jackiegirl33
Nov 29, 2012
Undergraduate / 'Playground, board games, unique family' - UC College Application Essay #1 [5]
This is a first draft of my essay, and the UC application is due on the 30th. I know I'm behind, but I hadn't been planning on applying to UC until yesterday when I talked with an alumni. Please edit my essay, and don't be afraid to be brutal about it! I want my essay to be as close to perfect as I can possibly get it! My essay is currently at 503 words, and both essays combined cannot go over 1000 words. My other essay has 495 words at the moment, so there's not much room for additional detail unless a lot is removed elsewhere.
Describe the world you come from - for example, your family, community or school - and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.
Swinging and twirling on the playground, running beside my childhood friends, and playing board games at daycare. This was my childhood. All of my adolescent memories are at daycare. My parents were both pharmacists working constantly to support the family; and my dad was in training for the military. My sister and I spent our time at the child care center before school, after school, and during the summer. To this day, I could walk blindfolded throughout the nursery, the school, and the church that made up my childhood. I remember each classroom, each teacher, each fieldtrip, and even the days when the high school was being established.
My family is profoundly unlike the typical household that recounts their day to each other; instead our lives are significantly independent from the other, while still sharing a sense of closeness when together. Dinner often went by silently, and even as children, my sister and I sensed when to be quiet and out of trouble. Occasionally they would talk to us about our school work, and stressed the importance of our academics. I grew to be very independent and savored my alone time. Family vacations were Disney cruise ships to the Caribbean, and as we grew older our vacations branched out to Italy, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, and more. These vacations were meant to show us history, teach us why academics are important, and to appreciate the life we live. These travels developed my interest in history, and cultivated my need to travel and experience diverse cultures.
With both my parents being pharmacists, it seems almost expected that my first job would be within a pharmacy. I was 15 when I first worked at CHS Pharmacy over the summer. An experience that amazed me and that sparked my interest in the medical field. It was my job to clear the shelves of all expired prescriptions, catalog customer bill statements, and organize the shelves. Also assisting with packaging shipments that would be sent out to nursing homes, I played a helping hand throughout the long-term care pharmacy. My first experience of pharmaceuticals left me captivated with the precision, and the methodical procedures. I was determined to follow my parents' footsteps and enter the medical field. The following year, I received my pharmacist assistant license, returning to CHS able to pack medications and fill a patient's prescription, reinforcing my desire to enter the medical field.
It wasn't until high school that I started to truly appreciate all the traveling, and all the academic pushing. I was able to really see the world around me; I watched the struggle with grades, the attempts to step out of a parent's overprotective umbrella, and observed those who couldn't survive without their parents telling them exactly what to do. It made me appreciate that I was independent, and that my parents prepared me for life, to be able to leave the nest and fly. My family and community have enabled me to play in the biggest playground on earth: life.
This is a first draft of my essay, and the UC application is due on the 30th. I know I'm behind, but I hadn't been planning on applying to UC until yesterday when I talked with an alumni. Please edit my essay, and don't be afraid to be brutal about it! I want my essay to be as close to perfect as I can possibly get it! My essay is currently at 503 words, and both essays combined cannot go over 1000 words. My other essay has 495 words at the moment, so there's not much room for additional detail unless a lot is removed elsewhere.
Describe the world you come from - for example, your family, community or school - and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.
Swinging and twirling on the playground, running beside my childhood friends, and playing board games at daycare. This was my childhood. All of my adolescent memories are at daycare. My parents were both pharmacists working constantly to support the family; and my dad was in training for the military. My sister and I spent our time at the child care center before school, after school, and during the summer. To this day, I could walk blindfolded throughout the nursery, the school, and the church that made up my childhood. I remember each classroom, each teacher, each fieldtrip, and even the days when the high school was being established.
My family is profoundly unlike the typical household that recounts their day to each other; instead our lives are significantly independent from the other, while still sharing a sense of closeness when together. Dinner often went by silently, and even as children, my sister and I sensed when to be quiet and out of trouble. Occasionally they would talk to us about our school work, and stressed the importance of our academics. I grew to be very independent and savored my alone time. Family vacations were Disney cruise ships to the Caribbean, and as we grew older our vacations branched out to Italy, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, and more. These vacations were meant to show us history, teach us why academics are important, and to appreciate the life we live. These travels developed my interest in history, and cultivated my need to travel and experience diverse cultures.
With both my parents being pharmacists, it seems almost expected that my first job would be within a pharmacy. I was 15 when I first worked at CHS Pharmacy over the summer. An experience that amazed me and that sparked my interest in the medical field. It was my job to clear the shelves of all expired prescriptions, catalog customer bill statements, and organize the shelves. Also assisting with packaging shipments that would be sent out to nursing homes, I played a helping hand throughout the long-term care pharmacy. My first experience of pharmaceuticals left me captivated with the precision, and the methodical procedures. I was determined to follow my parents' footsteps and enter the medical field. The following year, I received my pharmacist assistant license, returning to CHS able to pack medications and fill a patient's prescription, reinforcing my desire to enter the medical field.
It wasn't until high school that I started to truly appreciate all the traveling, and all the academic pushing. I was able to really see the world around me; I watched the struggle with grades, the attempts to step out of a parent's overprotective umbrella, and observed those who couldn't survive without their parents telling them exactly what to do. It made me appreciate that I was independent, and that my parents prepared me for life, to be able to leave the nest and fly. My family and community have enabled me to play in the biggest playground on earth: life.
