'Making up the lost time' - UC prompt 1

Describe the world you come from-for example, your family, community or school and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.
When I was a kid, I have always told the people around me that I wanted to become a teacher. In response, they would ask me why, but my answer had always been a simple, "I don't know". Eventually, this desire gradually subsided as I passively observed my dad.

About seven years ago, my dad co-operated a business with a friend. This business consisted of them receiving orders from restaurants to construct or repair pieces of kitchen related stainless steel equipment. It was not a big business of any sort, but their business did decently well. But after a while, my dad had decided to end the partnership because he felt that he was being taken advantage of since he did 99% of the business's work while his partner did nothing to benefit the business. So after leaving the partnership, my dad decided to run his own business, and it was not difficult to start over because he already had connections and contacts with many of his clients from before. But in 2009 when my dad broke his leg at a job location, he had to withdraw himself from business for a year and just let his employees operate the business. His disability to work had brought my family a period of financial stress and worry, but after nine months, my dad had inserted himself back to work in order to continue providing financial support for my family. Although he was not fully recovered, he insisted on doing whatever his body would allow him to. And from then on, my dad has spent every day except Sunday working for over ten hours a day, hoping to make up for the loss time.

Although my dad and I do not spend as much time as we would like to because of his late work hours and my early school hours, nonetheless, he still has taught me invaluable lessons. My dad's dedication and perseverance has inspired me to what I want to become in the future. After many years of declaring my dream job as a teacher, I now want to major in business. From my dad's business experience, I learned that if I want to succeed, I have to be resilient and confident. These characteristics will help me endure and overcome any obstacles or adversities in life. And even after his accident, my dad did not give up. His actions showed me that I should allow things to inhibiting me from doing what I want. And that is why I am currently enrolled in my school's marketing class. Through this class, I hope to learn about a specific business field and prepare myself for the future. Seeing how dedicated my dad is in order to financially support the family inspires me to pursue a dream of my own that would allow me to do the same.

The anecdote about how you originally wanted to be a teacher doesn't add much, and I think you can axe that part so you have more room to elaborate more on either your narrative or on why you want to go into business. Other than that, it's pretty well written.

I guess you try to say that you did not have a proper direction or dedication in pursuing your dream at the start, but by seeing how your father's perseverance and commitment to achieving his goal you got inspired and motivated that helped you too become dedicated to your dream. However, you need to give some indication about this by the last sentence. The sentence I have highlighted (in bold) is not strong enough to establish a link between this para and the forth coming ones.


It was not a big business of any sort, butThough not very a business of large scale ittheir business did decently well. But after a while, my dad had decided to end the partnership because he felt that he was being taken on advantage of since he did 99%; hisof the business's work while his partner'scontribution began to drop and my father had to manage everything about it .and did nothing to benefit the business .

Thanks dumi for your feedback. The first commentor josephuong suggested that i take out the entire first paragraph (When i was a kid...). in a sense, i feel like i want to keep it, but is it relavant to the rest of my essay? or would it be better to take it out in general?

You don't necessarily need to omit that you wanted to be a teacher at first, but the first couple sentences are a bit misleading.

"When I was a kid, I have (get rid of this have too btw) always told the people around me that I wanted to become a teacher." ==> This is your first sentence, so it's important in the sense that it'll be the very first thing that the admissions officers will read. It's a bit anti-climactic to say that you just didn't know why you wanted to be a teacher, and the transition to when you wanted to go into business should stronger. You even say that the transition comes from observing your dad. I'd write that transition with more conviction.

In short: Less about wanting to be a teacher (unless it serves a purpose other than being what you wanted to do before going into business), strengthen the transition.

Hope this helps.

I think you can keep it , after all I think it provides you a good entrance.... You wanted to become a teacher, it was in your fairy tale dreams, but you had no idea why and how you can be so. Because at that time you were not inspired by anything special to follow your dream. It was your father and his courageous pursuit of his dream that filled this missing part. So build your story in that direction and align it to the prompt as much as you can : )

^That would be a great approach. If you can make that connection clear, it'll make your essay both anecdotal and cohesive.

Good luck!