Hi!! There is my big piece of meat/common app' essay!!!
If someone could proof read/edit it please... I would really appreciate it!!
Also, do you think it is too long? Schould I take things out? Tell me everything!!
Thanks for helping!
A range of academic interests, personal perspectives, and life experiences adds much to the educational mix. Given your personal background, describe an experience that illustrates what you would bring to the diversity in a college community, or an encounter that demonstrated the importance of diversity to you. (250 words minimum)
I was in the East suburb of Berlin, Germany for the summer when my parents told me on the phone that we would be moving to India one year later. They had always heard me saying that, driven by curiosity and hunger for experience, I would be living in a trailer, traveling the world, or that when I would turn eighteen, I would take the first train for anywhere with only a backpack. But I had never imagined that I would be moving to another continent before this date, or even that it would be with my whole family. Four kids still in school, two parents with full-time jobs, and a whole life living in the same city of Lyon, France seemed to me pretty much like a steady life.
I turned eighteen and got my French high school diploma seven months ago, but my backpack is voluntarily still under my bed. The reason? I have been living in Chennai, India for almost one year and a half now, and this life gave me a new perspective on myself and my future.
To accept to follow my family in this exciting adventure was certainly the most daring decision I ever took, and it was not without any difficulty, that we chose to shift our lives from a secure and predicable world to a challenging one, full of uncertainties. Added to what I had learn in my geography classes and what I had seen on the internet, my only believes about India were clichés of colorful cows in the streets, of arranged marriages, and of crazy traffic.
In addition to the cultural and conceptual gaps we would face, was the challenge of the English language and of the American school system my siblings and I would integrate into. I left France at the end of my 11th grade year, and in order to have more time to discover the Indian culture and to graduate from the American school with a proper level of English, I chose to do another 11th grade year in this English school, delaying the date of my graduation. I somehow traded a part of my independence, for the chance to discover and profoundly understand such a different culture and for the opportunity to experience the diversity offered by the American school of Chennai, and no one will ever catch me saying that I regret it.
I was sixteen when we moved in and at this age, you do not soak whatever is in you environment anymore. Instead, it was fascination for the cultural density and the social explosion of the old traditional city of Chennai. What I could observe, learn, and understand of my new surrounding constructively met my French cultural roots, my Judeo-Christian education, and my progressive European convictions, to create new believes concerning subjects ranging from direct human relationships to overpopulation. I became able to, --without consenting to them-- , find understandable and defendable concepts such as the arranged marriage or the cast system, that seem revolting when glimpsed from our developed nations.
Meanwhile, such a gap emphasized my individuality and consolidated the links within my family. We had always been very close with each other, and the mutual support became more and more important in the process of appreciating this experience. Being surrounded by expatriates from all over the world and by different Indian communities requires a constant attention and effort of adaptation. These challenges were often the cause of such a maturing affection. I came to understand better the influence of my own culture and education, and to be proud of it differently, because I realized they were primordial ingredients of my identity.
This dense experience brought me more than I could imagine. I felt much better surrounded by people defined by different background and experiences. I forgot what being bored meant. I even looked for places where I could magnify this diversity to prolong and intensify this experience. I did not forget about my project of travel, and I decided to start it by a couple of years of a liberal education in a US College where the experience of diversity is the philosophy.
Today, I still wonder if it is the change toward diversity or diversity itself that is the most important, but I believe that diversity is necessary to envisage any sort of visionary progress. It offers the opportunity to learn from the challenge of difference about what is around, but also about what is inside.
Please, answer my questions!!
Thanks a lot!!
If someone could proof read/edit it please... I would really appreciate it!!
Also, do you think it is too long? Schould I take things out? Tell me everything!!
Thanks for helping!
A range of academic interests, personal perspectives, and life experiences adds much to the educational mix. Given your personal background, describe an experience that illustrates what you would bring to the diversity in a college community, or an encounter that demonstrated the importance of diversity to you. (250 words minimum)
I was in the East suburb of Berlin, Germany for the summer when my parents told me on the phone that we would be moving to India one year later. They had always heard me saying that, driven by curiosity and hunger for experience, I would be living in a trailer, traveling the world, or that when I would turn eighteen, I would take the first train for anywhere with only a backpack. But I had never imagined that I would be moving to another continent before this date, or even that it would be with my whole family. Four kids still in school, two parents with full-time jobs, and a whole life living in the same city of Lyon, France seemed to me pretty much like a steady life.
I turned eighteen and got my French high school diploma seven months ago, but my backpack is voluntarily still under my bed. The reason? I have been living in Chennai, India for almost one year and a half now, and this life gave me a new perspective on myself and my future.
To accept to follow my family in this exciting adventure was certainly the most daring decision I ever took, and it was not without any difficulty, that we chose to shift our lives from a secure and predicable world to a challenging one, full of uncertainties. Added to what I had learn in my geography classes and what I had seen on the internet, my only believes about India were clichés of colorful cows in the streets, of arranged marriages, and of crazy traffic.
In addition to the cultural and conceptual gaps we would face, was the challenge of the English language and of the American school system my siblings and I would integrate into. I left France at the end of my 11th grade year, and in order to have more time to discover the Indian culture and to graduate from the American school with a proper level of English, I chose to do another 11th grade year in this English school, delaying the date of my graduation. I somehow traded a part of my independence, for the chance to discover and profoundly understand such a different culture and for the opportunity to experience the diversity offered by the American school of Chennai, and no one will ever catch me saying that I regret it.
I was sixteen when we moved in and at this age, you do not soak whatever is in you environment anymore. Instead, it was fascination for the cultural density and the social explosion of the old traditional city of Chennai. What I could observe, learn, and understand of my new surrounding constructively met my French cultural roots, my Judeo-Christian education, and my progressive European convictions, to create new believes concerning subjects ranging from direct human relationships to overpopulation. I became able to, --without consenting to them-- , find understandable and defendable concepts such as the arranged marriage or the cast system, that seem revolting when glimpsed from our developed nations.
Meanwhile, such a gap emphasized my individuality and consolidated the links within my family. We had always been very close with each other, and the mutual support became more and more important in the process of appreciating this experience. Being surrounded by expatriates from all over the world and by different Indian communities requires a constant attention and effort of adaptation. These challenges were often the cause of such a maturing affection. I came to understand better the influence of my own culture and education, and to be proud of it differently, because I realized they were primordial ingredients of my identity.
This dense experience brought me more than I could imagine. I felt much better surrounded by people defined by different background and experiences. I forgot what being bored meant. I even looked for places where I could magnify this diversity to prolong and intensify this experience. I did not forget about my project of travel, and I decided to start it by a couple of years of a liberal education in a US College where the experience of diversity is the philosophy.
Today, I still wonder if it is the change toward diversity or diversity itself that is the most important, but I believe that diversity is necessary to envisage any sort of visionary progress. It offers the opportunity to learn from the challenge of difference about what is around, but also about what is inside.
Please, answer my questions!!
Thanks a lot!!
