Please help have a look at my common app essay draft. I am an international student from Thailand applying for science/ pre-medical major
Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.
CHANCE
The 1997 financial crisis left Thailand and our family in shambles. When I was in Grade 6, I asked my mother for a piano. "Everyone's on page eight already and I still can't play C,D,E", I would moan. In our school's music class, we were learning basic piano, and I was lagging behind. The idea of coordinating ten fingers onto the keys together accurately and rhythmically was baffling to me and I was convinced I could never play a piece of music in my life. Now, a price for a piano was not cheap, and with the financial problems we and our country were experiencing, a piano was not an option. Of course, I would not have known all that as an eleven-year-old boy who at the time only wanted to pass his music class. The next day, my mom bought a toy piano for about 100 Baht. It had 10 baby-sized keys, with big cartoon faces plastered on the top. To a boy who is oblivious to the gravity of our financial situation, it looked ridiculous. "I can't play on that! It's a baby's toy, my hands don't even fit", I showed it to her, laughing - looking at hindsight - rather ungratefully. My mom didn't seem to mind though as she said "Alright son, I will get you a proper keyboard." After a discussion with my dad, they decided to get me a keyboard, 9000 Baht, right from the emergency savings. It wasn't a bad keyboard either, certainly didn't merit my limited talent in piano. Nevertheless, my parents bought it with some of the last savings they had, and needless to say, I loved it. I would play on it every day and night, sometimes so late I got told to stop by my family trying to sleep. In one month I could play every song in the school's music book and not long afterwards, took up 3 more instruments: violin and guitar and tuba. I am now the leader of the school orchestra and string orchestra and played in the concert band and jazz band. In short, I now breathe music. Back then, I was a boy with seemingly no talent or goal in life, until I received from my parents the greatest gift I never requested, and no it's not the toy piano or the keyboard, the gift of chance; the chance for me to have a talent, an aspiration, an identity, and I took it, without knowing, with my 10 now dexterous fingers.
Although I still love playing music, I now have a new goal in life, which came from my sudden revelation after seeing more and more of the graphically violent world we live in: that whilst playing music can reconnect a broken soul; it cannot heal a dying heart. Today, I know that I wanted to become a doctor and save people's lives, and that it is all I would ever want to do, even if it means going through hell of a refugee camp, or a slum village ravaged with disease. I have ambitions so great that they are ready to burst into action. Now I just need a chance, a medium for me to express my dreams, and it must not be just some toy piano or even a fully functional keyboard, but the grandest of the grand pianos that with the help of the instrument, I can make music that can change the world.
Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.
CHANCE
The 1997 financial crisis left Thailand and our family in shambles. When I was in Grade 6, I asked my mother for a piano. "Everyone's on page eight already and I still can't play C,D,E", I would moan. In our school's music class, we were learning basic piano, and I was lagging behind. The idea of coordinating ten fingers onto the keys together accurately and rhythmically was baffling to me and I was convinced I could never play a piece of music in my life. Now, a price for a piano was not cheap, and with the financial problems we and our country were experiencing, a piano was not an option. Of course, I would not have known all that as an eleven-year-old boy who at the time only wanted to pass his music class. The next day, my mom bought a toy piano for about 100 Baht. It had 10 baby-sized keys, with big cartoon faces plastered on the top. To a boy who is oblivious to the gravity of our financial situation, it looked ridiculous. "I can't play on that! It's a baby's toy, my hands don't even fit", I showed it to her, laughing - looking at hindsight - rather ungratefully. My mom didn't seem to mind though as she said "Alright son, I will get you a proper keyboard." After a discussion with my dad, they decided to get me a keyboard, 9000 Baht, right from the emergency savings. It wasn't a bad keyboard either, certainly didn't merit my limited talent in piano. Nevertheless, my parents bought it with some of the last savings they had, and needless to say, I loved it. I would play on it every day and night, sometimes so late I got told to stop by my family trying to sleep. In one month I could play every song in the school's music book and not long afterwards, took up 3 more instruments: violin and guitar and tuba. I am now the leader of the school orchestra and string orchestra and played in the concert band and jazz band. In short, I now breathe music. Back then, I was a boy with seemingly no talent or goal in life, until I received from my parents the greatest gift I never requested, and no it's not the toy piano or the keyboard, the gift of chance; the chance for me to have a talent, an aspiration, an identity, and I took it, without knowing, with my 10 now dexterous fingers.
Although I still love playing music, I now have a new goal in life, which came from my sudden revelation after seeing more and more of the graphically violent world we live in: that whilst playing music can reconnect a broken soul; it cannot heal a dying heart. Today, I know that I wanted to become a doctor and save people's lives, and that it is all I would ever want to do, even if it means going through hell of a refugee camp, or a slum village ravaged with disease. I have ambitions so great that they are ready to burst into action. Now I just need a chance, a medium for me to express my dreams, and it must not be just some toy piano or even a fully functional keyboard, but the grandest of the grand pianos that with the help of the instrument, I can make music that can change the world.
