So, given my interest in government and politics, I’ve decided to apply to Georgetown. I’m answering question 2 and there are no directions as to how many words I could write, just a vague “approximately one page long?” My essay is 942 words. Is it too long? If so, how can I shorten it? Please help me. The prompt is: “As Georgetown is a diverse community, the Admissions Committee would like to know more about you in your own words. Please submit a brief essay, either personal or creative, which you feel best describes you.” If that helps.
Growing up in Manila, it was easy to be deemed as a spoiled city boy. However, my life in the Philippines is not much of the paradise many people around the world deem it is. I don’t remember much in my years of early childhood but I remember my mom telling me stories about it when I was old enough to understood what it all meant. My family weren’t rich, but we also weren’t poor. We had enough to live and survive, even if that meant a can of sardines and rice were our idea of a family meal. For that reason, I was taught not to be materialistic and my siblings and I did not get everything we wanted such as children today here in the United States. We were fed, clothed and sheltered and that was enough. However, it also meant requiring my father migrating to Hawaii when I was only two years old.
I basically grew up without the father figure, but never did I felt empty. I was grateful that my father made the utmost sacrifice of leaving his family for the reason of us not starving and that my siblings and I were able to attend school and receive a proper education. Being financially disadvantaged, I was told to do well in school and to dream. When I was younger, I was never the student that got good grades. I was the hyperactive student jumping on tables and running around in kindergarten. However, something changed and even up to this day, I don’t know what that something is. I did well in the first grade and received good grades. I became very inclined with learning and my mother has always told me that a pen and paper were my ideas of a toy. I was barely out of the house playing hide and seek with my brother and the kids in my village. I guess you could say, I’m an introvert.
December 8, 2008. I remember that date quite well because that was the day I left the Philippines and followed my father to Hawaii. Leaving the city and living in the small, rural town of Naalehu was a big change for me. I grew up with traffic, pollution and lots of people and in Hawaii, everything was the opposite. Naalehu is a much smaller town and filled with cultural diversity which Manila lacked. I struggled with a language barrier. At the time I entered school in the third grade, my English ability was very much limited and to make things harder, I didn’t understand Pidgin English. This affected how I performed at school. I did not pass the Hawaii State Assessment.
After a few years, my English improved a lot until my accent got thinner with practice, but I also started to fit in with the local population in my town and became friends with my classmates. My life was better in Hawaii. Both my parents had a job and we had everything we need, but we were also given the things we want, unlike how it was in the Philippines. Staying close to my culture and to who I am was a concern my parents and I had. They feared that we were being assimilated to this culture and forget to speak Tagalog, our native tongue. I lived two different worlds. One that spoke English in public and the other was my “true” self; the one that spoke Tagalog and followed Filipino traditions. There were also some things that didn’t change like making goals for myself. My family was economically challenged in the Philippines and even in Hawaii, which is why I focused on school. When I was younger, all I ever wanted was to make enough and forget that I came from backgrounds of poverty. I wanted to be a lawyer and a doctor. Basically any career path that had huge salaries because to me, salaries were the most factor to why a person chooses a career.
High school proved me wrong. Salaries didn’t matter as passions and personal interests. I learned about current events and realized that our society is not perfect, which then became the gateway to my interest in politics. I wanted to make a change or at least, have my opinions heard, which is why in my sophomore year, I joined the Youth and Government program in which I helped formed in my school with the help of my advisor. At that point, I knew Hawaii was not the tropical paradise think it is. We were surrounded by our ocean of miseries and slowly, the people are drowning by the waves of lack of opportunities and waves of an incredibly high cost of living. I wanted to change that. In the Youth and Government program that I joined, I learned about current state issues and we made a mock legislation solving issues in Hawaii that we are passionate about, but it was also my platform to talk about and bring awareness to an unbearable cost of living and a very low minimum wage, which were the foundations of my first Youth and Government bill. I continued to be really interested in politics, especially with the 2016 presidential election. It was my first presidency in which I was old enough to understand how policies affect society and our current issues. After attending the Conference on National Affairs, a national version of Youth and Government, my interest in politics grew even more and I hope this will allow me to find solutions to issues in Hawaii and improve the lives of the people here because in numerous ways, Hawaii has improved my life.