This is my draft for my personal state, I really want to make it the best possible
kgsp scholarship application
My mother almost died of cancer when I was six. I had to watch her suffer and walk away from her feeling powerless and totally clueless about what I could do. This was a big shock for me that made me focus only on wondering how I could help her live a worthy life.
Back to those days, I used to visit my mother at the hospital where I had the opportunity to see chemists working. From that moment on, my interest in science began to grow. Avidly, step by step, I started focusing my time on doing research about cancer, from the very basics, until I was 12, when my research was focused on, chemotherapy, the basic foundations about how cancerous cells work, and the work done by scientists and doctors in order to help my mother get better. Since my mother could not take care of me, as much as she wanted to, I had to live far from my family; constantly going from one place to another. I never wanted to be an inconvenience to any of the people who accommodated me, so I had to learn how to develop myself into multiple environments thus becoming more independent. Being only a child and being away from my family threshold since a very young age, it's only natural that my mother was the only person I could think about. The desire of understanding her disease was my strongest motivation and it was in study and research where I felt myself home, it was only through study that I could get by myself every day.
Among every person who noticed my concerns, it was my sixth-grade teacher who saw my interest in chemistry and biology and took me to a water treatment platform so I could learn a little more about different chemical processes and purification treatments. She was also the one who gave me my first chemical equipment thanks to which, despite being basic, I started to experiment with multiple and simple reactions, like those of the sulfur dioxide, analyzing the discoloration and change of objects that I had at home. This increased my interest in chemistry even more and made me feel as if I was making progress towards a better understanding of my main goal of study.
I was managing to feel comfortable with my daily routine, until my life had another twist when my parents divorced due to domestic violence from my father. I was only 13 at the time and I haven't known much about him ever since. It was a big letdown for me, but I didn't let it distract me from my goals. After their
separation I began volunteering in local activities and focused myself on getting more opportunities to participate in events or competitions. The first one being a Mathematics contest where we had to solve different problems that were more advanced for the course I was in. I felt nothing but proud when I got the first place, helping me realize I was capable of achieving more than I imagined.
During my first year of high school I was a contestant in a Chemistry competition where I was also requested to solve problems more advanced than my actual grade. This competition required many hours of effort and study outside of class, and this taught me to have the necessary willpower to accomplish what the school expected from me. My hard work and dedication paid off since I won the first place internally and third place regionally. Thanks to this competition my interest in science grew even bigger and I began looking to make a career in this area. As a result, I challenged myself again, now participating in the development of a project, for this competition I started the development of a prototype, based on the usage of recycled materials to create a continuous rainwater irrigation system. This project won the first place at the school fair and was taken to a state competition, in which a local company decided to buy the idea and develop it on a larger scale. I was nothing but amazed, and so proud of all the time I spent doing research on this project. Thanks to this I realized the great impact we can have on the planet and how small and simple actions can help make great changes. From that moment I decided not only to focus on studying a career to develop cures for some diseases as cancer, which was my first motivation since my mother suffered from it, but also on contributing to create a better environment. After a long research I leant towards Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, a multidisciplinary major through which I will be able to achieve my goals in the areas of Health and Environmental Improvement.
When everything seemed to be going well in my development, life decided to have a twist once again when my sister and I became targets of multiple threats from my own father. It came down to us having to move to another city. However, my mother -being a teacher- could not leave her job suddenly, so my sister and I had to leave alone. I was in the middle of my first high school year so no public school could accept me, only a private high school offered to let me enroll. Given that my mother's pay was not even enough to send us an allowance to buy food, because of her expensive post-cancer treatment, it was practically impossible for me to attend said school, despite being offered an academic-merit scholarship. I could not help but feel extremely disappointed, frustrated and without any hope for achieving my goals. Wanting to find some motivation, I started researching about the curriculum of the career that I wanted to study and discovered that Korea had the best one. I knew it would require myself to shape up, so I began working towards it. Until now, my working experience sums up as being a cook in a cafeteria, which is my first job since I was sixteen years old, and as a private algebra teacher, where I spend most of my afternoons. Thanks to these jobs, I was able to attend high school.
In 2018 and 2019 I took part in the 14th edition of the FIRST FTC competition, a robotics team competition where the objective is to design, build, and program a robot to compete in an alliance format against other teams. We took part at a regional and national level, within which we obtained eighth place in the regionals. Although we did not win, through this experience I could learn about process design in engineering due to all the planning and development while building our robot. Thanks to this contest, my teamwork capabilities were expanded and my vision about science and technology was quite renewed, inspiring me even more to study an engineering major. In addition to this, I began volunteering as a music instructor to children from disadvantaged communities on behalf of a church. Through these types of experiences, I learned the importance of personal initiative and teamwork in a different way than I had always experienced.
Now, studying is the most valuable thing for me. Being able to finish my high school was something that required all my effort, the fact that I could maintain my discipline as a student and worker is also thanks to all the effort I made. From working late at night to waking up early in the morning, doing all my required homework for school and studying for exams in between my one-hour breaks from my school or work, I can now say that I self-developed into an independent person, who knows and values hard work towards achieving my goals.
I have always valued expanding my knowledge and supporting the causes I could; hence, I have been taking various extracurricular classes. The main one was music, area in which I have been developing for 10 years. In addition to the activities I mentioned above, I have taken part as first voice for my choir, for a collaboration with the Symphonic Orchestra of Xalapa, and as concertmaster in a small orchestra. All these experiences taught me leadership skills which I put onto practice with the teams that were assigned to me. Due to the sudden change of city, I had to leave the music school, but I still find pleasure and comfort practicing violin. I have also taken part in dance groups that organized small recitals and competitions within the school, which helped me to develop my creativity and my ability to improvise. My last current activity has been focused on conducting research on the influence of Korea with my state, how this has affected and how to improve the image of Korea in Mexico, all this to participate in the contest of "the understanding Korea 2020". This research has helped me to create a better idea about Korea in my country and about the great relationship that they have. Also, thanks to this research I found information about the KGSP.
I have decided to apply to this program, since I admire the discipline of Korean culture, as well as its great educational institutions and teaching modalities. All this led me to start studying Korean by myself, since 2017, and after a year of home study, I started formal classes in a Korean academy. The economic situation of my family would definitely not, in any way, make it possible for me to travel abroad to study a year of exchange, much less a full career. I see this program as a great opportunity for development. Personally, by knowing more about the culture that caught my attention ever since I heard about it. Also, professionally by studying on a country that encourages the branch that I am interested in. The support is proven with some programs as BK21 or WCU as both are intended to support the engineering area. Through this major I see the opportunity of contributing to the improvement in quality of life for the world as a whole. By optimizing resources -with the help of renewable energy or environmental technology -, to create a healthy human-environmental relationship. I also want to improve the processes of obtaining stem cells to help people, like my mother, with cancer through regenerative medicine. I believe that all kinds of people have the right to have the best quality of life, therefore in the future, I want to be the person who, through her research and discoveries, will allow everyone, anywhere in the world, to have access to a healthy and optimal life. I am sure that the experiences I have had, the difficulties, my preparation and my love for learning, have shaped me into a person who is fully capable of handling the difficulties that studying a science-related degree in another country can represent. More importantly, I firmly believe that winning this scholarship will help me prove that I´m no longer a powerless nor clueless girl and now, I can help not just my mother, but also other people to live a worthy life.