College Essays And Application

College Essays And Application However, I know that I want to do something unique. After sticking up my magnets on the locker door, I ran my fingers across the bottom of the bag, and I realized that one remained. The theme for relay for life is a hope for a cure. I tried my best to blend in and give the impression I was silent by choice. I joined no clubs in primary school, instead preferring isolation. It took six years of tongue twisters and complicated mouth contortions in special education classes for me to produce the forty-four sounds of the English language. Through this experience as a leader, I have come to realize, as a community, we hope together, we dream together, we work together, and we succeed together. This is the phenomenon of interdependency, the interconnectedness of life, the pivotal reason for human existence. When I was thirteen and visiting Liberia, I contracted what turned out to be yellow fever. I was captivated by how confidently the debaters spoke and how easily they commanded attention. I was sick of how confining my quiet nature had become. For better or for worse, I decided to finally make my voice heard. I was born with a speech impediment that weakened my mouth muscles. When seniors began to ask me for advice and teachers recruited me to teach underclassmen, I discovered not only that I had been heard, but that others wanted to listen. At heart, I am still reserved , but in finding my voice, I found a strength I could only dream of when I stood in silence so many years ago. Scanning the school club packet, I searched for my place. But then, I sat in on a debate team practice and was instantly hooked. I now understand surgeons to be much more complex practitioners of medicine, and I am certain that this is the field for me. Never before had I seen anything this gruesomeâ€"as even open surgery paled in comparison. Doctors in the operating room are calm, cool, and collected, making textbook incisions with machine-like, detached precision. I met with the local doctor, but he couldn’t make a diagnosis simply because he didn't have access to blood tests and because symptoms such as “My skin feels like it’s on fire” matched many tropical diseases. Luckily, my family managed to drive me several hours away to an urban hospital, where I was treated. It is a profession founded solely on skill and techniqueâ€"or so I thought. This grisly experience exposed an entirely different side of this profession I hope to pursue. The hourglass of life incessantly trickles on and we are powerless to stop it. Every morning when I wake up, I want to be excited by the gift of a new day. I know I am being idealistic and young, and that my philosophy on life is comparable to a calculus limit; I will never reach it. As I learned about their unique lifestyles, I also shared with them the diverse perspectives I have gained from my travel abroad and my Chinese cultural heritage. I will never forget the invaluable opportunity I had to explore California along with these bright people. As I sip a mug of hot chocolate on a dreary winter’s day, I am already planning in my mind what I will do the next summer. I briefly ponder the traditional routes, such as taking a job or spending most of the summer at the beach. It’s a chance to add depth to something that is important to you and tell the admissions committee more about your background or goals. Test scores only tell part of your story, and we want to know more than just how well you work. While pursuing research in California, I was also able to meet many similarly motivated, interesting people from across the United States and abroad. Yellow fever shouldn’t be fatal, but in Africa it often is. I couldn’t believe that such a solvable issue could be so severe at the timeâ€"so I began to explore. This completely different perspective broadened my understanding of the surgical field and changed my initial perception of who and what a surgeon was. I not only want to help those who are ill and injured, but also to be entrusted with difficult decisions the occupation entails. Discovering that surgery is also a moral vocation beyond the generic application of a trained skill set encouraged me.