People around me - UBC Personal: What is Important to you

The people around me

The people around me have always held top priority in my heart. It is only because of kindness received from my community that I am able to become the person I am today. Due to this, I try to reciprocate as possible, tailoring myself and my personal goals to meet others expectations. I've only recently come to recognize this trait as both a value and a detriment. Growing up in an environment that placed high emphasis on STEM, I based my goals around striving towards a STEM based career in Engineering. Out of fear of letting my community down, I suppressed my own interests and did what was expected of me. It was not until close introspection I realized that basing my self value on the perceptions of others was preventing me from defining my own value. While I was exceeding the expectations of others, I was letting myself down by relinquishing my own goals. In my senior year, I decided to shift focus and gear towards nursing, a field that resonated with me more on a personal level. Though questioned regarding this decision, I decided to move forward with confidence, directing my efforts in pursuing my own definition of success. To me, while earning the respect of others is important, what is more crucial is to never lose sight of my own values. I will always go the extra mile for those that need me, but will aim to never lose sight of matters regarding my own personal growth and development.

Hi, any feedback is appreciated! I'm worried about this being too basic or lacking voice, so if a topic shift is necessary I will do so!

Your response was good at the start, then it got waylaid towards the later and end part of the discussion. The essay went from being about the people around you being important to a self-centered discussion of how you grew up in a STEM environment. This is not an essay about you. This is an essay about something that you value in life. Obviously, it is not the people around you. Possible topics for this statement are:

1. Justice ( BLM, Save the Blue, Unjust imprisonment)
2. Equality ( LGBTQ, Minority Issues)
3. Human Rights ( Racial discrimination, Gender discrimination)
4. Freedom ( life, liberty, expression)

To name but a few. I made reference to the more popular topics normally discussed as a part of the reference to give an idea of what topics are relevant to those themes. You can choose your own theme and discussion target. Just make sure that you make this about the other people and not about you. The only reference to you in the presentation should be why you consider the topic important to you.

Do you have a personal relationship with the topic? If yes, explain. If no, who do you know who was affected by it?
How did the importance of this topic affect your decision to choose your major?

Those 2 questions, integrated into your response should help the essay develop a balanced reference to the choice of topic, why you are concerned about it, and how it has helped you develop as a person through your choice of university major.

Hi, actually i am not good enough at writing. However i have a suggestion to you to decide your main topic ( i am sorry but i little confuse about you main idea whether it is about the role of people around you or how you make a decision). I meant that your the following sentences after the first one do not support your main idea very much. Thank you.

@Holt
@ekawanda
Hi, thank you for your response! I was having similar doubts about my topic so this advice was very helpful! I was kind of going for a "learning to not be a pushover and making independent choices" essay, but now I'm wondering if I should abandon this train of thought and write about a different topic?