This is my response to the first prompt of the Common App, which asks about an experience I have faced, and its impact on me. Since English is not my first language, please be as though as you can with my grammar, and I welcome critiques. Feel free to ask me to read you essay.
Thanks :)
I didn't cry when I left, though I knew that a gun had just shot me, and that the pain would eventually arrive. During that moment, I was selfless, numb. A feeling of nothingness had invaded my body.
Days later, I looked around me and I did not see the family and friends I had always had by my side. I tried calling their names, but they did not appear, and I realized that I was alone in my life. I believed I was going to die with all the thoughts and feelings that were populating my head, and the excruciating heart ache that was causing me to cry. But instead, an instinct to survive grew inside me, and drove me to wipe the tears, mend my heart, and face what my new life offered me.
Being an immigrant has taught me to appreciate the things that I used to take for granted. Living in a country where everybody spoke the same language and shared the same roots, I did not realize how fortunate I was for having African and Spaniard great-grandparents, and for speaking Spanish as my first language. Now, a passion for Latin has emerged in me, and I have decided to seek a dual degree in Biology and Romance Languages, to submerge myself in the history behind Latin, and how it has derived into languages that share similarities as well as differences.
My new home has given me the opportunity to discover new cultures and merge them with my own. For about a year now, I have been fascinated with the Asian countries, their folklore, customs, and languages, and I have grown to become a proud Asian at heart. I have realized that diversity is not only about having different heritages, but about having different thoughts, beliefs, and interests as well; and that the world, just as a rainbow, is more beautiful and amusing when it has a great variety of colors.
The experience of leaving my country has encouraged me to help other immigrants. Many of them feel like they cannot be successful in this country due to their background. Others, especially teenage girls, make wrong decisions because they don't have a source of support. Knowing the desperation felt when a family member is sick, but cannot receive medical help because of a bad economic situation, I, as a future doctor, would like to provide them with free treatments. I want to be that helping hand that guides immigrants through the paths of success, and someone with whom they can share their worries.
This permanent mark I have in my soul has changed me into a human being with a reason to thrive for life. It has showed me the true colors of this world, and especially, it has helped me to find a sense of self-identification. Now I can see the potential I have in me to make a difference in this planet, and I can look at my future with a serene expression and say to it: "Now, bring me that horizon."
I was really rather confused at first, I thought you had actually been shot.
What you want to say is that "it felt as if I had been shot in the heart", not "thought I knew a gun had just shot me."
Did you immigrate alone? I don't understand why you didn't see your family and friends around you.
