Prompt: A range of academic interests, personal perspectives, and life experiences adds much to the educational mix. Given your personal background, describe an encounter that demonstrated the importance of diversity to you.
Imagine spending 1182 hours in personal toil and only receiving one encouraging word. This was the situation I found myself in as I joined a new swim team with a Russian coach trained in the Ukraine. As a long-time swimmer, I was used to receiving an abundance of compliments and perpetual motivational speeches from my coaches. However, after practicing for a few weeks on Vladamir's team, I noticed he employed a much different coaching style. I did not hear that reassuring "you're almost there" or "congratulations, you're doing great" that helped me through those grueling two and one half hour practices. I received scoffs and criticisms when I was expecting smiles and compliments. To me, Vladimir seemed like a cold, stern man with unknown expectations.
One particular practice, as I was trying to understand him through his heavy accent, I realized that Vladimir had been trained and surrounded by a whole different culture in Russia and that accounted for his different coaching style and unusually high expectations. He spent over 1182 hours swimming in an environment in the USSR where he did not receive compliments and was simply expected to perform. This stern approach of coaching that seemed so foreign to me was what he went through, leaving home at the age of twelve, and eventually leading to an Olympic medal.
I began to appreciate that Vladamir's refusal to give out compliments was not a slight, but rather that he had a much different ideology on how best to coach and motivate swimmers, based on his experiences and education. He did not feel the need to give out compliments, as he believed one should be motivated without these encouraging words. I did not need to take it personally when I did not receive a smile or congratulations after what I thought to be a great swim or well executed practice set.
It was the fact that he was so different from my previous coaches that made him valuable. He forced me to really think about why I was swimming, something I might not have otherwise. I learned to not swim for praise but to find the internal motivation and self-critique to push myself to meet those high expectations. It became clear to me that the benefit of experiencing diverse coaching styles is that each one can bring out the best in me if I embrace and learn from these differences. I can take this forward into my education and employment to know that diverse teaching and training styles may be uncomfortable to me but can help me grow in ways I would not have thought possible.
Imagine spending 1182 hours in personal toil and only receiving one encouraging word. This was the situation I found myself in as I joined a new swim team with a Russian coach trained in the Ukraine. As a long-time swimmer, I was used to receiving an abundance of compliments and perpetual motivational speeches from my coaches. However, after practicing for a few weeks on Vladamir's team, I noticed he employed a much different coaching style. I did not hear that reassuring "you're almost there" or "congratulations, you're doing great" that helped me through those grueling two and one half hour practices. I received scoffs and criticisms when I was expecting smiles and compliments. To me, Vladimir seemed like a cold, stern man with unknown expectations.
One particular practice, as I was trying to understand him through his heavy accent, I realized that Vladimir had been trained and surrounded by a whole different culture in Russia and that accounted for his different coaching style and unusually high expectations. He spent over 1182 hours swimming in an environment in the USSR where he did not receive compliments and was simply expected to perform. This stern approach of coaching that seemed so foreign to me was what he went through, leaving home at the age of twelve, and eventually leading to an Olympic medal.
I began to appreciate that Vladamir's refusal to give out compliments was not a slight, but rather that he had a much different ideology on how best to coach and motivate swimmers, based on his experiences and education. He did not feel the need to give out compliments, as he believed one should be motivated without these encouraging words. I did not need to take it personally when I did not receive a smile or congratulations after what I thought to be a great swim or well executed practice set.
It was the fact that he was so different from my previous coaches that made him valuable. He forced me to really think about why I was swimming, something I might not have otherwise. I learned to not swim for praise but to find the internal motivation and self-critique to push myself to meet those high expectations. It became clear to me that the benefit of experiencing diverse coaching styles is that each one can bring out the best in me if I embrace and learn from these differences. I can take this forward into my education and employment to know that diverse teaching and training styles may be uncomfortable to me but can help me grow in ways I would not have thought possible.