CommonApp Short Answer - Elaborate extracirricular activivy or job.
need 10 characters cut
It was yelling. It was directing. And it was creating. Being a major client to many construction companies, my father spent most of his time away from home. Thus, as the oldest family member, I was to be in charge of many important matters including supervising our new house construction site. In the first month, everything seems messy and bewildering; but soon I grasped the language. I learned to coordinate team members, to improvise needed tools, and to schedule meetings with contractors' representatives. Communication skills were essential. I also became aware of community relations as it became more and more important; merchants started to write IOUs and workers voluntarily delayed salary. Furthermore, I was deeply astonished by members' devotion and volunteerism for they went to incredible extent to help our family succeed. Like my father said, "not a dime was earned, but what learned was beyond belief," I want to go to college to attain more knowledge and to keep building more and more.
What matters to you, and why?
need 300 characters cut, anywhere you can
At the end of my junior year, my family's balance sheet had found its way back to the crossroad of positive and negative numbers. In this state of emergency, my family of four children and a single mother had to make immediate cutbacks in almost all of its expenditures. Summer was at the corner, and to us it meant no more free school meals and thus no longer being able to save on the cost of food. I began to feel helpless. Of course I thought about getting a job but the speed of the legal process for immigrants was much less than a farce. At one night, I came into my mother's room and locked the door. Twelve hours and many tears later, I was gone. I knew I had to be strong in order to survive that summer, and I knew my decision had caused her much sadness, but I also knew that we had no other choice. With a fat backpack and fifty dollars in my pocket, I took a road trip into the unknown.
At first, I found myself looking through the glass window of Altura, the most expensive restaurant in Seattle. Ten days later, I was in the infamous Tanderloin of San Francisco, home of the top seven crime plots in the region, homelessness and social disarray. And then, it hit me like an epiphany.
There was a robbery in progress, but I made no attempt to help, nor did I even move my legs. My eyes followed the criminal's every move but every muscle of my body was frozen in place, leaving my mind to concentrate on a much more significant matter: making sense out of "it". It was poverty. It was wealth. It was political corruption and social disparity. It was a moment of sudden realization and self-actualization. At that moment, I began to comprehend the reasons of my existence. I exist to fight inequality.
I love America. I love its people and their patriotism, their absolute trust in the Constitution. But the responsibility for my home country is far greater than my love. In Vietnam, political corruption is a part of our daily lives. Nobody bothers enough to have the parking tickets printed since we can just pull them right out of our pockets. I want to study democracy and become a lawyer. I want to study finance and become a banker. I want to be in whatever profession that will place me in the core political corruption and inequality, capable of transforming politics of my Vietnam, bringing justice to those who need them, and those who deserve them.
need 10 characters cut
It was yelling. It was directing. And it was creating. Being a major client to many construction companies, my father spent most of his time away from home. Thus, as the oldest family member, I was to be in charge of many important matters including supervising our new house construction site. In the first month, everything seems messy and bewildering; but soon I grasped the language. I learned to coordinate team members, to improvise needed tools, and to schedule meetings with contractors' representatives. Communication skills were essential. I also became aware of community relations as it became more and more important; merchants started to write IOUs and workers voluntarily delayed salary. Furthermore, I was deeply astonished by members' devotion and volunteerism for they went to incredible extent to help our family succeed. Like my father said, "not a dime was earned, but what learned was beyond belief," I want to go to college to attain more knowledge and to keep building more and more.
What matters to you, and why?
need 300 characters cut, anywhere you can
At the end of my junior year, my family's balance sheet had found its way back to the crossroad of positive and negative numbers. In this state of emergency, my family of four children and a single mother had to make immediate cutbacks in almost all of its expenditures. Summer was at the corner, and to us it meant no more free school meals and thus no longer being able to save on the cost of food. I began to feel helpless. Of course I thought about getting a job but the speed of the legal process for immigrants was much less than a farce. At one night, I came into my mother's room and locked the door. Twelve hours and many tears later, I was gone. I knew I had to be strong in order to survive that summer, and I knew my decision had caused her much sadness, but I also knew that we had no other choice. With a fat backpack and fifty dollars in my pocket, I took a road trip into the unknown.
At first, I found myself looking through the glass window of Altura, the most expensive restaurant in Seattle. Ten days later, I was in the infamous Tanderloin of San Francisco, home of the top seven crime plots in the region, homelessness and social disarray. And then, it hit me like an epiphany.
There was a robbery in progress, but I made no attempt to help, nor did I even move my legs. My eyes followed the criminal's every move but every muscle of my body was frozen in place, leaving my mind to concentrate on a much more significant matter: making sense out of "it". It was poverty. It was wealth. It was political corruption and social disparity. It was a moment of sudden realization and self-actualization. At that moment, I began to comprehend the reasons of my existence. I exist to fight inequality.
I love America. I love its people and their patriotism, their absolute trust in the Constitution. But the responsibility for my home country is far greater than my love. In Vietnam, political corruption is a part of our daily lives. Nobody bothers enough to have the parking tickets printed since we can just pull them right out of our pockets. I want to study democracy and become a lawyer. I want to study finance and become a banker. I want to be in whatever profession that will place me in the core political corruption and inequality, capable of transforming politics of my Vietnam, bringing justice to those who need them, and those who deserve them.