Critique please Forum

[gnomgnomuch]

In May 2011, three months before my freshman year, I returned from a family vacation and stepped on the scale. The scale reported I was 200 pounds. A number that still terrifies me. Standing 5 feet 7, with a cholesterol of over 220, I realized for the first time that I didn’t just look obese, I was.

I spent that night on the Internet, learning everything I could about weight loss. The results were unappealing. Every legitimate website stressed that real weight loss was only attainable with commitment, fortitude and sacrifice. There was no shortcut.

That summer I started going to the gym. While at first I was physically unable to go more than twice in a week, by the following March I was at the gym five times a week. I also stopped eating after 6 PM, making sure that I was eating not only less food than before, but healthier food than before. One year later I was 50 pounds lighter.

That was the turning point of my life. Setting clear goals allowed me to attain a level of success I had never before experienced. Additionally, I learned about personal responsibility, hard work and dedication, principles integral to my maturation.

My success spurred me to become a more conscientious student, and, as I asserted the principles I learned, my GPA rose dramatically. Yet I was still unclear on what I wanted out of my life, though I knew, from my two internships at an Assemblyman’s office, and my two years working with kids – teaching them about physical fitness - at x, that I wanted to work in the public sector, helping people.
My accomplishments did not go unnoticed and in early 2013 I was promoted to on duty supervisor at x, responsible for overseeing the building on Saturdays and major holidays.

As a junior, I focused on what I wanted for myself upon graduation. After reaching out to some lawyers, I decided that a career in law would complement my strengths and interests very well. However, not wanting to rush into a field where I had no experience, no matter how much research I had done on it, I decided to find an internship.

At x Group, in the y Unit, I spent the summer shadowing attorneys and paralegals, as well as conducting research on a variety of topics such as specific requirements for certain visas, temporary protected status for refugees, and as I grew more trusted with attorneys, speaking directly with clients. My fluent Russian came in handy on many occasions, as many clients were recent immigrants who knew no English. My experience x group not only solidified my desire to become a public interest lawyer, but also sharpened essential critical thinking and research skills.

As I entered my final year of college, I found that the qualities, chief among them personal responsibility and dedication, I had worked so hard to refine were being rewarded. I was offered a position as a teaching assistant for an upper level communication class. As a teaching assistant, I work directly with the professor grading papers, planning quizzes and offering students any help they might need.

The past three years have seen me take on progressively more responsibility. As I’ve learned to balance my school commitments and professional responsibilities I find myself going back to the principles that allowed me to succeed in my weight loss. Applying them to everything I do has provided me with a way to funnel my eagerness to tackle large issues so I could better help those around me.

Just substituted x and y for the actual names of the companies.

[gnomgnomuch]

bumping for feedback please.

[AnonymousAlterEgoC]

This is too close to a resume. A PS is not merely a restatement of your resume. Ideally, a PS (1) shows a bit of you and (2) shows why that bit of you would make a good law student. I would recommend expanding your initial weight loss anecdote, cutting large chunks of your resume out of this, and expanding a bit more on academics or some other challenge or whatever it is about law that made you think it was a good idea.

I decided that a career in law would complement my strengths and interests very well

This is kind of an odd statement depending on how you use the word complement. I usually think of it as "add to." If that's the case, this isn't a statement that your strengths and interests match up with law... Even if you don't fully agree with this point, I hope you see how indirect this statement is.

In my experience, a hobby makes a better PS topic than a resume. You may want to delve more into your "strengths and interests." You definitely want to keep your resume largely separate.