<p>Hello all!</p>
<p>I am hoping that you guys could help me out. I have recently scrapped and restarted my personal statement and I want some feedback. My first draft of my personal statement was not my best writing, so I decided to start over while I still have a good amount of time. </p>
<p>I wanted to start my essay off speaking about my when my older brother and I had to get my younger brother away from my alcoholic parents and how he is one of the reasons I want to attend the UW. I also talked about my upbringing and what I learned from it. I just wanted to know if you guys think this is a good approach. Here is my intro and outline for the remainder:</p>
<pre><code> As much as I wanted sleep, my brother's words wouldn't give it to me. I had thought that everything at home had gotten better, but it was a lie.
"Mom and David have really slowed down on their drinking."
"She hasn't used any narcotics in a long time."
"Everything is fine."
Everything is fine. Those words allowed me to live in ignorant bliss while I had been away at college and my brother had been at home alone with my mother and my step-father. It was hard enough listening to my brother admit that they had started getting drunk nightly again after I had left, but when he told me that he had been physically abused, everything froze. His words were choked and quiet, but every one of them hit me like a brick. In the time that I had lived with my parents on Mt. Hull, nothing like this had ever happened.
"He grabbed me."
"She screamed at me."
"He hit me."
Those words echoed in my head for over a month; they echoed as the rest of my family and I waited anxiously for the case to be processed through Child Protective Services. In the end, they said, "We'll have him removed if anything else happens." We knew we couldn't wait. We knew we couldn't leave him there. So, we decided to go get him ourselves. That's when I found myself lying awake thinking about my brother. I had lost sleep over it before, but this night (or morning, rather) I was waiting to leave to get him.
My brother now lives in Seattle with my older brother and I continue to do my best to maintain a relationship with my parents. Even though my parents may have had their faults (as we all do), they did their best to raise us to have integrity, to forgive, and to not judge others. "Treat other the way you would want to be treated" are words that my step-father did his best to ingrain into my brother and me.
Growing up, I lived a very simple life and worked hard to maintain it. I had to melt snow for bath and dish water in the winter, we burned wood and pinecones for heat, and sometimes had to use kerosene lanterns for light. From this, I learned to appreciate the little things. I do appreciate that my parents did their best to provide for us, but I struggled to handle their drug and alcoholism. My middle and high school years were riddled with them leaving, us being kicked out, and guns going off indoors, all with my parents caught-up in a drunken stupor.
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<ul>
<li>Was very distracted in high school and graduated with a 2.8</li>
<li>Moved over 250 miles to attend Green River Community College and overcame feeling lost in the crowd (graduated from a class of about 70 students)</li>
<li>Adapted to living in the city</li>
<li>Pushed myself and learned how to study (while struggling in some areas. Specifically, math) and now have a 3.5 GPA and am part of the Phi Theta Kappa national honor society</li>
<li>Entered college with an interest in communications, but after taking a class, I decided and wanted to get my degree in communications and become a public relation specialist.</li>
<li>Studied colleges and their communications program. Investigated WSUs national recognized communications school, but learned that they place little emphasis in public relations.</li>
<li>Studied UW's communications program by reading about it and speaking with advisors.</li>
<li>Because many PR specialist learn a lot of skills from doing journalism, I became interested in and started working for my college's newspaper.</li>
<li>Was asked to become the managing editor and advertising manager of the paper at the end of the academic year and accepted the offer.</li>
<li>Younger brother becomes very reclusive and begins struggling in high school.</li>
<li>I desire to live with my brothers to help with my little brother financially, academically, and emotionally. My older brother works two jobs to support him and has little time to spend with
him. </li>
</ul>
<p>Please give feedback with your opinion.
Thank you very much for your time.</p>