<p>Hey guys. I'm really hoping I could have some people here critique my essay. It's a personal essay, it's actually for Temple's "What personal/educational experiences have shaped your life" topic but I'm thinking of using it as my common app essay for "Topic of your choice". Please be as brutal as possible. I need to know if it's worth anything. I wrote from the heart instead of from a more analytical point so I don't know how it looks to other people.</p>
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<p>The most important things that shape a person’s life, are the values one holds and the ability to continue learning and developing from experience throughout one’s entire life. From birth, I was blessed with a loving, supportive Christian family, and a comfortable life. My parents are first generation immigrants. While they still lived in Korea, my mother lived in the countryside where education was not as developed, while my father, orphaned as a child, dropped out of high school in order to support his siblings. During their late twenties, they immigrated to America in order to find a better, more opportune life. My father still cannot speak English and my mother learned from need. They built up their own business from the ground up and we supported each other, as a family should. Honestly, I am still amazed at the accomplishments of immigrants. Many of them do not have the education so many other people take for granted, and yet they are so resilient. They are determined to build a better life for the future.</p>
<pre><code>It is this knowledge of the struggle immigrants have that has helped me develop into who I am now. Since I was a child, as the best English speaker in the house, I have been tasked many times with translating, and reading English documentation. When my father goes out to buy medication, I am always there. When my grandmother had to go to the hospital for an operation, I stayed overnight in order to help her feel at ease. Even my mother, who can now speak English quite fluently, is still daunted by documents and prints she receives in the mail. Many of the documents have small, unreadable print that even an American raised person couldn’t understand. Because of this, I have become the support in my family. Not only my family’s support, but I desire to be able to help other Korean immigrants. The experience with my grandmother was particularly meaningful to me. A person’s health is an issue that causes fear and panic within a person. It is painful to not be able to understand something which could involve life and death. For these people who require any sort of medical assistance, I want to make them as comfortable as they can. With my knowledge of the Korean language, I want to make it so that Korean immigrants can have a doctor that they are comfortable going to, and can entrust their well-being to. The hardships of immigration have molded my life’s purpose. I want to live not for myself, but for others.
Looking to the present, I am faced with fellow peers who are quick to judge foreigners. Many people in America look down upon foreigners. Many curse them for “stealing” American jobs and not being able to understand them. Some only look upon those who look foreign and judge them, though they did not even interact. Unfortunately, I have friends who are like this and say that immigrants shouldn't move to America if they don’t know English. Whenever I hear this, I grow upset and sad. These thoughts are taught by culture or from their families. Whenever this conversation arises, I always take care to let them know how hard it is to learn a language when your brain has already finished developing. Though I am usually not a very outspoken person, I will always make the effort to open other people’s minds to reality: the life of an immigrant is something to respect.
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