Undergraduate / NYU Personal Essay -Person with significant influence; Mother -she is stronger than anyone [5]

Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence.

My parents left China to come to the United States several years before I was born to create a better life for their future children. Being a first generation Chinese-American, I have many family members who reside in China and Hong Kong. In the summer of 2010, my parents saved up enough money to let my brother and and myself travel to China by ourselves. We were to live with my mother's family in China for almost two months. Being as immature as I was, I didn't appreciate the time away from my friends for the summer. However I am forever thankful now to have gone on that trip. It made allowed me to realize how much my mother has sacrificed for my brother and me.

When I arrived in China, I was immediately homesick. The weather was sticky and hot unlike my home city's "perfect weather" in San Diego, California. I wasn't prepared for the culture shock either. My grandfather knew that my brother and I were uncomfortable and made an effort to make us feel at home. He took time out of his day to take us out to explore the town. We went to the rural area where my mom and her siblings grew up. I never realized until that moment how many luxuries I considered standard.

I always knew my mother missed her family in China. She had only visited her homeland once since she moved to the United States. She was unable to travel with my brother and me due to the fact that she still had to support our family here. My grandparents had health problems and my mother would check up on them by calling regularly. My mother would try to help by sending painkillers overseas. When all of that wasn't working, she urged my grandparents and her brother and sister to apply for visas to come to the United States. She wanted them to have a better life and be able to find the right medical treatments. She couldn't do anything for them because a plane ticket was not an option for her. I desperately wanted my family in China to come to America to make everyone happy but I wasn't able to make a difference.

A week before school started, my mother got a call around midnight. It was my uncle. Hearing my mother on the phone, I knew it was bad news. She told me that my grandfather passed away from a heart attack. Someone that I had seen only a week before was no longer here. It felt surreal to me and I cried with my mom into the early morning.

Going to China and visiting my mother's family made me realize how much my mother has done to give me a better life. She moved away from her family to a whole different country. She didn't speak the language and only made it through using connections from old friends who had moved to the United States before her. She devoted everything for her future children and now that I have realized this, I wouldn't be the same person without her. She is stronger than anyone I know. She motivates me to do well in school and allows me to strive to be able to be as good of a person as her. In the future, I want to be able to do what she has done for my brother and me. I want to be successful to be able to provide her what she didn't have back in China and allow her to enjoy life without any stresses.

Undergraduate / Experience essey - U Wash Appl; my parents restaurant/ involvement with volunteering [3]

[b]Directions: Choose one of the following two topics and write a short essay. (Recommended length: 250 - 500 words)

When I was young, my parents were not always the most generous to those in need. Whenever we passed by a homeless person, we would almost never acknowledge them, acting as if they were invisible. They believed that everyone should have to work for money, not beg. Deriving from my Chinese parent's point of view, I had the stigma that homeless people were always crazy and lazy and I should not mingle with them. However, when my parents started up their own restaurant, there was someone we encountered every few weeks. He was a homeless man who carried around a towel attached to a large pole and a bucket of water. He came into the restaurant one day and asked if he could wash our windows in exchange for food. My parents decided to give him a chance, seeing that he was trying to benefit his quality of life by working. Once he was done, my parents were surprised by his work and praised him. The reaction on the man's face was full of gratitude.The homeless man came back every few months to clean our windows, always expressing appreciation, until the day my parents closed down their restaurant. Since the first day the man came into my parents' restaurant and seeing how much of a difference my parents made in his life, I was inspired to help those in need.

In high school, I am involved in a service club called Key Club, for which I am the current president. I strive to help others, even those who just need a few hands to help. I am inspired to give back to the community by volunteering at community organized festivals and fairs, the local library, and the Ronald McDonald House. Being in an environment where everyone is there to help people who are going through tougher times made me believe in the goodness of society. I embraced the Westernized view of putting time out of my day to help others. The experience in my parents' restaurant and my involvement with volunteering has shaped who I want to be in the future. I know that through helping others, I have the ability to make a difference in someone's life.