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Not a Kumbaya - UVa Supplement Essay for My world


ms_jahangiri 2 / 1  
Jan 1, 2010   #1
I wrote an essay for UVa's supplement question:

Describe the world you come from and how that world shaped who you are.

And am not sure if I completely answered the question. ALL advice would be appreciated (tone, grammar, etc.). This is due tonight. Oh, and it's supposed to be half a page but this is a bit longer. Any way to shorten it?

Here it goes:

Charlottesville isn't the typical southern college town. With the downtown mall simply a path of bricks rimmed with rarely heard-of stores such as Sticks - Kabob Shop and the seriously coltish Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar, the city is home to great diversity - taste-bud wise as well as racial, economic, and faith-based. There is an eclectic charge evident across avid student discussions in a day and age where multiculturalism is all the rage. As a young woman in high school, I remember awakening to my own background in Charlottesville, discussing opportunities for South Asians while waiting for a ride at the Corner or grousing about the innate chauvinism of politics following Hillary's loss. I remember sifting through countless brochures advertising provision for higher education programs for minorities (as well as the heated debates under florescent lights, sputtering through tuna and rye over the actual benefits of affirmative action). But though we discussed equal opportunities for women and blacks or - even at times - lesbians, what I do not remember is discussing religion. Though our religious identities warred abroad, we made peace between those same systems of beliefs. Not by engagement, but by sterilizing ourselves of their any mention. As violence seethed between Jews and Christians in Jerusalem or Muslims and Hindus in Delhi, religion was effectively excluded from the diversity discussion in fear of breaching a territory taboo to our secular state.

But the problem was: our world is not secular. It is religiously diverse. And the existence of this diversity - of people of different faiths, and without, living closely in districts - has driven my idea of what I want to change in this world. It drives who I want to be.

There was something I knew about religious diversity but could only relay miserably until a few weeks ago, when I heard it (quite simply) articulated at a workshop for leadership scholars in Evanston. Religious diversity is conducive to three ends. We can only let it be a means to one: pluralism.

Pluralism is the path between the Scylla and Charybdis of interfaith work: the Scylla being the belief that inter-religious dialogue is a kumbaya in which theological, political, and ideological differences don't exist and the Charybdis being the dangerous - often violent - belief that those differences prevent us from attaining a common good. Pluralism is the shift from coexistence and conflict to cooperation. It fulfills the challenge of working together and being unique by allowing communities to work towards a universal goal in a manner particular to each distinct community.

Pluralism is not a revolutionary ideal and the healthy engagement of religiously diverse communities, therefore, already has the resources needed for it to become a cornerstone of American communities - and a model for those abroad. We see communities of faith coexisting in the United States. We have administrations - educational and non-profit - eager to see proactive work between them. And we have established service learning programs, which are pivotal for pluralism because they provide a medium through which distinct peoples can work towards a shared common good: bettering their community. What we need now are the right partnerships.

Over the past summer, I've been building the partnerships - collectively (and oh so creatively) coined the Interfaith Young Adult Corps of Charlottesville - that would provide a medium through which local students, both high school and college, representative of Charlottesville's distinctive diversity could tackle social justice issues using their faith as a basis for their drive. By establishing that liaison between campus ministries at the University of Virginia, local non-profits like IMPACT, and community service establishments, I am a part of that hookup which redirects our youth's energy into something productive: perhaps, a change in the pathetic conditions of some our city's - our world's - hidden communities but more significantly, a positive discussion between members of various faiths. This religious diversity has shaped me as a leader unafraid of piercing isolation and building bridges. It has forced me to lead the step towards a truly religiously plural world.
sonrisa247 3 / 7  
Jan 1, 2010   #2
Through your essay I can see that you are a very thoughtful person, but it seems that you do stray from the topic.
The prompt wants to know how your community has shaped who you have become and your values.
Is your family religious and did growing up in a religious environment help shape your values and goals?
Do you have friends of other faiths? How did they impact you?
I think you could easily condense what you say about pluralism and cut it to a minimum, they want to know who you are.

I hope that helped and wasn't too harsh.
Good luck! :)


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