Macalester is a community that includes people from many different backgrounds, some who have lived around the world and others who have lived in one place their entire lives. Please write an essay about how your background, experiences, or outlook might add to the Mac community, academically and personally. (250-500 words).
I think that this essay definitely needs some work however I was not sure how to go about it, I think my section on education is a little brief and the rest too long. I was not sure whether to write less on the background part or broaden it out instead.
Where I live there is an extremely small proportion of people from other backgrounds, because of that I have little experience with other cultures. This means that around me there is often a narrow-minded view of other cultures, religions and backgrounds. I have never quite understood what made people think this way so I have always kept an open-mind about others. Coupled with my love of learning and finding new things, this means I love meeting with completely different people and learning about them. Because my experiences with other cultures are limited, this makes me value them all the more as it is not often I can experience people who are completely different to me.
Coming from England I feel that I can provide a feeling of what life is like in a country which although has the same language and ideology is actually full of differences, not just in obvious physical differences like the education system and government. But the feeling of "same but different" is a often hard to describe feeling.
I hope at Macalester I can show people how being apart from different people does not mean you become ignorant of them, the opposite can definitely be true, in fact, the absence of many other cultures has made me more fascinated with them. I can provide a viewpoint which can help people to understand that the differences between people are in fact something that should be learned about rather than disregarded or shunned.
Throughout my life I have loved learning, taking extra classes and after school activities are things I have always done in order to learn more. However, what disappoints me the most in my peers is the view of education as being a necessary evil in order to achieve later in life. I find that the top performing students in my college are often the ones who complain the most about lessons and how much they wish to be out yet constantly talk about how they absolutely must have the best grade to get into the best university to get the best job that exists. This is not what education should be about, by valuing the lessons I attend and not viewing school as a necessary evil I feel like I have gained more from my time there than my peers who get perfect exam results.
To conclude, what I can contribute to Macalester is the idea that being apart from other cultures does not mean that you become insensitive and narrow-minded, in fact it can provide the opposite and can encourage people to learn about others rather than ignore. I hope to encourage people to look at learning as an incredibly important aspect of life, something that is far more important than the grades they will get at the end.
I think that this essay definitely needs some work however I was not sure how to go about it, I think my section on education is a little brief and the rest too long. I was not sure whether to write less on the background part or broaden it out instead.
Where I live there is an extremely small proportion of people from other backgrounds, because of that I have little experience with other cultures. This means that around me there is often a narrow-minded view of other cultures, religions and backgrounds. I have never quite understood what made people think this way so I have always kept an open-mind about others. Coupled with my love of learning and finding new things, this means I love meeting with completely different people and learning about them. Because my experiences with other cultures are limited, this makes me value them all the more as it is not often I can experience people who are completely different to me.
Coming from England I feel that I can provide a feeling of what life is like in a country which although has the same language and ideology is actually full of differences, not just in obvious physical differences like the education system and government. But the feeling of "same but different" is a often hard to describe feeling.
I hope at Macalester I can show people how being apart from different people does not mean you become ignorant of them, the opposite can definitely be true, in fact, the absence of many other cultures has made me more fascinated with them. I can provide a viewpoint which can help people to understand that the differences between people are in fact something that should be learned about rather than disregarded or shunned.
Throughout my life I have loved learning, taking extra classes and after school activities are things I have always done in order to learn more. However, what disappoints me the most in my peers is the view of education as being a necessary evil in order to achieve later in life. I find that the top performing students in my college are often the ones who complain the most about lessons and how much they wish to be out yet constantly talk about how they absolutely must have the best grade to get into the best university to get the best job that exists. This is not what education should be about, by valuing the lessons I attend and not viewing school as a necessary evil I feel like I have gained more from my time there than my peers who get perfect exam results.
To conclude, what I can contribute to Macalester is the idea that being apart from other cultures does not mean that you become insensitive and narrow-minded, in fact it can provide the opposite and can encourage people to learn about others rather than ignore. I hope to encourage people to look at learning as an incredibly important aspect of life, something that is far more important than the grades they will get at the end.
