Please help with personal statement
Posted: Sat Aug 07, 2010 9:20 pm
Please be as honest as possible. I need all he help I can get
IPods, trendy clothes, gold watches, shoes, designer handbags, jewelry; all items designed to say “look at me”, in short, designed to sell. I had to hand it to my Mother; she had an uncanny eye for what was “in” for someone who was out of the pop culture loop. The above-mentioned goods laid in a warehouse floor somewhere in Fort Worth, Texas, totaling about $10,000 of hard-earned money my mother had worked to save. That was the last time we would see them, as it was all gone in an instant, seized by the United States Customs. This set up a chain reaction that would apex in losing the family dollar store business, a financial disaster my family and I are still trying to recover from.
Contrast that day, that moment, with another, on blah blah date, this time the location was Dallas; on perhaps the most important day for me since emigration to the United States from England in 1996. My family was about to take the Oath of Allegiance, and become full-fledged American citizens. Sunday’s best was the required attire, a blithe countenance revealed our feelings, which gave way to jubilation and relief once the ceremony was done. To put it in perspective, only graduating from college was a happier event in my life.
The common thread between these two sets of events was the interplay between the law of the United States and our lives. In the case of the former, my mother had unwittingly violated the law, as she had not cleared the goods through the proper channels, and the latter, we had followed the letter of the law to a T and were rewarded for it. In both situations, the reasoning behind these laws and why they applied to our situation were foreign to us, we only knew how to follow and unwittingly violate.
This is a very common problem for people arriving to the United States for the first time. The laws governing their home country and those of the States is often very different, so much so that adjusting to the legal climate can a difficult one, an ordeal I have experience. I understand the importance of having a working knowledge of the judicial system and a law degree will help me do that. This understanding will enable me to become an active participant who can in turn influence the system, a feature that America is revered for. This will then in turn better position to serve this growing clientele.
Furthermore, the international and comparative law program Duke University offers will enable me to explore the role American policies resonate internationally, a subject that has fascinated me.
IPods, trendy clothes, gold watches, shoes, designer handbags, jewelry; all items designed to say “look at me”, in short, designed to sell. I had to hand it to my Mother; she had an uncanny eye for what was “in” for someone who was out of the pop culture loop. The above-mentioned goods laid in a warehouse floor somewhere in Fort Worth, Texas, totaling about $10,000 of hard-earned money my mother had worked to save. That was the last time we would see them, as it was all gone in an instant, seized by the United States Customs. This set up a chain reaction that would apex in losing the family dollar store business, a financial disaster my family and I are still trying to recover from.
Contrast that day, that moment, with another, on blah blah date, this time the location was Dallas; on perhaps the most important day for me since emigration to the United States from England in 1996. My family was about to take the Oath of Allegiance, and become full-fledged American citizens. Sunday’s best was the required attire, a blithe countenance revealed our feelings, which gave way to jubilation and relief once the ceremony was done. To put it in perspective, only graduating from college was a happier event in my life.
The common thread between these two sets of events was the interplay between the law of the United States and our lives. In the case of the former, my mother had unwittingly violated the law, as she had not cleared the goods through the proper channels, and the latter, we had followed the letter of the law to a T and were rewarded for it. In both situations, the reasoning behind these laws and why they applied to our situation were foreign to us, we only knew how to follow and unwittingly violate.
This is a very common problem for people arriving to the United States for the first time. The laws governing their home country and those of the States is often very different, so much so that adjusting to the legal climate can a difficult one, an ordeal I have experience. I understand the importance of having a working knowledge of the judicial system and a law degree will help me do that. This understanding will enable me to become an active participant who can in turn influence the system, a feature that America is revered for. This will then in turn better position to serve this growing clientele.
Furthermore, the international and comparative law program Duke University offers will enable me to explore the role American policies resonate internationally, a subject that has fascinated me.