My Essay:
I think my academic history is a little bit different from other people. I lived in Vietnam until I was 19 years old, which means I had never attended a USan American school before. When I was 19, my family moved to live in USA. I believe this event has the most significant impact on my educational path and my personal life. By coming to theUS, I have a change to have better educationthe use of the verb 'have' in this statement is confusing: you do not 'have' a change, you 'go through,' or 'experience' a change; 'have' better education does not clearly indicate the improvement of your educational background, which seems to be your original intention, which I could never have if I hadstill lived in Vietnam. But the educational challenges that I had to face were just great as the benefits. Coming from a country that does not speaking English, communication iswas the biggest hurdle for me. I had learned English before coming to US. I learned mostly from books. But nobody can learn a language just by books, and I am not an was noexception. I could read and write pretty well, but I was not good at communication. My first-quarter experience at Tacoma Community College (TCC) can demonstrate how language is the biggest challenge that I have ever faced.
I had English 95 and Statistics that quarter. In the first day of class, my English instructor handed out the "syllabus." At that time, I did not know what a syllabus was at all. My instructor just repeatedly used the word "syllabus" like "on the front page of the syllabus...," "there is a calendar of important days on the back of the syllabus...," and "do you have any other question about the syllabus..." I started to felt scared because I could not figure out what my instructor was talking about. There were so many new words that I did not know. When my instructor showed how to use textbook, which exercise he expected student to complete, and which chapter he skipped; he said "If you haven't got the textbook yet, please sit next to students who have." I knew he talked something about textbook but I did not know exactly what it was. Some student started to move. Even though I did not have textbook, I did not move because I did not know why other people moved. My instructor saw I did not move. He looked at me and asked, "Why don't you move up here to sit with Gorge?" I had a feeling that he was talking to me, but I could not figure out that he was speaking. I looked around with the hope that he was talking to somebody else. He repeated, "I'm talking to you. Why don't you move up here?" This time, I knew he was talking to me. Other student started to turn around and looked at me. I still did not know why people looked at me like that. I was paralyzed. I was completely stiff. My mind went wild. I looked around, tried to figure out what was going on here. Other students were staring at me, and I did not know how to responsed. I started to panic. My instructor repeated for the third time, "Giang, right? Come up here to sit next to George, he hasa textbook." He pointed at the seat next to a student. This time, the motion of his hand gave me the hint. I moved to sit next to George, and my instructor started to talk about the textbook. Even though my awkward moment only last for a few second, Iit felt like a decade. For the rest of the class, I just stared at my textbook. I did not even look up. I did not want to catch my instructor's attention. I kept asking what other students thought of me after that class.
Above is just one of the awkward moments I had because of language barrier. For the rest of the quarter, I always sat in the corner or places that my instructor did not pay attention to. I tried not to make eye contact with my instructor, so that he would never call me. After knowing this story, you might think how pathetic I was. Indeed, I was. I was unable to follow my instructor in class. I was unable to participate actively in in-class activities. But you will never think that I have any difficulty in learning if you look at my transcript. Out of 12 classes I have took so far, I got one B+, the rest were A. I even got A on the two first English 95 and Statistics class. How did I manage to do that? I knew I was not good at listening; I always read the chapter before coming to class. I knew I was not good at speaking; I tried to socialize myself and participate more active in in-class activities. That was how I overcome the language barrier. So, what I try to tell is no matter how hard my education path is I will always find a way to overcome. Hard working will compensate for flaws I might have because of not being born in USA. That is what I always believe in.while the part for describing your hardship is rather long, I personally suggest you to describe more about how you came to overcome your problem.
Unlike other students, who might not know what they want to do with their life, I always know what I want to do. I want to major in finance and accounting. I want to major in finance and accounting for three reasons. The first reason is I want to be an entrepreneur. The second reason is I want to contribute to society. Last but not least, I want to be challenged.
Finance and accounting give me the knowledge to be a successful entrepreneur. I want to be an entrepreneur since I see everything around me is a business opportunity. For example, at the start of every quarter, TCC's school board is full of ads. These ads are posted by students who want to sell back their book. There are more than hundreds of ads on that board. Many students try to find a bargain from those ads, but most of the time they just give up. There are so many ads; students just cannot look over all of them to find the right book that they are looking for. Most of the time, students will walk away if they have stared at those ads for more than 5 minutes and could not find anything. Suddenly, I realize there is a whole new market for selling and buying text book. There are hundreds of ads which mean there are hundreds of students who try to sell their textbook. There are hundreds of students who take a look at those ads because they want to save some money. There are sellers; there are buyers. But school board is definitely not an efficient way for sellers to reach to buyers. What these sellers and buyers need is a market place where sellers can easily find buyers and buyers can easily find what they are looking for. So, I think of making a website that serves as a market place for TCC student only. Sellers can list the book that they are selling by ISBN on my website. Buyers can find the book that they looking for by ISBN. And I charge a small amount of fee for every listing.
This might sound similar to the way how Amazon and Ebay work. But in fact, they are completely different. Sellers on Ebay and Amazon have to pay from 15% to 20% on every sale they make. Moreover, sellers have to pay shipping fee which might cost another 10%. So, in total, sellers have to pay from 25% to 30% to sell their book. My website work in a totally differently. Seller will come to my website and list a book for a fix amount of fee. When a buyer agrees to buy from a seller, the buyer will contact the seller and negotiate with the seller. The benefit my website offer is sellers do not have to pay too much for listing fee and also not having to pay for shipping fee because both the seller and buyer come from the same school, which is TCC in this case. That was what I really thought when I saw students walking away from my school's board and disappointed that they could not find the book that they are looking for.
Above is just one example how I look at a normal thing from an entrepreneur's perspective. Somehow, I just look at everything from an entrepreneur's perspective. Instead of just walking away, I wondered how I could create a new market for students who wanted to sell and buy books. Even though I come up with a lot of ideas similar to that idea, I never know the profitability of my ideas. Can my idea become a business opportunity? Can my business earn profit or I just wasting money? There is no use to have a lot of ideas without knowing how to make them work. The reason I want to major in finance and accounting because I believe that with knowledge about business, I will be able to turn an idea into a business opportunity, and make that business profitable.
The second reason I want to major in finance and accounting is because I want to contribute to our society. Even though every business's primary purpose is to earn profit, every business contribute to society in many way. For example, Amazon helps students save money on textbook; Facebook give us a new way to communicate. Without Amazon, students have to spend more on textbook. Without Facebook, we cannot keep in touch with our friends that easily. Amazon and Facebook both contribute to our society but in different way. By building a successful business, I also contribute a new value to society. With skills in finance and accounting field, I believe I can build a successful business.
The third reason I want to major in finance and accounting is because I want to challenge myself. An entrepreneur's path is a path full of challenges. An entrepreneur always has to compete with others to survive. An entrepreneur has to constantly think of a way to make his business better and better. There are challenges after challenges in his way. Having to compete every day might sound exhausted to other people, but to me, it sound just completely perfect. Every time I overcome a challenge, I feel like I just learn a valuable lesson that I could never learn from any textbook. I never feel that I learn enough. I always want to challenge myself to learn more. Moreover, every challenge comes with a great reward too. Every time I overcome a challenge, I push the boundary of my ability further. I am more and more confident in myself. An entrepreneur's path is a challenging path that I want to follow. With knowledge in finance and accounting field, I prepare myself for challenges in future.
Getting admission to University of Washington is not only important to me but also important to my family. I think everybody can imagine how hard life can be for immigrants. That is my family case. My parents do not speak English. Even though they want to learn English, they are just at the age that learning a new language can take up to 10 years. Because my parents do not speak English, they cannot make new friends. They cannot watch TV. They cannot find jobs. My parents do not feel happy living here. My parents always can go back to Vietnam but they never do it. It is because my parents want me and my little sister to have chance to have better education. My mother even took a job that normally she would never take. My mother works for a nail salon. Her job is to massage customers' feet while they sit back and relaxed. She has to do her best to make customers satisfied. It might sound normal in American culture for one person to massage another person's feet. But in our culture, it is considered to be extremely degrading. Our integrity will never allow us to do that. My mother did even though she felt that way. There were times I heard she cried in the phone when she talked with her friends back in Vietnam about her job. She told them how degrading she felt. Hearing she cried just piercing my heart because I knew why my mother had to take that job. Because of me. At that time, I had a job. Even though I worked more than 40 hours a week, it was still not enough to support a four-member family. I was thinking of taking another job. My mother knew that if I had taken another job, I could not concentrate on my learning any more. She decided to take the job at that nail salon so that I had more time for my education. Because my parents want me to have better education, they always want me can get admission to UW. They want me to have the life that they could never have. Getting admission to UW is no longer my personal decision. It become the reason my parents live their unhappy life.
Concerns:
I think my essay a little bit too long. Do you have any suggestion?
I am a little bit confused about the "cultural understanding". I am not sure that I have cover it in my essay. What do you think?
Do you have any suggestion for me? This is the first time I write a personal statement. English is not my first language. So, I am sure there are many places I express my ideas not very clear. If you spot them. Please let me know.
