"knowledge of my own culture" - U OF M UNDERGRAD

Im the first in my family to graduate highschool let alone go to college so i really need help editing my essay. All suggestions are welcome. Thanks

HERES THE PROMPT:Share an experience through which you have gained respect for intellectual, social, or cultural differences. Comment on how your personal experiences and achievements would contribute to the diversity of the University of Michigan.

Week after week I would sit in Sunday youth group and just rant to Samia, the pastors wife, about how unfair it was that I was forced to be in this little Middle Eastern bubble of what the rest called tradition. Well one day my pastor came up to me and asked to speak to me alone. At first I thought Oh no, Samia has ratted me out and now I'm going to get in trouble for my big mouth, but to my surprise my pastor proposed that I represent middle eastern females in this organization called MAC. He went on to explain what MAC was but to be honest all I heard was "You might miss a couple days of school," "You'll have to travel," and "It's all paid for." I earnestly agreed and went home to do some research on what exactly this MAC group was, and what I found is that MAC stood for Multi-cultural Advisory Committee. They were a branch off of the National Lutheran Youth Organization that was responsible for representing the minorities within the Lutheran church. Better yet I learned that every four years MAC holds an event called MYLE which is where youth groups of different ethnicities come to one city and celebrate the beauty of their culture alongside their religion. For the first time I didn't feel like my culture was holding me back but rather giving me an advantage to planning a great event. I met all the other representatives and as we all began to get to know each other I learned so much about each person's culture and the language they spoke. The diversity within this group opened my eyes to a whole new world. A world where we as students didn't just learn from a textbook but from each other and all the experiences we have had. I took these stories back to my church and told the rest of my youth group and it inspired them because a couple of weeks later we met with the youth group from the local mosque and we discussed the similarities and differences between our religions.

This experience showed how much I can learn from others and how important it is to educate yourself about different cultures and religions because one day when I'm out in the work force I'm going to be dealing with people of all types and I'm going to need to know how to handle that. I believe that with my knowledge of my own culture and my desire to learn about others I will make a good addition the diverse student population at the University of Michigan

I think the first half of the prompt ( about the culture part) is well addressed. But the part about the contribution to diversity is too brief. only the last sentence of your essay deal with this part. i think you can write more on how exactly you can contribute. is there a word limit to this essay?

other than that i think


"rant" is too strong a word here and it sounded a bit disrespectful to the pastor's wife. maybe you want to try other words like "complain"?


i think it should be" an advantage to 'plan' a great event. and i don't really understand the planning part. did you plan this event?


the youth group were inspired by you and not the things that you all did a few weeks later. so the word 'because' should not be used here.

THANKS!! how about this. I also managed to take out about 100 words.

Week after week I would sit in Sunday youth group and just complain to Samia, the pastors wife, about how unfair it was that I was forced to be in this little Middle Eastern bubble of what the rest called tradition. Well one day my pastor came up to me and asked to speak to me alone. At first I thought Oh no, Samia has ratted me out and now I'm going to get in trouble for my big mouth, but to my surprise my pastor proposed that I represent middle eastern females in this organization called Multi-cultural Advisory Committee also known as MAC. He went on to explain what MAC was but to be honest all I heard was "You might miss a couple days of school," "You'll have to travel," and "It's all paid for." I earnestly agreed and went home to do some research and found that they were a branch off of the National Lutheran Youth Organization that was responsible for representing the minorities within the Lutheran church. Better yet I learned that every four years MAC member are responsible for planning an event called MYLE which is where youth groups of different ethnicities come to one city and celebrate the beauty of their culture alongside their religion. For the first time I didn't feel like my culture was holding me back but rather giving me an advantage to planning a great event. I met all the other representatives and learned so much about each person's culture and the language they spoke. I felt that with a group as diverse as this MYLE 2009 was going to be great and it certainly was.

This experience showed me how much I can learn from other people and how ethnic differences do not separate us but rather enable us to find similarities with each other. I believe that diversity in institution such as the University of Michigan is important and I hope that one day I can contribute my odd combination of Arabic culture and Christian religion to the amalgam of cultures already present in the campus.