What do you guys think of my umich supplemental essay #1?
Essay #1 Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it.
Commuting by rickshaw one day I saw a woman in rags squatting in front of a drainage channel. Everything about her looked ancient: her white hair, her wrinkled and dusty face, her rags which looked like it had stopped being a sari decades ago. Then I saw her hands and a mixture of disgust, pity and distress swept over me. The woman was washing her hands with black drainage water. This was not normal even in a country where beggars lined bus stands and footbridges everyday. Slum dwellers and beggars used these drains as makeshift toilets and pedestrians used them as spit basins. The woman was suffering from poverty of a magnitude I couldn't even have imagined before. This experience instilled in me a burning desire to do whatever I could to prevent the underprivileged from descending into such a sorry state. So when a friend proposed that we start a charity I was fully on board.
The seven of us who were the founding members shared an insatiable desire to help the underprivileged. We had all seen our fair share of indigent people and we all wanted to do something for them. I fondly remember the days we spent preparing for our first winter clothes distribution project. It was the first time that I was part of a community of dedicated volunteers. The willingness to do something for society without any expectation of reward warmed my heart and I felt that I belonged here more than anywhere else.
I need a non-asian perspective on this if possible since it contains several imagery that only asians might be familiar with.
Essay #1 Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it.
Commuting by rickshaw one day I saw a woman in rags squatting in front of a drainage channel. Everything about her looked ancient: her white hair, her wrinkled and dusty face, her rags which looked like it had stopped being a sari decades ago. Then I saw her hands and a mixture of disgust, pity and distress swept over me. The woman was washing her hands with black drainage water. This was not normal even in a country where beggars lined bus stands and footbridges everyday. Slum dwellers and beggars used these drains as makeshift toilets and pedestrians used them as spit basins. The woman was suffering from poverty of a magnitude I couldn't even have imagined before. This experience instilled in me a burning desire to do whatever I could to prevent the underprivileged from descending into such a sorry state. So when a friend proposed that we start a charity I was fully on board.
The seven of us who were the founding members shared an insatiable desire to help the underprivileged. We had all seen our fair share of indigent people and we all wanted to do something for them. I fondly remember the days we spent preparing for our first winter clothes distribution project. It was the first time that I was part of a community of dedicated volunteers. The willingness to do something for society without any expectation of reward warmed my heart and I felt that I belonged here more than anywhere else.
I need a non-asian perspective on this if possible since it contains several imagery that only asians might be familiar with.