Scholarship / What do clowns, airplanes, and insects have in common? -- Questbridge Biographical Essay [6]

We are interested in learning more about you and the context in which you have grown up, formed your aspirations, and accomplished your academic successes.

Please describe the factors and challenges that have most shaped your personal life and aspirations.

How have these factors helped you to grow?800 limit

Clowns, airplanes, the dark, medicine, insects in general, and of course an angry mother. These are well justified fears of our years as children. And although my list of fears was similar to kid next to me, there was always one thing I had that no one else seemed to have, moving.

Moving had been a huge part of my life. Moving to me had always been the scary circus clown or an angry mother yelling at you to get your homework done. I had always been jealous of those who said, "I've lived here my whole life." With an incredulous voice, my response would always be, "That kind of luxury exists," because with each move, I felt myself becoming more and more of a recluse. It was not meeting new people that frightened me so much but rather the bullying that would come with it.

My first major move was in the summer going into the second grade. I am a Korean-American and the majority of places that my family had moved to were to places where the only Asian people in a hundred mile radius were my family. Needless to say, the schools very rarely had Asian kids and most of the time I was the first to be. I distinctly remember walking into the classroom on the first day of school and seeing my future classmates fixate their eyes onto me. Imagine a deer walking into a lion's den and that was how I felt. Walking out to recess, I was greeted with snickering and chuckling as my classmates called me "Chinese" and asked why my eyes were not normal. In the second grade, I was so ignorant that I did not even know I was Asian. I did not see myself differently and the color of skin was so inconsequential that I did not even consider it when I met someone new. It never occurred to me that my eyes were a different shape. It was during the second grade that my proclivity for being a recluse truly manifested. And of course, it was time to move.

This next move was the most heart wrenching yet most significant move. Going into school on the first day of sixth grade, I knew what to expect. "Ching chang chong" would be chanted into my face while people would ask me if I could see out of my eyes while simultaneously pulling the sides of their own eyes to mimic my "chink eyes" as they would phrase it. My expectations were paid in full as the first two weeks of school went like this and it was during these times that I would default to my recluse habit of simply not talking. Although this move was the most distraught for me, it was this move that brought out the best in me. My father informed me that we were not going to move until I graduated from high school. This was rather unexpected because I had expected to move by the ninth grade. But because my father informed me that we were not going to be moving anymore, I knew I had to change.

Going into middle school, I was nothing more than a gaunt, self-conscious, 5 foot little boy. I had no way to express myself because I had spent my life this far hiding myself from everyone. I knew I needed friends but I did not know how to make any. So I joined many school clubs and sports in the hopes to gain new friends. All the while, I tried to stop being so anxious and scared of new opportunities. I simply wanted to enjoy school and myself without restrictions from fear of bullying. And although my situation was better, I felt as if I were being ignored, as if I were a transparent piece of plastic and people could see right through me and I grew complacent, but I was not satisfied. I wanted to pervade into people's lives and become so consequential that people would have to recognize me. So, I became the president of National Junior Honors Society. I was awarded student of the year in just one short year. I am now a leader on my high school's varsity soccer team and an instructor at my Tang Soo Do studio. I worked so hard to be someone I would be proud of and now I stand here with my head held high and proud of who I am and who I have become.

I used to resent all the moves we made, but I learned many things from them. I learned the value of friendship and that hard work will not go unnoticed. I am thankful for the moves because through them I became bolder and more confident; I have found myself.

This is for Questbridge. I took an old essay and modified it since it was the same prompt. Please read this and critique this please!! Point out what I can change, either to improve the overall essay or a simple grammar mistake..