Self-Introduction
"Once I have a dream, I must strive to pursue." This sentence is the best description of the pursuing of my music dream and interests. When I was in preschool, I always admired those who can play the piano. However, the tuition was too expensive to afford for my family, so I did not learn how to play the piano at that time. Nevertheless, I made up my mind to achieve this music dream by myself in the future.
My first chance to approach my dream came when I went to senior high school. Extracurricular activities are another important learning for senior high school students. I took part in the challenging band. Besides the music courses in the school and playing recorder, I never received any extracurricular music education, but my music dream drive me to tackle the up coming challenges. I told myself: I might not be the one who play the music instrument the best, but I must be the one who pay the most efforts. I was an oboist and I encountered many difficulties while practicing. For example, my breath was not long enough to play the whole phrase, my absolute or relative pitch was not accurate enough, complicated fingering and my poor sight-reading abilities. However, I did my best to practice, consulted my classmates and the teachers, repeatedly listened the music to be familiar with them, and memorized all the songs we played and their corresponding fingerings. Ultimately, I could play these songs as well and attended to many contests and concerts. In my two-year career in the band, the improvements of my music abilities are my great harvest. Furthermore, ever more rare are that I learned how to strike a balance between the pressure of advancing to a higher school and the pursuit of my dream; to know the shortcomings of myself while tumbling down, to facing and to overcome the difficulties; how to make use of my limited time and energy; and how to cope with the pressure. I also discovered that through annealing, people have unlimited fighting spirit, perseverance and potential can be excited out. What is more, I got a number of togetherness.
Joining the chorus club in my college years was the second practice of my music dream. From my oboe learning experiences and difficulties, I thought to develop accurate sense of pitch is the foundation of other music abilities, so I joined the chorus club and as a member of alto. Unlike the past, besides practicing the alto part, I also learned how to manage a club. I was the convener of a big school activity in my sophomore year. I was responsible for the assigning of work within the club, the linkages with related administrative offices in school and answering questions to the elementary school teachers who enrolled in this camp. Finally, I got the affirmation of other members in the club and was elected to be vice president of the club in my junior year. In my four-year career in the chorus club, I learned how to be a leader in a group, cultivated my communicating skills, developed tougher mind and more mature personality, and great coping strategies of pressure. Besides the chorus club experiences, I also took a lot of music courses to improve my music abilities such as voice, conducting, choral methods and materials and so forth. I waited for the chance, from preschool to senior high school, and carried out my dream with seven years.
The process that I switched my major from counseling to cognitive neuroscience wound through high peaks, but I eventually saw the light at the end of the tunnel when all the conditions were ripe. I liked biology the most when I was a senior high school student. The various biochemical mechanisms in human bodies especially fascinated me. My biology teacher would provide me some after class materials and introduce some interesting topics in cognitive neuroscience to us in class. I majored in educational psychology and counseling in my college years. The psychology courses opened the cognitive neuroscience window for me. I started to read plenty of outside materials made me access to cognitive neuroscience. The more I read, the surer of my aspiration I felt. Finally, I made up my mind switching my study to cognitive neuroscience in my junior year of college.
After graduated from college, I did a one-year internship in elementary school. Later on I worked as a research assistant in Dr. XXX and Dr. YYY's social cognition lab and prepared for the graduate school entrance examination. I knew that I did not have a relevant degree in cognitive neuroscience, so I must enlarge my background knowledge as much as possible. Besides the textbooks and the suggesting readings of the exam, I read a large number of outside materials about cognitive neuroscience and the latest news on Scientific American website. I passed the written test the year before last year, but I could not pass the interview. However, I was not discouraged. I wrote e-mails to the professors, asked for advice on how to prepare myself to be in this field and reevaluated my capability and my interest in cognitive neuroscience. As a result, besides studying the textbooks on my own, I also audited courses like statistics and methods of psychological experiments to advance my knowledge and improve my skills last year. Furthermore, I enriched my research experiences by working as a research assistant and participating myself in different conferences and workshops to receive the latest research directions in the field. Finally, I got the admission last year. As my music dream, I hibernated for four years, and I am still in practice my dream.
Although my journey of pursuing my dreams are often not very smooth, I do not particularly envy those who have a meteoric rise, because the process of struggles make my results even more precious. I am thankful to those who helped me and those who threw a wet blanket on my efforts. I felt the warmth when people helped me in my hardship. On the other hand, those who dampened my enthusiasms inspired my will to fight. No matter the positive or negative experiences were the nutrition which nourished me to be who I am now. I believe that the best rewards in my life come from hard work hard work itself.
"Once I have a dream, I must strive to pursue." This sentence is the best description of the pursuing of my music dream and interests. When I was in preschool, I always admired those who can play the piano. However, the tuition was too expensive to afford for my family, so I did not learn how to play the piano at that time. Nevertheless, I made up my mind to achieve this music dream by myself in the future.
My first chance to approach my dream came when I went to senior high school. Extracurricular activities are another important learning for senior high school students. I took part in the challenging band. Besides the music courses in the school and playing recorder, I never received any extracurricular music education, but my music dream drive me to tackle the up coming challenges. I told myself: I might not be the one who play the music instrument the best, but I must be the one who pay the most efforts. I was an oboist and I encountered many difficulties while practicing. For example, my breath was not long enough to play the whole phrase, my absolute or relative pitch was not accurate enough, complicated fingering and my poor sight-reading abilities. However, I did my best to practice, consulted my classmates and the teachers, repeatedly listened the music to be familiar with them, and memorized all the songs we played and their corresponding fingerings. Ultimately, I could play these songs as well and attended to many contests and concerts. In my two-year career in the band, the improvements of my music abilities are my great harvest. Furthermore, ever more rare are that I learned how to strike a balance between the pressure of advancing to a higher school and the pursuit of my dream; to know the shortcomings of myself while tumbling down, to facing and to overcome the difficulties; how to make use of my limited time and energy; and how to cope with the pressure. I also discovered that through annealing, people have unlimited fighting spirit, perseverance and potential can be excited out. What is more, I got a number of togetherness.
Joining the chorus club in my college years was the second practice of my music dream. From my oboe learning experiences and difficulties, I thought to develop accurate sense of pitch is the foundation of other music abilities, so I joined the chorus club and as a member of alto. Unlike the past, besides practicing the alto part, I also learned how to manage a club. I was the convener of a big school activity in my sophomore year. I was responsible for the assigning of work within the club, the linkages with related administrative offices in school and answering questions to the elementary school teachers who enrolled in this camp. Finally, I got the affirmation of other members in the club and was elected to be vice president of the club in my junior year. In my four-year career in the chorus club, I learned how to be a leader in a group, cultivated my communicating skills, developed tougher mind and more mature personality, and great coping strategies of pressure. Besides the chorus club experiences, I also took a lot of music courses to improve my music abilities such as voice, conducting, choral methods and materials and so forth. I waited for the chance, from preschool to senior high school, and carried out my dream with seven years.
The process that I switched my major from counseling to cognitive neuroscience wound through high peaks, but I eventually saw the light at the end of the tunnel when all the conditions were ripe. I liked biology the most when I was a senior high school student. The various biochemical mechanisms in human bodies especially fascinated me. My biology teacher would provide me some after class materials and introduce some interesting topics in cognitive neuroscience to us in class. I majored in educational psychology and counseling in my college years. The psychology courses opened the cognitive neuroscience window for me. I started to read plenty of outside materials made me access to cognitive neuroscience. The more I read, the surer of my aspiration I felt. Finally, I made up my mind switching my study to cognitive neuroscience in my junior year of college.
After graduated from college, I did a one-year internship in elementary school. Later on I worked as a research assistant in Dr. XXX and Dr. YYY's social cognition lab and prepared for the graduate school entrance examination. I knew that I did not have a relevant degree in cognitive neuroscience, so I must enlarge my background knowledge as much as possible. Besides the textbooks and the suggesting readings of the exam, I read a large number of outside materials about cognitive neuroscience and the latest news on Scientific American website. I passed the written test the year before last year, but I could not pass the interview. However, I was not discouraged. I wrote e-mails to the professors, asked for advice on how to prepare myself to be in this field and reevaluated my capability and my interest in cognitive neuroscience. As a result, besides studying the textbooks on my own, I also audited courses like statistics and methods of psychological experiments to advance my knowledge and improve my skills last year. Furthermore, I enriched my research experiences by working as a research assistant and participating myself in different conferences and workshops to receive the latest research directions in the field. Finally, I got the admission last year. As my music dream, I hibernated for four years, and I am still in practice my dream.
Although my journey of pursuing my dreams are often not very smooth, I do not particularly envy those who have a meteoric rise, because the process of struggles make my results even more precious. I am thankful to those who helped me and those who threw a wet blanket on my efforts. I felt the warmth when people helped me in my hardship. On the other hand, those who dampened my enthusiasms inspired my will to fight. No matter the positive or negative experiences were the nutrition which nourished me to be who I am now. I believe that the best rewards in my life come from hard work hard work itself.