here's a quick edit. hope it helps.
lxhyss wrote:
If there’s ever a sound that could signify my college life, it must be “bang!”: it is the sound of the collide between different value and culture, which changed my life entirely and ignited a “see thyself” process that finally lead to my determination to go to law school and devote myself to law profession.
you want to avoid intros like this. it comes across as a fancy way of saying "this is my personal statement. it will tell you why i want to be a lawyer. read on."
“How dare you insult my clan like that!” shouted a skinny man with his face red with anger. he then turned around and walked away, giving no chance for the other party of the conversation to explain. This scene is not unusual during my first a few months in college. Going for college in a Ethnical Minority autonomy province is a bold decision even in my country where the racial problem is not a main social issue. And you would never know what a big challenge it is before you got there：incredible humidity level, extremely hot weather, bizarre food, different languages(and when they speak standard language, the strange accent) and lifestyle.
too many adjectives, not enough facts. who is the skinny man? what's considered bizzare food? don't label the college before you describe it.
But what really troubled me is the feeling of becoming a “Minority” for the first time in my life as in a Minority autonomy province, it is the Minority who make up the main body of population. I found it hard to understand each other’s words as our value system is fundamentally different. A normal joke we made in my hometown might be perceived as a rude offence to them, although I never mean it.
with this much emphasis on "minority", i can only assume you are urm (hispanic/ afri-american/ native american or alaskan/ ect) and not eastern asian/ asian indian/middle eastern. if you are one of the latter mentioned three, change topics. oh, and it doesn't read like you're using minority as a proper noun, so no caps on the "m"
“Son, it is never easy to say. But something is wrong with your lymph. It might be cancer…” Lying in the hospital bed, I couldn’t hear the doctor’s words any more and felt as if my life was already flashing back in front of me. There’s no worse news than a declaration of death just several days after your 19th birthday and 3 months after you matriculated at college. For the next a few days I thought I would die in a place over 2000 km away from home, alone. Gibbon said the Empire of Rome is “an evolution that will ever be remembered”, while I would soon become a single bit of sand in the flow of the River of Life, leaving no trace to tell people I was there once.
i think i just entered the twilight zone. how did we go from "self= minority" to "goodbye cruel world?"
But all that changed as my classmates came to visit me at hospital. They brought me fruits and flowers and told me things would be fine. To my surprise, the skinny man whom I had quarrel with was among them. And it was that night that I really began to know how hard his, and most of the Minority’s life was like when they were young: as the only male of his clan, he had to do all sort of labor, such as collecting and selling resin, to support the entire family without lagging behind at school. Electricity was a luxury for them, needless to say TVs or even computers. “But I still manage to get through and attend the best school of the province. Thing will be better, as long as you have faith and keep on fighting.”
first sentence unnecessary. the rest is good but again needs less description and more story.
When I walked out of the gate of the hospital, I realized I was already a different person and it was not because my cancer turned out to be a misdiagnosis. The real baptism is the revelation of the inner kindness of human being. The concept of mutual understanding and respect didn’t seem to be only a correct answer in the final exam any more. The ocean is great because the influx of rivers, and a man will also become great if he allows the influx of different value and culture. Now that I came back to school, the discomfort I felt at first had already gone. All that was just because of a word that I knew how to read and write for a long time but not the real meaning before then: tolerance. On the other hand, most of the conflicts around the globe turn out to root in mutual intolerance and misunderstanding.
this, revised, would make a good conclusion
As a follower of Confucius, I feel committed to fulfill his dream: the so-called society of Great Harmony, where there’s not such thing as cultural prejudice or racial discrimination.
i had a strong suspicion that you're chinese when you mentioned "provinces" and "clans". (specific guess being you're from eastern china and went to school in western china or canton) if you are, take out everything you wrote about minorities, because eastern asians aren't under-represented-minorities here
It might sound a little bit too naive, but I’ll make my own effort whatsoever. It seems, then, international law and human rights law would be the fields I appreciate most. Also, my cross-cultural communication skill that was fostered during college and the experience of being a “Minority” myself shows I have my potential in these fields.
your message is good but you need to work on presentation. at the risk of sounding cheesy, to err is human.
some overall advice:
you've directly claimed many things you cannot prove. the point of the personal statement is to distinguish yourself from those like you. in your case, it's at least every other person of your ethnicity, many of which not only have linguistic and cultural advantages of being born/raised in the usa, but also fancy degrees from ivy leagues to back up their claims. you stated in your ps that the cross-culture communication skill you fostered during college show you have potential in international law, but you haven't mentioned any experiences out of the ordinary. at the risk of sounding rude, there are dozens of asian-descent applicants every year who speak 3+ languages, lived in 4+ countries, spent summers building houses for the poor in south america/africa/asia, volunteer at everything from local hospitals to food shelters, all while holding down law firm or high tech jobs in college. your statement needs to show how you are different from all of them, what you can bring to the table that they might not be able to.
good luck, and feel free to pm me if you have questions