Essay Prompt:
Describe the world you come from - for example, your family, community or school - and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations. Please tell me if this a good topic i feel like i messed up!
Moving to a New World
I remember moving from Pakistan to the United States when i was 5 years old. I remember how i had dreams and assumptions that it would be so easy to fit in. How i thought i would not have difficulty making new friends, but i had forgotten that in life if you want to gain something you have to lose something. When i arrived to the United States. Everything felt so different. I did not know english or anything. I was like a lost child who had forgotten where she belonged.
When i was going to start as a third grader in Francis Scott Key Elementary School i was really excited about going to a new school and making new friends and being accepted for who i was. That i would not be judged, but when i walked into my class the first day everyone were not that welcoming. My fellow classmates judged me about how i looked, my religion, and where i came from. I was really not used to being judged. I came from a society that accepted me the way i was and suddenly my fellow students were judging me. So it was really hard for me to accept that. I mean i felted like the dreams that this 5 year old had. Had been shattered.
As time went by everything got better because as i started speaking english more and more. I could understand what other students when they said bad things about me. So i stood up for myself when they tried to bully me or make fun of me. My family had a big role in helping me adapt to the american culture. My dad encouraged me to stand up for myself and never give up. My mom inspired me the most because she is a person who had to go through a big change in her life from being a housewife to a strong and independant women. This really inspired me because when i saw her go through this change it changed my outlook on my life. That i have to be strong and independant like her. That i can't let these negative comments affect me because no matter what i do i am always going to be hated for something and if i let that affect me than i won't be able to achieve anything in life.
Faith played a major role in helping me adapt to the american culture because it gave me hope. I came from a culture that had strong beliefs about god and those beliefs were passed down to me. This experience shaped me the person i am today by this experience taught me that i should not give up hope even if it seems like the only choice i have because if i gave up hope at that moment than i would not be strong enough to face other challenges in life.
Tayyaba, you wrote a good response to the essay. However, I don't really think that starting the response out from when you were 5 years old is really the way to go here. I mean, at that age, it will be hard for the reviewer to believe that you already had a point of view about life that could be as earth shattering as you portray it in your essay. I think you should choose a story or incident from your more recent past. While I encourage you to include the information about being an immigrant, it would be better for your essay if you can come up with a more recent experience that can tell us about your current world.
Be it academic or social, a current perspective is always best. After all, you said that things got better for you over time, show us that you indeed assimilated into the American culture in a successful manner. Start your story from when you began aspiring for your future in America. When you started dreaming about that American Dream for yourself. I believe that started around high school. Tell us about that world and how it affected you as a person and helped shape your personal world.
I like the mention of how your parents helped you adjust to the American way of life. I would have liked to have read more about how your mother influenced you and helped you dream and aspire in life. By the way, would it be possible for you to talk about what your dreams and aspirations in life are? I think if you open your essay with a statement about that, then work on reflecting upon how your previous experiences helped you develop those aspirations would be a nice way to present this essay. Perhaps you can talk about your mother and her influence upon you to become an independent woman. Quick reminder, watch out for those plural forms. Your mom is a single person so the term you should have used is "independent woman". Women is the plural form of woman.
I would like to caution you against discussing any form of mentioned or unmentioned religion in the essay. Try to remain neutral in that respect because religion does not really play any role in your college admission. It could however, bring some unnecessary questions regarding your character traits and beliefs, to the mind of the reviewer if you discuss the effects of religion on your life. I would opt to discuss something else in order to avoid that. Maybe you could expand upon the influence of your father and mother individually upon you instead. Yes, I think that would be better and less controversial to discuss :-)
Again, you can better represent the world you came from. I hope my advice can help you do just that :-
