"Its not an easy thing moving and living in another country" - UW application

Hello, this application essay is for the UW, and several Common app, applications.

can you tell me what i could improve? Advise on what i should include more of or what i should exclude? grammatical errors, please anything would help! thank you!

UW
A) Discuss how your family's experience or cultural history enriched you or presented you with opportunities or challenges in pursuing your educational goals.

OR

B) Tell us a story from your life, describing an experience that either demonstrates your character or helped to shape it.

Common app
Option #1. Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.

Its not an easy thing moving and living in another country, your life as you know

it changes, It can be a hard dilemma and was exactly what I had to face. I was obligated

to go but it was for the better. In late January of 2006 I moved to Addis Ababa Ethiopia

from the United States to live with my grandparents and go to school. I had no say in

whether I wanted to go or not, I just went. My mother said I had to go for better

schooling, but I knew she also sent me so wouldn't grow up to be part of the melting pot

like most other Ethiopian-American kids. Moving to Ethiopia was a hard change for me

and meant I had to start all over again going to a new school and making new friends. I

arrived with my mom and started off pretty well in the first weeks of living away from

my home, but things later changed when my mother left and I had to enter school. When

entering a new school I didn't know anyone, and there was a big cultural and language

gap that separated me from the rest of the students, I dreaded the fact I had to go to

school there. Here I was, a 13 year old kid that didn't know anything or anyone, I missed

my mother and my family back in Seattle and I wanted to leave Ethiopia and never come

back. Classes were very different in Ethiopia than in America, there was much more

seriousness and more dedication to school work. Certain classes were in the Ethiopian

language of Amharic that I still had to take even though I didn't know much, but I

worked hard and adapted to it.

After school there would be days where tons of family members would visit me at

my grandparents home and compliment me on how I looked like my father or how much

I have grown since they had seen me. Most of the people who visited me I didn't

remember meeting. They would visit while bringing gifts and cake and stay until dinner

constantly asking me about school in America, or how my mother was doing it was as if I

were a puppet with no reaction but a smile and a simple answer. It was hard for me to

communicate clearly with them due to the language and cultural barrier between us.

Change was indeed a hardship I had to face, and was something I had trouble

with, but I eventually fought this change until I felt I was at home. I had started off scared

not knowing what to expect and not wanting to live there, but later adapted to the new

environment and never wanted to leave. I came to realization of what I have. Here I

was complaining about living here, but I was surrounded by people who loved me and

new people I have never met, challenges and obstacles that I could face. I realized that

this was a new experience and I should appreciate and cherish, I ended up making new

friends, and meeting tons of new family members, and learning my countries language

fluently, I had felt at home.

Living in Ethiopia started off very hard for me but it was for the better. It set up a

cultural identity for me; I knew about who I was, were I came from, what language I

speak, and all about my family. I also started to enjoy going to my school, I made many

new friends that I could relate too, and the academic courses became easier for me,

because I worked harder and harder until I understood. Towards the end of my 11 month

stay in Ethiopia, I wanted to stay and not go back to America due to the fact that I loved

there. I had complained about not wanting to go to but my mother always knew what was

better for me, I wonder to this day what would have happened If I had stayed in America

and never went to Ethiopia and not ever known about who I really was and where I really

came from. The experience was very pivotal in my life, this experience has shaped who I

am today giving me an identity of who I really am.

It's a nice story. Maybe you want to give more information about who you are now based on your experience.

This needs an apostrophe: It's

I would revise that first sentence:
Moving and living in another country are not easy, because your life as you know it changes. It can be a hard dilemma, and that was exactly what I had to face.

Here is another run on sentence: I had no say in

whether I wanted to go or not, I just went. ----The comma should be a period.

Again here: Classes were very different in Ethiopia than in America, there was much more

seriousness and more dedication to school work.

Classes were very different in Ethiopia than in America. There was much more

seriousness and more dedication to school work.

*** This is correct, because a semi-colon can be used instead of a period: It set up a

cultural identity for me; I knew about who I was, were I came from, what language I

speak, and all about my family.

**** The most important rule for you to learn is when to end the sentence with a period and start a new sentence. I hope you read the newspaper or some EssayForum essays to practice. For example, look at this paragraph I am typing now, and you will see the correct way to use periods and end sentences. If you want to write a long sentence, you can use a conjunction. I will give you 2 examples below to show the correct way to write sentences:

incorrect: I had complained about not wanting to go to but my mother always knew what was

better for me, I wonder to this day what would have happened If I had stayed in America

and never went to Ethiopia and not ever known about who I really was and where I really

came from.

This is correct: I had complained about not wanting to go, too, but my mother always knew what was better for me. I wonder to this day what would have happened If if I had stayed in America and never went to Ethiopia, and never knew about who I really was and where I really came from.

Google this: comma splice
Google this: how to avoid run on sentences

:-)