Undergraduate / I was enrolled in cyber school; STUDY IN JAPAN/ Adaptive person [3]

prompt: in what way do you feel you are an adaptive person. ?

Sometime in the sixth grade me and my family started traveling more. Although it was a great opportunity for me and my family, it wasn't so convenient for me and my schooling. There was no way I could miss weeks of school at a time nor would my parents leave me home alone for that long. I needed a way to go to school and travel. Luckily living in the twenty-first century has it's advantages. I was enrolled in cyber school. It was a accredited public school, with a curriculum, teachers and I could access it anywhere. Finding this truly unique program, Even though it was different from what I was use to allowed me to keep up with my work while traveling the country and the world.

One of the places I went during this time was Bermuda, I was in ninth grade and it was my first time being on an island though Bermuda is not the most exotic island in the world. Me and my family were very shocked to find how expensive the food was. As with most islands food has to be imported and therefore is expensive. since Bermuda doesn't make a lot of it's own goods most food is imported. We were only staying there a week we figured four-hundred dollars for food would be enough. We were wrong. After three days we were down to sixty dollars with 4 days remaining. Since we were in a very touristy part of the city I decided to talk to people on the island. I figured the people who live here couldn't be paying that much for something as basic as food. My search lead me to the conclusion that almost everyone cooks their food and rarely goes out, so I asked where is the closest grocery store and walked to it. Once there I bought lunch meat and bread and went back to the hotel. we had sandwiches for the next three days. The last day we had dinner at a ladies house who was very friendly and probably felt sorry for us eating sandwiches every night.

Through all the travel, I was still able to keep my grades up. Once I graduated high school I decided it was time for a change. I was raised in a small town, So I knew I wanted to go to college in a big city as opposed to a traditional suburban campus. My first thought was New York City. I applied and Thanks to cyber school, I got accepted. New York City was my first real experience living alone, and also living in a big city. The busyness of the city, Hoping on and off trains, the crazy crowds. The whole mentality was a huge change for me, a change that I welcomed. It was a different atmosphere from the place I was raised in, but after a couple weeks I didn't only adapt to city life, I thrived.

Undergraduate / "Why haven't we gone to Japan?"; ADMISSIONS PAPER FOR STUDY ABROAD IN JAPAN. [3]

In life we run into many people and we hear them say things like "I'd love to go ..." or "I would love to be a ....". However, how many of them actually do that thing? The truth is people want to do things but they rarely follow through with them. I am not Judging these people, what I am saying is that it seems like people give up on things they want to do most because they don't see a feasible way to achieve them.

Which brings me to Tokyo. Me and my family traveled many places but we've never gone to Japan. Growing up I didn't question it but one day I thought "Why haven't we gone to Japan?" I knew wanted to go somewhere that would challenge me to adapt to a new way of life. Also being a marketing major, I love advertising. That's one reason Tokyo is so amazing. Like New York City and cities like it around the world, the advertising sets it apart. When a person thinks of Time Square they think of the lights, but what's creating those lights, advertisements. I plan to be apart of that in the entertainment world, promoting films. Having the most unique advertisements in the world,Tokyo is great for this. I believe being a part of that or just getting to see it first hand is a great opportunity. This would give me something that other people don't have, real world experience and that can never be taught in books.

I talked to my family about going to Japan, they said "Its too expensive!". Not being deterred, I spoke to a friend about this. What was said changed my life: "Japan?, you can't go to Japan. First, you're black and second you can't speak Japanese!" To this I simply said "Watch me". From that point on I was determined to go and wasn't going quit. People go to japan and learn Japanese everyday what made me incapable of doing the same certainly not the color of my skin.

My academic adviser told me about Temple University study abroad and the more research I did the more I liked the school. TUJ had a really interesting international marketing course along with some amazing internships.Particularly AOI. It was the first time I finally saw a feasible way to achieve my goal. That's when I decided The next two years were going to be spent doing everything I could to get into the program. My first step was to see if my school had any Japanese courses, unfortunately they did not. Therefore, I joined numerous language exchange programs, making several Japanese friends along the way who helped me with Japanese as I helped them with English. I bought Rosetta stone and taught myself Katakana, hiragana and kanji. I did everything that I could to get into the program & to master the language. Some would say it was my dream but I'd say it was my goal.