My personal essay for the common app V2. I have decided to change tactics and write about a preset topic "Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you". Here it is please feel free to comment and edit anything.
The one constant person throughout my life, the person who has been a constant reminder of everything I should strive to be, a person who I have tried to emulate is my grandfather. He is "70 years young" as he likes to say, is a father to four children and grandfather to nine grandchildren. He has taught me more things about the world and it's inner workings than any teacher could. He has taught me the wonders of the ancient world and politics. When he was a child he left school after secondary school never going to university or any type of higher education. Yet in his later years he has strived to improve his own education and putting what he knows into perspective. For example using his knowledge of stone masonry to explain to me just how the pyramids were built. As well as using his experience as area manager of a large region in the southwest for the local council to explain ecosystems and tidal movements. My grandfather taught me gardening, brickwork and the basics of decorating. He has sculpted me into the intelligent and hardworking man I am today, And stimulated my interest and passion for the subject of History. Although we don't agree on everything such as politics these differences allow us to discuss ideas from different perspectives.
He has been my advisor throughout my education so far helped me decide on my secondary school and sixth form and constantly pushing me towards university. Claiming that if I could get there and get a good degree I could do whatever I wanted. He told me that no-one would hand life to me on a silver platter and to get to where I wanted I would have to work for it He told me that education was everything in this world and wanted me to heighten myself away from the council estates which surrounded my own home. He continued to push this idea into me during my A-levels. When I thought about the combination of these ideas only one thing came into my mind, a dream which has brought people to the United States for countless years, The American dream.
And so when I came to with my idea of studying in the United States he was excited, he knew it represented everything we had been talking about since I was five years old when I first visited the states in the year 2000. And so he spent the next few weeks with me looking over colleges and details together. And together we planned my next few years. Now I am prepared and with my grandfather's love and compassion I know I am ready to take that great leap across the pond to learn not just History but the American way of life, its cultures and ideas first hand, and god willing by the end of my experience I will be fully prepared for whatever the world has to offer.
The one constant person throughout my life, the person who has been a constant reminder of everything I should strive to be, a person who I have tried to emulate is my grandfather. He is "70 years young" as he likes to say, is a father to four children and grandfather to nine grandchildren. He has taught me more things about the world and it's inner workings than any teacher could. He has taught me the wonders of the ancient world and politics. When he was a child he left school after secondary school never going to university or any type of higher education. Yet in his later years he has strived to improve his own education and putting what he knows into perspective. For example using his knowledge of stone masonry to explain to me just how the pyramids were built. As well as using his experience as area manager of a large region in the southwest for the local council to explain ecosystems and tidal movements. My grandfather taught me gardening, brickwork and the basics of decorating. He has sculpted me into the intelligent and hardworking man I am today, And stimulated my interest and passion for the subject of History. Although we don't agree on everything such as politics these differences allow us to discuss ideas from different perspectives.
He has been my advisor throughout my education so far helped me decide on my secondary school and sixth form and constantly pushing me towards university. Claiming that if I could get there and get a good degree I could do whatever I wanted. He told me that no-one would hand life to me on a silver platter and to get to where I wanted I would have to work for it He told me that education was everything in this world and wanted me to heighten myself away from the council estates which surrounded my own home. He continued to push this idea into me during my A-levels. When I thought about the combination of these ideas only one thing came into my mind, a dream which has brought people to the United States for countless years, The American dream.
And so when I came to with my idea of studying in the United States he was excited, he knew it represented everything we had been talking about since I was five years old when I first visited the states in the year 2000. And so he spent the next few weeks with me looking over colleges and details together. And together we planned my next few years. Now I am prepared and with my grandfather's love and compassion I know I am ready to take that great leap across the pond to learn not just History but the American way of life, its cultures and ideas first hand, and god willing by the end of my experience I will be fully prepared for whatever the world has to offer.