<p>I already had it reviewed by two counselors but this draft only one so far and she said it was good save for small grammatical errors.</p>
<p>I am a transfer student so my first prompt is different from freshmen applicants.</p>
<p>I would like to know if I adequately fulfilled the prompts well and focused on any strengths rather than speak too much about weaknesses.</p>
<p>Here it is:</p>
<p>Prompt 1: (What is your intended major? Discuss how your interest in the subject developed and describe any experience you have had in the field such as volunteer work, internships and employment, participation in student organizations and activities and what you have gained from your involvement. )</p>
<p>Deciding a major is not easy. Each major opens a variety of doors but along with it the commitment and dedication to a specific field of study. I intended at first to be an art major, but there was something I felt that psychology offered that I could not turn down. The wide scope and variety the subject incorporates intrigued me as someone who has many interests. The opportunity to engage in a growing field that impacts the lives of many personally means a lot to me; I always had the desire to make my mark upon something for the purpose of leaving the world a better place than if I were not a part of it.<br>
I took the introductory psychology class in the first place for some ideas for fiction writing and for some personal reasons. Human behavior that is clinically considered abnormal was always ubiquitous for me; almost all of my friends and family seemed to be personally distressed psychologically in some way. There were times when I felt helpless around such people such as my mother with major depression and a close friend I had who used to threaten suicide every now and then. I had a vague idea what could be going on but it just felt overwhelming.<br>
I admit that when I took my first psychology course I did come with some intention of gaining insight into those around me but still held much skepticism about the subject. Psychology unfortunately is is plagued by a reputation popularized by mass media as something reserved to dating tips and sweeping generalizations about gender. The first day of class when I attended was reserved for dispelling such myths. I was amazed to learn that psychology is a strict scientific discipline with plenty of considerations and with the aim of understanding behavior rather than making broad judgements. What I learned and experienced while studying psychology and its related subjects did, of course give me insight into the behavior of those around me both the distressed and distressing. The additional discussion found in the clubs I attended while at the first community college I attended to heighten my interest in psychology and related subjects like anthropology. Being in the honors transfer program gave me the opportunity to turn a research assignment into a polished presentation and an abstract for the HTCC Student Research Conference. </p>
<p>The value of being considerate to me that studying behavior implies is a very sharp contrast to my personal experiences dealing with the condemnatory environment of places like the internet where physical separation somehow casts a veil that interferes with empathy. Mental illness stigma in the form of people who believe that psychological illness can just be thought away by willpower is also a dire sign of the culture of condemnation we live in, something I experienced even when my own father refused to acknowledge my mothers depression and my own issues brewing under the surface. Psychology demands that one think about behavior from a point of view that takes more effort than a simple judgement, a view from multiple angles that challenges popular notions about character, culture, and context. Psychology is not about teaching consideration and empathy, it is about the scientific understanding of behavior but the consideration is something that comes out of this way of analyzing people with less bias, something even others in my classes have remarked. One of the readings from my first psychology class was from Daniels Golemans Emotional Intelligence, it described a man who calmed down a rowdy, drunken man on a train with offers of kindness rather than to berate him, reading this struck me as the epitome of what it means to understand that everyone is fighting their own battles in life. Unfortunately I feel that such consideration is very distant from popular understanding. One of my many goals I have in continuing my education is to help bridge this gap, along of course with another very important career goal I have in mind to add onto the the growing body of knowledge that is social science via research.</p>
<p>Prompt #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?)</p>
<p>This is not my first time applying to a UC campus. Unfortunately the issue was not being admitted or not but rather a personal obstacle I had to overcome. Just when I was doing rather well in my studies I started to have a relapse of obsessive compulsive disorder that had not occurred since childhood. I found myself rather embarrassingly on the patient end rather than that psychologist end, but I remembered reading earlier about Kay Jamison, an expert in Bipolar Disorder who herself has the condition and it did not seem so shameful anymore. I hoped to overcome it years ago when I first applied but the situation coupled together with some financial problems put me in a very precarious situation wherein my family and I had to move from California to Arizona to save on rent. As time went by I became less absorbed in my OCD but more absorbed into the enduring ennui that resulted from having no structure at all and decreasing confidence of every becoming functioning and the student that I was back when I started. Time and time again I lost my sense of self-efficacy about whether I could study again or even work, but my sense of purpose did not go away. I still yearned to continue somehow even though I was always worried about not being able to be punctual again. Too much time passed by and instead of trying to slowly wean my way back into functionality I spurred into starting to take classes again and tackle them head on just as I did prior to 2008. Sometimes you dont know what exactly you are capable of until you go ahead past your insecurities. Sometimes it takes a push, for me that push was a sense of purpose that no matter what may weather it, it is the most important thing because it is what gives life meaning. </p>
<p>I would like some help with the ending statements in both prompts so it would flow better. I am also concerned about the "flow" of the essays and will paragraph breaks show? How would I format my mentioning of the book Emotional Intelligence?</p>