need help with my personal statement, asap
Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2015 3:28 pm
Here's my statement, any edits will help thank you!!!
I gripped the metal slide to rebalance my slipping measuring tape, looking around the small playground to memorize its layout. I jotted down some notes and turned to the young teacher standing behind me. “How often are the children out here?” I asked in broken Hindi, to which she replied, “During lunch and after school they play and play”. I turned around to see eight pairs of curious eyes staring at me from the school doorway, and walked towards them so that I could introduce myself.
“Hello, miss!” they chimed in unison. I had been planning this trip to Maharashtra, India, for a year, yet I was wholly unprepared for how anxious I felt to be standing in that one-room school. There were forty students sitting at their neatly lined benches. In the dim lighting with the heat of the summer day trapped around us, I wondered about the fact that I had never taken a class in the dark heat, questioned if my school would install a bathroom, or worried about if we would have enough extra water for the school garden like these children. With these thoughts circling my head, I stood at the front of the classroom and introduced myself as the researcher who would that summer, fix their electricity.
I was there to research how to build a sustainable school, and it was my job to think of innovative strategies to use what resources they had available. Setting up solar power panels on the roof was the most obvious solution, but the see-saw, the merry-go-round, and the swing set in the school playground were all able to generate power that could be stored within the school and even distributed to the village homes. The rest of that summer I helped implement my ideas, and when we finally turned on the new light bulbs and fan for the first time, the students’ excited faces lit up even brighter than the new lights. When I interned in Maharashtra that summer, it taught me that modern environmental issues deserve novel, innovative solutions. I learned that working towards change that is better for society and the environment is about thinking outside the box.
During my undergraduate career, I have become more aware and deeply concerned with the environmental challenges that face our planet and society, and my future goal is to become a part of the solution. When I started my undergraduate education, I worked in research facilities that allowed me to conduct projects in secluded areas of wilderness and learn about diverse habitats that exist all over the world. I would drive many weekends to Mendocino, California, and spend my time taking water samples and swimming through rivers trying to net the rarest fish I could find. Yet while this endeavor was exciting and informative towards my desire to learn about nature and to understand the scientific basis behind environmental issues, I felt that I was missing the point.
For me, it has been a journey to find what I am most truly passionate about, and through this process of exploring my motivations and interests, I have realized that it is my empathy for others that pushes me to work above and beyond what is expected. The perception of the natural world and the environment are always framed in terms that make nature seem mutually exclusive from the realm of humans, what I have learned over the years is that environmental problems are human problems. By combining my learning and research in environmental studies with important societal issues that surrounded myself and my community, I was able to bridge my interests and passion, such as that summer in Maharashtra.
I am an activist. I say this not in the sense that I stand outside buildings holding a picket sign, but in the sense that I believe in proactively making changes around me in order to create a better future. I say this in the sense that I strive to educate myself on the issues that surround myself and my community. From the day I watched a PBS documentary on the Pacific Trash Vortex to the moment I decided to become a vegetarian to protest genetically modified farm animals, the list of environmentally driven social issues that compel me to make a difference grows every day.
I wish to continue in my career path as a well-informed and able attorney who has the ability and drive to tackle the human and environmental problems that face our generation and the next. Secure in the knowledge that my passion for the environment and drive to help others will help shape my future success, I am now ready to take on this new challenge: the study and practice of law.
I gripped the metal slide to rebalance my slipping measuring tape, looking around the small playground to memorize its layout. I jotted down some notes and turned to the young teacher standing behind me. “How often are the children out here?” I asked in broken Hindi, to which she replied, “During lunch and after school they play and play”. I turned around to see eight pairs of curious eyes staring at me from the school doorway, and walked towards them so that I could introduce myself.
“Hello, miss!” they chimed in unison. I had been planning this trip to Maharashtra, India, for a year, yet I was wholly unprepared for how anxious I felt to be standing in that one-room school. There were forty students sitting at their neatly lined benches. In the dim lighting with the heat of the summer day trapped around us, I wondered about the fact that I had never taken a class in the dark heat, questioned if my school would install a bathroom, or worried about if we would have enough extra water for the school garden like these children. With these thoughts circling my head, I stood at the front of the classroom and introduced myself as the researcher who would that summer, fix their electricity.
I was there to research how to build a sustainable school, and it was my job to think of innovative strategies to use what resources they had available. Setting up solar power panels on the roof was the most obvious solution, but the see-saw, the merry-go-round, and the swing set in the school playground were all able to generate power that could be stored within the school and even distributed to the village homes. The rest of that summer I helped implement my ideas, and when we finally turned on the new light bulbs and fan for the first time, the students’ excited faces lit up even brighter than the new lights. When I interned in Maharashtra that summer, it taught me that modern environmental issues deserve novel, innovative solutions. I learned that working towards change that is better for society and the environment is about thinking outside the box.
During my undergraduate career, I have become more aware and deeply concerned with the environmental challenges that face our planet and society, and my future goal is to become a part of the solution. When I started my undergraduate education, I worked in research facilities that allowed me to conduct projects in secluded areas of wilderness and learn about diverse habitats that exist all over the world. I would drive many weekends to Mendocino, California, and spend my time taking water samples and swimming through rivers trying to net the rarest fish I could find. Yet while this endeavor was exciting and informative towards my desire to learn about nature and to understand the scientific basis behind environmental issues, I felt that I was missing the point.
For me, it has been a journey to find what I am most truly passionate about, and through this process of exploring my motivations and interests, I have realized that it is my empathy for others that pushes me to work above and beyond what is expected. The perception of the natural world and the environment are always framed in terms that make nature seem mutually exclusive from the realm of humans, what I have learned over the years is that environmental problems are human problems. By combining my learning and research in environmental studies with important societal issues that surrounded myself and my community, I was able to bridge my interests and passion, such as that summer in Maharashtra.
I am an activist. I say this not in the sense that I stand outside buildings holding a picket sign, but in the sense that I believe in proactively making changes around me in order to create a better future. I say this in the sense that I strive to educate myself on the issues that surround myself and my community. From the day I watched a PBS documentary on the Pacific Trash Vortex to the moment I decided to become a vegetarian to protest genetically modified farm animals, the list of environmentally driven social issues that compel me to make a difference grows every day.
I wish to continue in my career path as a well-informed and able attorney who has the ability and drive to tackle the human and environmental problems that face our generation and the next. Secure in the knowledge that my passion for the environment and drive to help others will help shape my future success, I am now ready to take on this new challenge: the study and practice of law.