Here is my second draft, hit me with your best shot!
Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2011 9:25 pm
First of all, I would like to thank the reader for taking time from what is no doubt a busy and hectic schedule to review my application to the U of X law school. My case for admission succinctly stated; is that I want you to allow me to the opportunity to gain the skills and knowledge for a career in a field of expertise in which I am passionate and in which I can find personal fulfillment while making positive contributions to society. This field is, of course, the practice of law, and I am passionate about law because I am fascinated by language and the way we use words to describe our relationship to ultimate reality. Please allow me to explain.
I was raised in a very restrictive and isolated religious sect, the Independent Baptist denomination, and I spent most of my life viewing the world through a narrow prism that portrayed life as an unambiguous struggle between good and evil, heaven and hell, light and darkness, and my tradition as the paragon of virtue in righteous opposition to the monolithic evil of a sinful world. The fragmentary knowledge I have gained through my studies, coupled with a very harrowing experience in which my younger brother was diagnosed with a terminal illness, have, however, made such a narrow worldview untenable and unsatisfactory to my mind and my conscience as I have grown older.
During the past few years of college in which I have pursued a dual major in Paralegal Studies and Spanish, I have, like many college students, found myself grappling with the “big questions”. What is the meaning of life? Why am I here? What does it mean to be human? Why is there so much suffering in the world? My search for answers has only intensified with the deluge of information I have been required to process, not only in courses directly pertaining to either of my majors, but also within the many other courses that I have taken as part of a very diverse general education curriculum including Literature, Sociology, History, Anthropology, Political Science, Philosophy and a few of the Natural Sciences. I began the study of Spanish with the naïve impression that I would simply need to learn new words for the existing concepts I already possessed. Learning a language in which every word is masculine or feminine, there are over a dozen verb tenses as opposed to three or four, and in which there are different states of being, to name but a few examples, forced me to realize that learning a language is synonymous with acquiring a completely different manner in which to view the world. It is language that separates us from the lowest animals and makes civilization possible by uniting us into common cultures.
Unfortunately, language also divides us and language barriers are one of the greatest sources of human conflict and misery. This is nowhere more obvious than in the current debate in this country over illegal immigration. Without delving into a discussion of that very complex and controversial subject, suffice it to say that it is a subject in which I am thoroughly interested. I have had a brief opportunity to work for a local immigration attorney for whom I translated documents, and I wish to pursue a career in immigration law in the future.
If I could say that there is one particular insight I have gained in college that I can truly say has helped me make sense of my life, it is the realization that our conception of reality is inextricable from our use of language, and that reality is subsequently, something beyond our most fervent efforts to describe it. Being able to see the suffering in my life as a contingent property of my culture and conditioning rather than an inherent quality of existence has given me an ability to view hardship with a degree of equanimity. After many sleepless nights, countless books, and heated debates and discussion with relatives and professors, I cannot say that I know the meaning of life, or if there is one, but I can say that I have a balanced perspective with which to view my place within this beautiful, tragic, vast, and unfathomably intricate world. I see life as neither the black and white panorama as represented by the tradition in which I was raised, nor as a barren wasteland of meaninglessness and nihilism but rather as a blank neutral canvas upon which I can create a work of art by living authentically and striving for excellence. I would be very grateful, if the University of X would help me achieve this vision.
I was raised in a very restrictive and isolated religious sect, the Independent Baptist denomination, and I spent most of my life viewing the world through a narrow prism that portrayed life as an unambiguous struggle between good and evil, heaven and hell, light and darkness, and my tradition as the paragon of virtue in righteous opposition to the monolithic evil of a sinful world. The fragmentary knowledge I have gained through my studies, coupled with a very harrowing experience in which my younger brother was diagnosed with a terminal illness, have, however, made such a narrow worldview untenable and unsatisfactory to my mind and my conscience as I have grown older.
During the past few years of college in which I have pursued a dual major in Paralegal Studies and Spanish, I have, like many college students, found myself grappling with the “big questions”. What is the meaning of life? Why am I here? What does it mean to be human? Why is there so much suffering in the world? My search for answers has only intensified with the deluge of information I have been required to process, not only in courses directly pertaining to either of my majors, but also within the many other courses that I have taken as part of a very diverse general education curriculum including Literature, Sociology, History, Anthropology, Political Science, Philosophy and a few of the Natural Sciences. I began the study of Spanish with the naïve impression that I would simply need to learn new words for the existing concepts I already possessed. Learning a language in which every word is masculine or feminine, there are over a dozen verb tenses as opposed to three or four, and in which there are different states of being, to name but a few examples, forced me to realize that learning a language is synonymous with acquiring a completely different manner in which to view the world. It is language that separates us from the lowest animals and makes civilization possible by uniting us into common cultures.
Unfortunately, language also divides us and language barriers are one of the greatest sources of human conflict and misery. This is nowhere more obvious than in the current debate in this country over illegal immigration. Without delving into a discussion of that very complex and controversial subject, suffice it to say that it is a subject in which I am thoroughly interested. I have had a brief opportunity to work for a local immigration attorney for whom I translated documents, and I wish to pursue a career in immigration law in the future.
If I could say that there is one particular insight I have gained in college that I can truly say has helped me make sense of my life, it is the realization that our conception of reality is inextricable from our use of language, and that reality is subsequently, something beyond our most fervent efforts to describe it. Being able to see the suffering in my life as a contingent property of my culture and conditioning rather than an inherent quality of existence has given me an ability to view hardship with a degree of equanimity. After many sleepless nights, countless books, and heated debates and discussion with relatives and professors, I cannot say that I know the meaning of life, or if there is one, but I can say that I have a balanced perspective with which to view my place within this beautiful, tragic, vast, and unfathomably intricate world. I see life as neither the black and white panorama as represented by the tradition in which I was raised, nor as a barren wasteland of meaninglessness and nihilism but rather as a blank neutral canvas upon which I can create a work of art by living authentically and striving for excellence. I would be very grateful, if the University of X would help me achieve this vision.
) What is the meaning of life? ( 
) Why is there so much suffering in the world? My search for answers has only intensified with the deluge of information I have been required to process, not only in courses directly pertaining to either of my majors, but also within the many other courses that I have taken as part of a very diverse general education curriculum including 