Describe your academic and career plans and any special interests (for example, scientific research) that you are eager to pursue as an undergraduate at Indiana University. Also, share any unusual circumstances, challenges, or obstacles you have encountered in pursuit of your education and how you overcame them. (200-400 words)
July 1999. I moved to America on my seventh birthday and glistened to my birthday song in a shabby apartment with only a full size mattress my parents found in the dumpster earlier that afternoon. As an adventurous seven year old, I smiled on my birthday as I would have on any other birthdays. But as I look back years later, I wonder if my parents smiled as wide as I did. My educated mother worked as a janitor and my barely English-literate father studied to receive his acupuncture license. My parents have come a long way only for one purpose and that purpose is me.
Since, my aspirations have always been directly related to the gratitude and respect I have to my parents. Throughout my high school career, I served as the student committee secretary of Atlanta Korean American Youth Center, a non-profit organization that aims to mentor Korean American students in a positive directly through academia, sports, and various programs. Having walked the path of being an immigrant, starting from the bottom and reaching for the top, I wanted to serve as a model for students who were undergoing the same situation and the hardships that inevitably follow hand-in-hand, striving as a model through excellence in school work and my involvement with extracurricular activities and prestigious internships.
November 2010. Upon high school graduation, my parents encountered legal complications which resulted in an unintended expiration of our visa. We were forced to leave the States in a matter of six months, and I had no choice but to withdraw from all the universities I had persistently and diligently pushed myself for years to be accepted into. However shocking and tragic this news was to me, I took it as an opportunity to return to my motherland which I had long forgotten its culture and language, and to my surprise, the journey has been simply amazing.
The place I have truly experienced the meaning of accomplishment was here in Korea. I began with baby steps at square 1, re-learning the language, attempting to absorb and replicate the Korean ways of living, and rebuilding relationships of which I began with none. Today, I am a college student at one of the most prestigious universities in Korea, impeccably bilingual with immaculate pronunciation with ability to associate within two very contrasting social atmosphere.
What began as a personal adversity became a scholastic challenge, and it is one that I have found after fighting through the waves that have come crashing at me. I intend to return to the United States and complete my undergraduate studies in Public Policy at XXXXXXXXX Business School after which I endeavor to attend Law School. Upon my completion of education, I aspire to return to my motherland, serving as a legal bridge between Korea and the States in this ever-growing globalized world, applying not only my education but also my ability to make a difference in the business world.
It is the classic and redundant story of most of the 35.2 million immigrants living in America, but it is the most significant and defining story for me. Significant and Defining because it is that that has awakened me to realize the endless limit I have before me.
July 1999. I moved to America on my seventh birthday and glistened to my birthday song in a shabby apartment with only a full size mattress my parents found in the dumpster earlier that afternoon. As an adventurous seven year old, I smiled on my birthday as I would have on any other birthdays. But as I look back years later, I wonder if my parents smiled as wide as I did. My educated mother worked as a janitor and my barely English-literate father studied to receive his acupuncture license. My parents have come a long way only for one purpose and that purpose is me.
Since, my aspirations have always been directly related to the gratitude and respect I have to my parents. Throughout my high school career, I served as the student committee secretary of Atlanta Korean American Youth Center, a non-profit organization that aims to mentor Korean American students in a positive directly through academia, sports, and various programs. Having walked the path of being an immigrant, starting from the bottom and reaching for the top, I wanted to serve as a model for students who were undergoing the same situation and the hardships that inevitably follow hand-in-hand, striving as a model through excellence in school work and my involvement with extracurricular activities and prestigious internships.
November 2010. Upon high school graduation, my parents encountered legal complications which resulted in an unintended expiration of our visa. We were forced to leave the States in a matter of six months, and I had no choice but to withdraw from all the universities I had persistently and diligently pushed myself for years to be accepted into. However shocking and tragic this news was to me, I took it as an opportunity to return to my motherland which I had long forgotten its culture and language, and to my surprise, the journey has been simply amazing.
The place I have truly experienced the meaning of accomplishment was here in Korea. I began with baby steps at square 1, re-learning the language, attempting to absorb and replicate the Korean ways of living, and rebuilding relationships of which I began with none. Today, I am a college student at one of the most prestigious universities in Korea, impeccably bilingual with immaculate pronunciation with ability to associate within two very contrasting social atmosphere.
What began as a personal adversity became a scholastic challenge, and it is one that I have found after fighting through the waves that have come crashing at me. I intend to return to the United States and complete my undergraduate studies in Public Policy at XXXXXXXXX Business School after which I endeavor to attend Law School. Upon my completion of education, I aspire to return to my motherland, serving as a legal bridge between Korea and the States in this ever-growing globalized world, applying not only my education but also my ability to make a difference in the business world.
It is the classic and redundant story of most of the 35.2 million immigrants living in America, but it is the most significant and defining story for me. Significant and Defining because it is that that has awakened me to realize the endless limit I have before me.
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