Personal Statement Draft (involves the Middle East and IP Law) Forum

[Jodutt]

I'm applying to The George Washington University School of Law under an Early Decision application. My major is Geology and I wish to study patent law (under intellectual property law).

To whoever reads and comments, I owe you one, big time!
__________________________________________________________

Sometime in December of 1978, my father, ****, escaped a catastrophic experience after a cocktail bottle whizzed by the right side of his face and shattered near his hands at the door. That door was an entrance into the Marvin Center. An Iranian pro-Shah protester threw the cocktail bottle with aim at anti-Shah groups across the street. Rather than hit the intended target, the bottle almost hit the back of my father’s head. Thankfully, the shattered glass only yielded small spouts of blood from his knuckles and fingers.

On the morning of October 31, 2015, I wrote the preceding paragraph at the same spot where my father was almost hit. I then entered the center and called him to talk about my visit to the university. We mostly exchanged jokes and laughs, and my father ended the call with a hopeful message overlying an emotional undertone, “There’s one stark difference between me and my children that I’m thankful for. I merely reacted to fear throughout my life. You and your siblings, instead, are taking the offensive against fear.”

As a Saudi Arabian student at The George Washington University, my father had already expected the worst from upheaval associated with the Iranian Revolution. With family in Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia, – where the revolution inspired dangerous grievances – my father feared for his family’s safety. He accepted a job offer at Aramco, located in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia (a five minute drive from his parents’ home) to watch out for his loved ones.

I used to frequently visit family at Al-Malki district, Damascus, Syria prior to the beginning of March 2011, when the Syrian Civil War began. Al- Malki was the center of the Damascus Spring, a period of public intellectual debate regarding Syrian politics, education, and intellectual property between 2000 and 2001. Discussions on political reform, education curriculums, and trademarks occurred at public parks across my street. However, Al-Malki today is riddled with abandoned homes, suppressive intelligence officers (the Mukhabarat), and facades of fear. Fortunately, such fear has augmented my desire to be at the frontier of building safer and fruitful settings for my family in the Middle East. This is where I diverge from my father on fear.

A strong social entrepreneurship ecosystem in Saudi Arabia, a country with little public life, would yield additional public forums on heavily ignored social problems. Increasing technology transfer in Syria, a country with complex geology, can lead to further insights on droughts and untapped resources. A connected Middle East, now disenfranchised by rigid stigmas, may halt fear across borders. becoming a patent lawyer would allow me to be a leader in pursuing such characteristics for the betterment of Middle Eastern societies and my surrounding communities.

Thankfully, pursuit is already underway. I drove ****, a prominent Saudi Arabian author and one of Saudi’s few social entrepreneurs, from San Francisco to Los Angeles following an entrepreneurship conference a few months ago. “Jodutt, give me a call once you get into law school. We need more Saudi J.D. holders,” he told me after I dropped him off. My geology professor,****, whom I worked with for a month in the California White Mountains (between June and July, 2015), remarked to my field group at the last day of my fieldwork, “Joe will be my geology lawyer. He would be on my side for my research in transform systems, like the ones in Syria.” I’m working with ****, a childhood friend, on commercializing the Hyperloop – a new mode of transportation – in the Middle East. **** made me a leader of his team’s legal division. “Once you become a lawyer, ****, we’ll need those patents to increase investors’ attentions in the Middle East,” he told me recently.

At 22 years old, fear settled in my father when a bottle almost hit him. When I’m 22 years old (next year), I’ll be a step closer to stopping fear in its tracks, regardless of whatever hits me.

[eagle2a]

Dude, take the names out, unless you're cool with everyone here knowing who you are

[Jodutt]

Sorry about that, didn't realize that and the norms of the forum!