writing contest for my double self-portrait drawing, Inner Outer, last year. Later during the same year, I was also nominated for the American Vision Award in the National Scholastic Art and Writing contest for the same piece. This year, I was selected as Artist of the Month in school for my life size sculpture, a cellist that was made out of packing tape and a cello made out of plaster. The majority of my artwork holds the theme of identity issues: the clash between the American and Korean cultures. For an example, for my double portrait, Inner Outer, I illustrated myself through cultural and personal matters. In cultural matters, one side of the piece shows me making an effort to communicate and listen to others, while the other side contradicts that. In personal matters, one side shows masculinity and the other shows femininity. Although I am a tomboy, I still carry the feminine side of emotions.

Due to my passion and enthusiasm in art, I wanted to expose myself and experience all different branches of art, such as: photography, film, fine art, design, architecture, sculpture, fashion and other. There is a limit to learning in high school, however, VCU provides a great art foundation classes for freshmen students to allow them selves to learn all kind of fields in art, like drawing, 2D, and 3D, and then allows the students to finalized their major in the sophomore year.

When I emigrated from South Korea, I had a difficult time communicating with others, so art provided a way for me to "speak" with others. When I came to the United States, I barely knew English; I could not talk with other people, even though I wanted to. However, I was able to use my art skills as a means of communication. My goal is to overcome the barrier between two culture and language by art. I believe that attending VCU Arts, I will be able to achieve that goal.