The limit is 550 and I have 680 words ugh.. what can I cut out? And any thoughts? How convincing is it?
Prompt: Describe your intellectual interests, their evolution, and what makes them exciting to you. In your essay please address how the ILR curriculum will help you fulfill these interests and your long-term goals.
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Being born in Bangladesh, labor reform and improvement is not just a economic and academic interest to me, but also a personal passion. Walking through the streets of Dhaka at nine years old, I saw beggars with their eyes sunken in, freshly laid off from their jobs at sweatshop factories. As I grew older, the images followed and haunted me, but were eventually replaced with the determination to remedy their cause. My interest in Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations poignantly reached fruition once I learned about the sweatshop factories the beggars sitting on the side of the street had been laid off from.
After taking an AP Microeconomics class, labor issues have affected me on a personal level because I have cultivated a passionate belief that labor organization is crucial to the development of society on a global level. Countless Americans criticize massive corporations that create cheap products using overseas sweatshops. While well-intentioned, these Americans don't realize that sweatshops are crucial to developing impoverished foreign communities. Though wages given out to factory workers are low, sweatshops create coveted jobs for people who would have no other way to sustain themselves. Corporations have been given bad names for creating sweatshops in third-world countries, but those who criticize them don't see the potential these corporations have to do good deeds using their economic power.
I am a firsthand witness to the reality of what people have to face in poor communities, as well as what normal middle-class American workers face everyday. My mother, who works at a minimum wage job as a cashier, is victim to the flaws of her worker's union contract. She and my father, who has lived a tiring existence as a taxi driver on the streets of New York City, have helped put the issue of social labor into perspective for me. Because of them and my personal experiences, I am committed to finding a solution for social injustice through labor law legislation. I wholeheartedly believe that our economy and society is led on labor trends, and that improving society is dependent on research and reform in labor economics.
My goals are intrinsically attuned to the study of labor and I am ready to do whatever it takes in order to see social equality in the world, which I believe relies on issues of labor reform. Whether it means heading a Worker's Union Organization, working in the Employment Division of a large-scale corporation, or becoming a public service lawyer, I aim to find justice for all underprivileged and disadvantaged people in the world. I hope to intern in all the aforementioned fields and know that the School of Industrial and Labor Relations can uniquely allow me to do so.
Though my past has provided me with experiences that have shaped who I am and what I plan to fight for, it is my future that will give me the weapons with which to fight the battles. ILR's curriculum is fundamentally attuned to my interests and will enable me to study everything associated with my goals, from sociology to history, law, business, economics and psychology. As the only school of its kind, I believe ILR is a stepping stone to facilitating global change through economic and social labor justice. I aim to eventually eliminate panhandlers from the streets of Dhaka and make sure that my mother's co-workers to do not have to struggle to keep their working hours from being cut. Through my academic interests and personal experiences, I've realized that social progress can only be accomplished through labor reform and am thereby determined to work towards research advancement in labor unionization.
Because I was born in Bangladesh, labor reform and improvement is are not just economic and academic interests to me, but also matters of p ersonal passion.
...reached fruition once I learned about the sweatshop factories from whic h the beggars sitting on the side of the street had been laid off.
Use a comma for a compound sentence:
My goals are intrinsically attuned to the study of labor, and ...
Whether it means heading a Worker's Union Organization, working in the Employment Division of a large-scale corporation, or becoming a public service lawyer, I aim to find justice for all underprivileged and disadvantaged people in the world. ---This is a very good sentence. Keep this sentence in the essay, but look for other sentences that express the same idea. Get rid of other sentences that express this idea.
Throughout the essay, I think you can find some sentences that repeat ideas you have already explained. You can probably get it down to 500 words! :-) I think this is an inspirational essay that will make a good impression, though!
