I was born in Guangzhou, China and I moved to the United States when I was three years old. My family had to move around to several different cities until we finally settled in San Leandro-the city that I've lived in all my life up until now. I grew up with some of the same people from kindergarten, to middle school, and high school.
I didn't grow up with any siblings or cousins my age so it was harder for me to come out of my shell, as i was a very shy child and I didn't know how to interact with other children very well. I was often described as the weird kid, and my self confidence became an issue because I simply didn't know how to fit in with the other kids. I became very conformed and quiet, too afraid to speak up so I wouldn't say something weird or be judged. I rarely spoke throughout middle school, and i feel like i missed out on many great opportunities and closed myself off to people because of my fear of facing embarrassment. When I started high school, I wanted to make a change. l decided to get more involved by joining my school's academy SLAM, along with sports such as the Tennis and Badminton team which really helped me meet many great people. I realized I wasn't disconnected from others because because people didn't like me, but because I never took the initiative to try. In Freshman year, I was still a bit shy and uncomfortable with myself. I found myself in a generally what would be described as a weird or dorky group of friends, though they were very accepting. I selfishly thought these people are uncool, and I constantly questioned why I was still around them. I soon dropped that notion, because they were the ones that taught me that being out of the norm is perfectly okay. Whenever I hung around others, I felt as though I had to pretend to be somebody.
I was always told that Asians should be booksmart, although my parents never really gave me that push on education. They wanted me to decide things out for myself, so I guess I can say I'm not your stereotypical asian. Because of this, through elementary and most of middle school I didn't take my education seriously since at that time I didn't understand the importance of it. With the childlike mind I had, I wanted to just have fun and thought of school as something holding me back. I wasn't surrounded by the best people either, and It wasn't until I was given an in class speech about college in the seventh grade where I realized that I want to go to college, and living my life of slacking off wasn't going to get me anywhere. I saw potential in myself, and i was given an idea of what I wanted to be. All this time I've been living in this fantasy world of my own, without knowing that all actions have repercussions. From that point on I started my chase on to college and I wanted to take my grades seriously, but I didn't have the best study habits. I challenged myself by taking Honors and AP classes throughout high school to redeem myself from the years of slacking. My group of friends also changed; They were all school smart and encouraged me towards school even more. I had some falls in my education, and my grades became pretty low, because at some point of high school that group of friends fell apart and I let myself slack.
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I'm not very sure how to end this or restructure it - any help would be appreciated, thanks!
Laurie, you seem to have at least 6 ongoing topics or themes within your personal statement. From a reviewer's point of view, this means that the essay is going on for longer than it should. It is also possible that because of the number of topics involved, you were not able to accurately develop the thoughts that you wanted to share in those sentences. I believe that you should look at the actual prompt again and try to narrow down the focus of your essay to the one or two most relevant responses that you can give. If possible, please share the original prompt with us so that we can assist you in assessing your current essay for the strongest points that you can use in revising the prompt.
At this point, I would not advise that you look at how to end the essay. What it really needs right now is restructuring because of the lack of focus and central theme in your essay. If the focus of the essay should be on the difficulties or obstacles that you faced having grown up an Asian-American, then you should be looking for a way to tell a story of overcoming those problems in your life. However, you need to choose the one definitive story from your past that will be the strongest representation of that obstacle you had to overcome.
Don't fool yourself into believing that if you put all of your information in your essay, you will have a very strong essay. On the contrary, an over informative essay could work in the opposite for you. The reviewer is always looking for a hook or response that can help him create a self-explanatory point of view about you. It should be an essay that, halfway through the written work, tells the reviewer that there is more to you than the essay will allow you to share. Develop the essay in a manner that will entice him to get to know you far beyond the essay prompt if possible. That can only be done through revising the essay and giving it more of a direction when it comes to sharing information about you. An over informative essay could just create a jumble of information about you in his mind, thus failing to make you stand out among the sea of applicants.
You'll explore two sides of a topic (briefly) and provide proof as to why one side or position is the best one.
Once you've given yourself a solid foundation to work with, you can begin to craft your essay. An argument essay should contain three parts: the introduction, the body, and the conclusion. The length of these parts (number of paragraphs) will vary, depending on the length of your essay assignment.
Laurie, your essay is quiet confusing, it's an essay application for UC and what I get out of your essay is your not - so - colorful childhood and all through out the essay, you were talking about your family background, how you perform poorly in your academics and how almost all your childhood life was not really that rewarding
Now, the essay should have the following;
- your academic background (which you have in the essay but it should be the rewarding part )
- your academic goals
- what is your motivation to meet this goals
- the courses or course that you want to pursue in UC
- how UC will help you in achieving your goals
- what can you do or contribute to UC
- what can you contribute to the community as a whole
Lastly, how will your cultural background raise your hopes for success.
This are my input, I believe answering this questions will help you come up with a better essay that will be your ticket to UC.
I hope to see your essay here on EF so we can help you further.
Thank you everyone for your replies! They have really helped me form out my essay.
