I revised my personal statement! What do you think?

Octavio
Wed, 24 Nov 2010 21:12:47 +0000

Well, I revised my my prompt #1 personal statement. What do you think?
Just in case anyone wants to know it’s only 607 words :)

Prompt #1: 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.

“Life is like a box of chocolates…except everyone’s eaten all the chocolates and all you’re left with is an empty box.” This probably sounds really melancholic, but when my friend said this to me I laughed because I thought that his version spoke more to my life than the original one. And, though it is true that from day-to-day I don’t know what I’m going to get, I often notice that I am starting with less than the typical American, or in other words, a rather empty box.
I am a senior in high school, about to graduate, and the oldest of four children. I come from a low-income family originally from Mexico; I still have family in Mexico, but I don’t even know in what city – we are cut off from our relatives there. Maybe having my two relatives in the United States is the reason that a lot falls on me. Everyone else looks up to me, not just my brothers and sisters, but also my cousins and even my parents. Sometimes this feels good, but to be honest, it comes with a big burden –people expect great things from me. I feel like everything I do needs to work out, though I often feel like I am shining a flashlight in front of me and am only making out the next step. There is a lot of darkness and though the box still smells sweet, the sweetness can sometimes be misleading.
When I was in elementary school, I wanted to be a dentist. Then after going through the experience of getting my “snazzy” blue braces and getting some teeth pulled, that wore off and I got interested in theoretical physics. I was “adding chocolates to my box” through inspiring teachers and education; quarks and the fundamental forces were spellbinding to me and I aspired to be like my favorite physicist, Michio Kaku, attentively watching his documentaries and dreaming of my future. However, the notion of having to know calculus humbled me a bit but an influential French teacher in my sophomore year “filled my chocolate box” even a little more and brought me back to earth, to people and my true talent: languages and linguistics.
There is something about languages that really gets my attention. First, I have an aptitude for learning languages; I can speak English, French and Spanish fluently, French being my latest acquisition. But that is not all it is. Language is a gateway to understanding people more deeply, and I find it fascinating to see all the similarities and differences in people across cultures in the ways that they mold language to represent where they are coming from and what is important to them. I can see myself as an interpreter who understands the distinct and subtle differences, and who can make the translation.
We can’t always have everything we want, and some people start with a full box whereas others come at it from the other end and need to fill theirs up. I might be working backwards but feel strongly that we have to take to our advantage the areas where we are blessed in. Some are blessed socially but they lack brilliance; others have financial ease, but they lack amiability; and a few are blessed with intellect and understanding, but lack is fiscal stability. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon, but I am empathetic and understand people and their differences. And, I am determined to make an impact and see that my box of chocolates ends up full rather than empty and hopefully with a nice variety from which others, like my family, can choose.


More constructive ciriticism please!!! :)

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