Neighborhood with migrant majority/ Bowdoin Supp/ Intellectual engagement/Common Good

Bowdoin students and alumni often cite world-class faculty and opportunities for intellectual engagement, the College's commitment to the Common Good, and the special quality of life on the coast of Maine as important aspects of the Bowdoin experience. Reflecting on your own interests and experiences, please comment on one of the following:

1. Intellectual engagement
2. The Common Good
3. Connection to place

I used to run to school: it is still fresh the feeling of disgust as I passed by the scantly clad young women loitering in the streets and the topless men sitting at "mahjong" tables. They all spoke unfamiliar dialects.

"Migrant workers" never had a positive connotation to me. Yet mother told me that they had stories to tell. The couple staying under the staircase woke up at four everyday to sell vegetables: they were saving money for a house back home; the single mother was happy to operate her small convenient shop here because her family did not want a divorced daughter home. Mother said that these people lived difficult lives because they had no better alternatives. I did not quite understand.

So mother encouraged me to play with their children. I am grateful that I heeded her advice. I learned that the big 12-year-old boy had never attended school since he came to Ningbo because he did not have residential status here. "Helping mother with the restaurant business is better." - His job was delivering food to construction sites everyday. What was so cool about life here? McDonald's. Pretty gardens. Occasional video games. His friends back in his hometown envied his lifestyle.

I grew up in a neighborhood where the migrant population was higher than the local population. There I learned never to judge people before I really know them; there I learned when many people live comfortably, many others lived an entirely different life; there I began to understand the life at the other end of the spectrum.

I hope one day I will help change the items on the boy's list.

I love your first sentence; it's very intriguing. But you might want to add a bit more to the final sentence to finish off the tie-in.

Overall, nice essay. It shows your passion and personality.

thanks! maybe we will see other at Bowdoin next year!