U of Michigan Short Answer - Diversity, engineering

[A] "We know that diversity makes us a better university - better for learning, for teaching, and for conducting research." (U-M President Mary Sue Coleman)

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.

Diversity provides the opportunity of blending all the different culture in the world into one ultimate "aroma", an intellectual mix, which is vital to any successful learning environment. The accumulated diverse opinions and thoughts constitute a better university or even a better country and a better world. The word "respect" is the most essential part in dealing with multicultural environments, respect to others thoughts, culture, opinions and beliefs. As I grew up in Turkey, I became accustomed to many different cultures and beliefs and eventually learned to respect and appreciate each and everyone. Somehow in Turkey, you can find every kind of people and that's a fact. Both of my schools were English education schools which allowed me to further expand my knowledge on English and American culture, along with my own and other Middle East cultures. Through my journey in life, I have experienced that no matter what the situation, different opinions is the aide. On a larger scale, this could easily transfer to diversity. My most recent experience was last summer, when I went to Summer Discovery in Northeastern University. Coming from Turkey, I already anticipated the high level of diverse students I would be meeting, yet I was still surprised when I got to meet the whole lot; from Puerto Ricans to Mexicans and from Irish to Spanish to Korean, everyone was there. During my one month stay there, I found out a lot about all the culture I've been missing out on and saw that diversity really works well in a college environment. There was literally no problem of getting along with each other; everyone was like they knew each other forever. This gave me more hope and confidence about acclimatizing to college life, as I saw I had absolutely no problem blending in with people from other cultures and contributing to the diverse educational mix. I think my Turkish background combined with all my personal experience should enable me to contribute a lot to the learning environment in the University of Michigan.

did I answer the prompt? And I need to omit some of the useless sentences to meet the length criteria and I don't really know if my answer is solid or well organized?

any help would be much appreciated THANKS !!!

I also found this quote that I liked
"If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place."

should I squeeze this in somewhere or just leave it out?...

[B]
Please describe your interests and aspirations in engineering. What experiences have influenced you?(approximately 250 words)

I was always fascinated with math and science, since I excelled in both which boosted my confidence, hence my interest for engineering sciences. Being a do-a-bit-of-everything individual as I grew up, industrial engineering caught my attention as I found out in my researches that it was like several engineering majors combined. I talked to several counselors, experts and even attended some "career panel meetings" about Industrial Engineering. It seems you need engineers to run factories or corporations, but you need an Industrial Engineer to lead and keep everything in place. See, industrial engineers are supposed to know the fundamentals of electrical, chemical and mechanical engineering, so this makes them to go-to guy in leading a team of engineers: they are the guys that speak everybody's language. Then again, I still like to keep an open mind about other engineering careers since I don't think I am knowledgeable enough in certain fields to make a choice, but still, I think industrial engineering would have a special "priority" place in my heart. As to further elaborate on why I would like to be an engineer, my childhood memories would serve to be helpful. Although I haven't had a certain solid experience that influenced me to be an engineer right away, I have always loved to create and fiddle with things, even as a little boy. I had countless toy "work bench" kits and I looked up to my dad as a role model, for he had this hobby of assembling and playing with remote control cars; the whole mechanical system and the engine and everything. It wouldn't be wrong to think that the household items from my childhood had an influence in my career choice. Then again there were my own childish thoughts which seem so far away to accomplish, but still pretty amazing even at this age. My ultimate dream has always been about making a difference, being useful to humanity; I want to leave something behind and let the world feel my absence when I'm gone, instead of being another speck of dust in the wind.

I think I got a little overboard and WAAAAY LOST in this one so please help again :D
any useless sentences or comments I should avoid or omit?
I would really appreciate any contribution

thanks a lot in advance

If you want to start with the quote, you can get rid of some of this to make room for it:

Maybe you should start with that quote, and continue with "Diversity provides..."

It would be good if, with a single sentence, you can make it so that this description of coming from Turkey is represented by a single, memorable experience. Such an experience is what the prompt asks for.

For the second one, it is too bad you have to cut it down to 250 words, but here is some help:

Try cutting out the intro stuff and start with:

Industrial engineering caught...

Although I cannot name a single, life-changing experience that...

The rest of this is strong, good content!!

I think you'll do great!!

:)

first of all, thanks for the help :D

so you're saying I should put the quote in the beginning, but that makes it even longer?
Should I get rid of the parts you stroke out?

and are they really THAT strict about word count?

Well, strictness about word count ends up being a personal decision made by the person reading it. Some people are methodical thinkers, and they judge you based on how accurately you meet each aspct of this challenge -- including word count. Other people are creative, so they have little patience for trivialities like word count. The long and short of it is that somebody will be judging you based on this, so you can never be sure!!!

Anyway, the quote is good, so include it if you want to. MAny students make a mistake by including a quote that is not quite right for the occasion, but this quote is good. However, in general, I think i is better not to use quotes, because after all this thing is supposed to show something about you...

In answer to your question, yes, I think you can do without the parts I struck out. That'll give you some room! :) You write well! Just try to make it so that this essay is about one specific experience at a specific point in your history.

For [A] I think you should omit the first 3 sentenses since the prompt does not ask for this. Also I think you should elaborate more about "how your personal experiences and achievements would contribute to the diversity of the University of Michigan", you did not seem to answer this part specifically.