Undergraduate / "a diverse community" umich supplement #1 [4]

so here's the prompt
Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it.

and my essay

U Mich essay #1
"Diversity" is a common word around my house. Born in India, within a Hindu community, and raised in the UAE, within an Arab community, I have been exposed to diversity my entire life. My life ranges from Indian spices to desert dates, from Madhubani folk art to Bedouin camel paintings of nomads and from Indian breads to Arab chicken shawermas.

Children in my community back in India are not brought up much differently than I have been brought up in the UAE. I have always been fascinated by my centuries old hindu culture, but the traditional life of a nomad in the desert amazes me no less. I believe that I come from a mix of communities, both Indian and Arab. If I was brought up in India, I would be no less exposed to my culture than I am now. Here at home, we follow the same traditional values, speak Hindi and eat Indian food every day. Being a part of two communities at the same time has somewhat become a part of my life now.

Undergraduate / U of Illinois essay! "past experiences" - for civil engg. Lego. [5]

Lego dreams

I was born in New Delhi, India, but moved to Dubai, UAE in 2001. At the age of 6, the first thing i noticed was the buildings. Visually breathtaking and structurally brilliant, they appeared to me as giant, majestic creatures, looming over, shimmering with brilliantly lit lights. From our car, I could see the streets reflections on the meticulously kept clean building panels. I went home, took out my favorite set of Lego's and started creating cities. Cities in red and blue, cities that I was proud of. My own legolands. And now, eleven years later, the awe has developed into nothing but a passion.

after the 9th grade, I was one of the few people who knew what they wanted out of life. My goal was simple - to redesign the world and to refine the everyday lives of people through infrastructure. But there was one problem. I had absolutely no idea of the job aspect of it. I did get an idea however, thanks to an experience with my uncle seeing my Lego city's, which had been carefully preserved by my mother, and him taking me to visit the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) offices in Dubai, and the Emaar construction sites, which are responsible for prestigious projects such as the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world.

A civil engineer's job isn't simple. Not only does a civil engineer govern larger than life projects, but he also becomes someone on whom a lot of people and the economy as a whole are dependent upon. This is what most people did not understand in my junior high class, and I seemed weird to them for being so passionate about something. However, I did not let that get in the way of my dream and regularly preached my fellow mates on how homes, offices, roads, buildings, everything is infrastructure and a civil engineers makes all of these things come to life.

In a way, all these little things in life helped me grow as a person. They nurtured the curious kid in me. The Lego blocks, my uncle, my visits to the construction sites, my childhood in an infrastructure oriented city like Dubai, all of these things inspired me to choose the toughest subjects in school - physics, chemistry, math-calculus, economics and advanced English.

Now, the civil engineer inside me is ready to explode out into the open. The millions of infrastructure concepts that have collected over the years in my head now require a medium to flow into reality. It's time for me to now realize my dreams and actually do what i want to do in life. The little six year old, awestruck by those majestic structures is now ready to jump out and redefine cities, lives and change the world.