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Impact Latino heritage,family&community on desire to obtain degree&how I will give back to community



jrojas21 1 / 6  
May 30, 2016   #1
My parents always emphasized the importance of working hard for your dreams. After I graduated high school, I knew college would be a difficult path to follow because of my family's economic situation. Yet, I did not shy away from my only job opportunity, even if it meant working as a nightshift waitress. My new schedule consisted of working at night, napping for a few short hours in the morning, and heading off to my college classes after a cold shower and hot cup of coffee. Despite the struggle, I did not give up because I grew up watching my parent's exhibit strength and hard work.

I was born in Mexico and grew up alongside my parents while they would sell fruits and vegetables at a Mexican flea market. Unfortunately, I do not remember this and only have stories told to me by my parents, because we came to the U.S when I was only 3 years old. They came to the U.S to achieve their own dreams and give us a better future. My parents went from not owning an inch of land to now being owners of a house in Mexico and a house in the U.S. They have faced discrimination but have shown me that your actions are stronger than any word someone can tell you. My dad was once welcomed at a new job with "How much for the tamales?" and some chuckles. He was made fun of for walking in with humble clothing and a less than fancy tool box. My dad ignored those individuals, worked hard, and landed the job. My dad has now been working for that company for 14 years and has shown to be the most effective car painter there. Each step I take towards obtaining my degree is an attempt to demonstrate to my parents that their hard work and strength has not gone to waste.

I always knew I wanted to obtain a college degree and thought I knew what I wanted to be. I grew up with the dream of becoming a doctor one day. However, as I became more involved with my coursework I realized what I really wanted to be was an engineer. Yet, I soon realized that before college I had never met anyone who was an engineer. While I grew up in a community that was predominately Hispanic, not once had I met a Latina or Latino who had studied engineering. Nevertheless, I decided to apply for the college of Bioengineering and was accepted. I have been through a lot of ups and downs as a bioengineering student. There have been moments where I have told myself "What did I get myself into?!" Also, having the necessity to work in order to pay for tuition has made it difficult to focus my time and energy on difficult engineering courses easier. Nevertheless, I have not given up. As a result of hard work I have been able to become involved in material science research and have recently become a published author. While I have found my way, I know it would have helped to know about engineering at a young age or even knowing another Hispanic who went through the process would have helped immensely.

As a result of personal experience, I believe that it is important for every person to have access to educational opportunities. One way I plan to give back to my community is by developing educational programs like the current ones I am involved with. For the past year I have been leading and developing a writing circle program aimed to help seniors with visual impairments develop their writing. I have also participated in educational outreach programs at a Microbiology foundation with the aim to teach science to young children, an opportunity that I would have never even known existed as a child. One of my current goals is to start a tech workshop for young students aimed at teaching code and engineering principles, since I have yet to see a program like this be offered in my community. Programs like this would benefit the Hispanic community I am part of and even if not every student goes into engineering, at least each young student would have the same access to knowledge that other affluent communities have.

I am proud to be part of the Latino community and seeing many individuals overcome adversity have reminded me of how a challenge only defeats us when we decide to stop working against the challenge. Even though I am not in Mexico, I have not forgotten my Latino heritage and hope that with my actions can inspire future generations through the same characteristics of strength and hardwork that my parents have shown me.

ichanpants89 16 / 742  
May 30, 2016   #2
Hi Jaqueline, welcome to EssayForum :) I hope you find this website is useful towards your development in writing an essay. Thus, you are suggested to give thoughtful feedback to other members in this forum. I am sure that by giving sincere and meaningful feedback, you are able to enhance your writing skill, especially in composing an essay.

With regards to your essay, I would like to point out several modifications that you need to make in order to strengthen the ideas, especially in grammatical and punctuation parts. But, before that, I think that for next time, it is suggested to you to separate each paragraph by using '1 enter'. This will ease us in checking your essay, I hope you can follow through. Moreover, you can see the descriptions of your grammatical and punctuation remarks that I have created below.

1st paragraph:
- My parents always emphasizedemphasize the importance of working hard for your dreams. (if it is a lifetime advice, I think that it is unnecessary to make it in past form)

- After I graduated from high school, I knew college would be a difficult path to follow because of my family's economic situationcondition . (I think that economic/financial is usually related to condition, not a situation)

- YetHowever(avoid using coordinating conjunction (for, and, but, or, yet, so) this makes your essay become less formal) , I did not shy away from my only job opportunitymy job is not a shame thing to do , even if it meantmeans working as a night-shift waitress. (you were describing a fact, no need to shift all of them into a past form)

- My new schedule consisted of working at night, napping for a few short(redundant, few hours is already short) hours in the morning, and heading off to my college classes after a cold shower and a hot cup of coffee. ('new', but your tense was 'past'. why?)

My suggestion is that an introduction paragraph should be created as flawless as possible. This is related to a first impression of the reader. If your introduction paragraph has minor flaws, clear, and interesting story, it will be a plus point for you. In addition, time signal, it is really crucial, you need to mention clearly the year perhaps, for at least once. This is to ease the reader the imaginary situation about your life in the past. Blur time signal is not recommended at all.

Concerning your content, it was a really inspiring story. You were also able to answer the prompt properly. Perhaps, what you need to do is proofread and have some revisions about word limits. I have no idea what is the word limitations, but I think some unnecessary details should not be appeared there. I think that the second and the third paragraph can be summarized and combined together as a paragraph.
OP jrojas21 1 / 6  
May 30, 2016   #3
Dear @ichanpants89 thank you for your constructive feedback and I am definitely finding this website as a very helpful resource since I do not have many people I can ask to read my essays. I agree and will work on improving my introduction especially because it for a competitive scholarship. Your feedback had allowed me to look at my writing from a different perspective.
justivy03 - / 2265  
May 30, 2016   #4
Hi Jaqueline, indeed WELCOME to the Essay Forum Family.
May we be able to help you with any of your writing projects.

Now, as I read you scholarship essay, I suggest that you turn away from the lengthy elaboration of your personal life, I'm not saying that you delete the entire part but just minimize it, make it seem like a short but meaningful part of your life and then focus on the academic journey that will be the highlight of your essay.

Remember this essay is for you to prove your academic capabilities and to showcase what else can you contribute to the academe and this will definitely matter in your application, hopefully it will be the key to your application success.

I hope this insights helped and I wish to review more of your essays soon.
OP jrojas21 1 / 6  
May 30, 2016   #5
@justivy03 Thanks! your feedback will be greatly helpful in rewriting another draft.
justivy03 - / 2265  
May 31, 2016   #6
HI Jaqueline, thank you for appreciating our work here on EF.
I hope you keep on writing, as you mentioned, you will be writing another draft, this is a good way to practice writing and will definitely help you in getting better if not the best at this craft.

Now while you're at it, I would like to remind you of the following English writing must do's;

- know your topic, make sure that you understand what is asked of the topic or the prompt you are answering, because of course, if you don't understand the topic, you will not be able to come up with a well written essay.

- mind the minor details such as the punctuation marks, the spaces and paragraph presentation. Treat each and every writing project as though it is already for final submission, this way you will get the habit of submitting a well written article each and every time.

Last but not the least, review the English Language rules all the time and whenever you can, read, this will help increase your vocabulary, this is also the way to sharpen your memory on which set of words to include in a particular essay.
OP jrojas21 1 / 6  
Jun 1, 2016   #7
Thanks @justivy03


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