<p>Hey,</p>
<p>I'm currently trying to write my last two "short answer" essay's for UM. I wrote my 500 word one already and I think it's pretty set, now I'm stuck on this diversity one. The question is...</p>
<p>At the University of Michigan, we are committed to building a superb educational community with students of diverse talents, experiences, opinions and cultural backgrounds. What would you as an individual bring to our campus community?</p>
<p>I was thinking about writing about how I'm an arab american and there are many common misconceptions to arab americans. Maybe talk about the culture and why the stereotypes are wrong. What do you think? Any other ideas? Somebody told me to write about growing up in a single parent home, but it seems too cliche to me. I also wrote about how my dad died in my other essay so I feel i should write about something else. I need advice please! I'm stuck. Any advice, tips or help would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>Angela</p>
<p>are you from dearborn, MI?</p>
<p>No, I'm not, but I've been there and am about a half hour away from there.</p>
<p>Writing about being Arab American and the stereotypes would be more compelling than being in a single parent home, which is more prevalent, even in Mich.</p>
<p>I'm from there and i think that telling about sterotypes is a smart thing to do because a lot of people see us as this crazy ethnic group, I'm faced with it everyday.</p>
<p>should i focus more on the stereotypes or the cultural awareness i will bring, or both? any ideas of what specific things to focus on?</p>
<p>both. and tell them the things that your culture taught you. For example, self-dicipline and thats why you do good in school and want to apply to UofM</p>
<p>UMich wants to know how you will contribute to the community -- so talk about what kind of perspective growing up Arab American has given you, and how you would use that perspective to benefit the campus.</p>
<p>ok thanks! that'll give me something to go on. I've written a VERY rough draft already but it's so hard to write a 250 word essay, you can't really go into any detail. But, i'll work on it.</p>
<p>MAybe you could talk about some experience where a stereotype affected you (example, someone saw you and yelled a racial slur at you) and how it made you view the world differently/ strive for a new goal / have some kind of revelation...</p>
<p>That question had seemed impossible to answer for me, but I ended up putting a spin on an experience i had takign a class at a community college (i go to a school where pretty much everyone's arab or muslim, so lots of diversity at the community college, you get the point)</p>
<p>Are you from the ann arbor area?</p>
<p>i'm about 20 minutes from ann arbor.</p>
<p>Cool. Canton? </p>
<p>Lol, sorry, we don't have to play the whole guessing game thing, feel free not to answer.</p>
<p>yeah, actually, canton. haha</p>
<p>ohh, sweet... lol, see now i'd start naming random ppl ... but i won't go there lol...</p>
<p>Argh, I'm loathing the UM essays. They're all I need to do before submitting the application. </p>
<p>I say go for it on the stereotyping/cultural awareness. I'm from 'the Heights' (Sterling, not Madison ;)) and although I'm caucasian, I know what you mean about Arab-American stereotyping; nearly half my HS is Arabic, but the individual cliques are sort of self-segregated. o_O</p>
<p>hah i see you live in ann arbor, did you used to live in canton?</p>
<p>oh and thanks for the advice everyone!</p>
<p>it doesn't have to be anything related to your ethnicity or something like that. as long as you have something to "contribute", whether it's philosophically or...idk, just how you look at certain things in life, i think you can write about that.</p>
<p>Nah, I'm from Dexter, but I consider myself from Ann Arbor since I'm only a few miles out of town and I spend most of my time there, but I went to a small private school with lots of arab americans, some of which were from canton =D</p>