#2: Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?
I enjoy learning doing everything on my own and also figuring out more about the world. I consider myself as an ambitious person because of that. I am proud that I decided to study in the U.S. since I was 14 and I have learned a lot from the past three years that I spent in the U.S. for the past few years, I spent most of my time on academic development and trying to get myself used to the American society and get out of my comfort zone. It took me quite a while but after I got into college, I am able to make friends with domestic students and develop friendships. I have spent more time doing work in school than trying to get a really high score on test like SAT. Especially after I got into college, I think it is more important to learn things related to my major, or what I want to do in the future, instead of spending a lot of time participating on a test that I probably would not use the knowledge from it for pretty much the rest of my life. I did not do much volunteer work because I cannot drive nor own a car, and that made it harder for me to go anywhere or do any work in Seattle. For these years I have been focusing on more than I have been participating on academic than out of activates. I worked at a couple companies in china during summer because I can still stay at home while I do works m interested in. I have been playing the piano since I was 4, and I am still trying to develop my interest on music. I participated in chamber orchestra during my sophomore year in high school, and I decided to learn to play the guitar the first year in college. I think it is fun learning more about the world and other stuff. The reason I am in college is that I want to learn about the stuff that I am interested, and turns out when I think of things that way, I get pretty good grades, better than when I am only caring about my grades. I also enjoy college a lot better because I think I deserve the freedom and rights as an adult. I know how to take care of myself, and I think I have developed right principles; therefore I appreciate some privacy space that college would give me.
The reason that I stopped participating in high school and decided to go to college is multiple. First of all, I was having a bad time in my high school dorm, so I decided to fake my parents signature and moved out of the dorm on my own. I was 17 at that time, and my parents figured out that what happened, and I also lied about other things about me to the residential advisors previously. I think I had the bad habit about lying so I took the rest of the quint off and decided to just spend it with family while seeing a psychologist regularly. After a few meetings, my parents, the school and I got to a point where I am allowed to get back to school with the conditions that I keep seeing a physiologist and I live with one of my parents. After a couple weeks of the third quint started, turns out I was not ready for school and I cannot deal with so much stuff once at a time. I still tried to find excuses and lies about stuff I do. My parents werent a big help to me during that time. In fact, because of the Chinese culture, which people would rather be dishonest than being mean or straight forward, they did not care so much about the lying part. They were way more focused on that I might be dating someone and having physical contact with the guys. Also, my mom was under medical condition and she had to stay with me in the U.S. because of the requirements. Basically everyday when I get back home, there would be a fight between us. My high school was really small, and by that time I have not got out of my comfort zone, so I did not have many friends that I can talk to. I just broke up with a boy. In addition, my psychologist was not able to give me helpful advice. I cannot fix all the things at all and it is absolutely the darkest time of my life so far. I made the mistake on the second quint, and the school allows me to get back on third quint, but that was not enough time for me to recover or make good progress. I had to pause my academic plan and take a break. I wouldnt be able to finish high school if I take 2 quints off, so I thought I might as well quit high school and start college, like a running start program. This is the main reason I decided to go to college instead of high school. I am not proud of what happened during this time, and I am not proud of how I reacted when I was really unhappy in the dorm. However, this experience is really important to me, it made me who I am today, and I for sure will remember this for my whole life. This is a big mistake that I have made, but it taught me what I did not learn form school, and I have been working on this habit since a year ago, and I would say I have made good improvement. One of the reason I was able to do that was because my own work, and another reason was that my high school RA would always keep an eye on us and require us tell them things about ourselves. Sometimes they ask me stuff I wouldnt want to talk about and I just lie to them. After I got into college, no one really cares about how I am doing or what I am doing, so I do not have to talk about things I do not want to. I have the option of refusing to talk about stuff so in that way, it got better too. In addition, the relationship between me and my parents have got better, we still cannot understand or agree with each other on a lot of stuff, but we are all working on to find a balance between us. I have developed the skill where I can listen to what they say and disagree with everything in my heart and not starting an argument with them.
Other reasons are just like usual reasons, college does save me money and time compared to the private high school. It offers me a bigger community and more people to socialize with, and I got out of my comfort zone in college because that everyone is new and I dont feel like they are in a crew already and Im bumping into them. I actually enjoy college way better than high school. I felt like that was a good decision that I decided to take a few months off before I am ready to get back to school. I learned a lot in college as well, but the most important thing to me is that, I finally feel happy and not surrounded with dramas. I was bullied when I was a freshmen in high school, it got a tiny bit better during sophomore year but I didnt feel like that I had friends. I felt lonely and hopeless, and those are the reasons I wanted to move out of the dorm at the very beginning.
I am currently changeling my self with school. My plan is that I want to get my bachelor as soon as possible,(I am taking 25 cr this quarter, might take 20 per quarter in the future and not taking summer off), and then take 6 month off to just travel around the world with my family. After that I am either going back to school for grad school or work for a while.
please try to include as much thing as possible, but my experience in junior year(lying part) would be the most important. if not possible to include everything, please delete stuff that you think are not important or college wouldn’t give a shit about.