<p>My interest in Business and Economics stems from shadowing my father as a little boy and my past experience working for a real estate firm. As with any young boy, I looked up to my father. A man born in Iran, he started his own business in the same immigrant success story of so many. Growing up, I knew that there was a difference between my heritage and those from my classmates at school. It is always easy to be reminded constantly of the differences between yourself and others and the true hardship is finding similarities that bring nations together. Beyond racial prejudice, religion, and the accent on our tongues, there is the language of business and economics that bring ideas and people together.
At a young age I watched my father travel all over the world to exchange merchandise, done in such a manner that neither party did anything at the end of the transaction but nod their heads and smile. The twinkling lights of business resound around the world, business is the tactic and economics is the strategy. This is what I believed. It was the merchants who brought nations together through trade, who learned languages from strangers who knew the subliminal structure of economics and its raw importance. Economics has helped me in ways that religion has helped others; it has helped me recognize that the need of the group as a whole is what is most important.
Business is the second language of all trades, and those who wish to use it must be pupils first. My experience in working for a real estate firm was my first taste of professionalism within the business world. My position was dependent on economic data such as GDP, unemployment rates and consumer confidence which drove interest rates and with it businesses. I never fully understood how economic data impacted the economy, especially with the financial crisis we are in today. I felt crippled by this, but I knew that because business was a living entity that constantly evolved and redefined its points, I knew that I must be as well.<br>
My mentor was my first manager, who I desired to learn from dearly. When I had learned all I could from him, he supported my decision to enroll myself into a real estate class. After six months, I passed my license exam and the locks on the doors turned for me. I watched them open and I finally felt the breeze of the profession I had always wanted surge around me, to be formless in the technique of business and thrive in a shifting sea of economy.
I was not without ambition. I wanted to be the best I could be, pouncing on every opportunity to learn including the ten-minute breaks and lunches I took with alternating partners. No one is without wisdom that can be passed to you. Business is an entity of people, and that is what I learned from. This is where I learned the value of people in business.
As the economy shifts, so does some of our luck. My father can no longer support every pillar that used to hold our house up, pillars like higher education and opportunity. Being a part of this struggle currently, I want to make sure that I will be able to provide all the necessary education for my family. I want to learn what problem rid my father of his success and wealth, and help others to protect themselves from it.</p>
<p>Growing up is the time you collect heroes. My own strengths come from stories told to me as a young boy from my Persian grandparents. It was not the shining sword I held high in my mind, but the image of the tragic hero. From this I drew my best qualities: a sense of patience to endure when the skies may darken, and persistence when the obstacles become mountains and one must climb to survive. You will need that persistence when your dreams are beyond those peaks.
I grew up in a strict Middle Eastern family. My parents had dreams and goals planned out for me as a child. The unfortunate part is that sometimes their dreams and goals do no match my own and that is when problems arise. Sometimes the confines felt so great, the halls so narrow, that I could never spread my wings and do the things I longed to do. A sense of duty and family obligation took priority. Living with this kind of self-betrayal got to me; I became confused and seeped into a depression where I could not sleep at night. Where I wanted to succeed I began to fail, and I decided to take time off of school at the suggestion of professionals.
At this point I felt like I had been living someone else’s life and had no idea who I was. I put school behind and started working at a real estate firm. With the feel of a fresh start in my lungs, I promised myself I would rise to the top. Because I put all of my passion in what I did, I excelled at what I had chosen.
A freak accident gave me the distance from my own life so that I could reevaluate it. Lying on my bed with a torn ACL literally forced me to think about the future once more. I wanted to be an educated person. I wanted to finish what I had started and no longer be crippled by myself. My experiences have allowed me to fully appreciate everything I have and the ability to set my own goals and achieve them to my highest potential. I know you cannot climb the mountain when the weather is not right, and you must be patient and wait at times. My time has come now to climb the mountain to where my dream of education lies.</p>
<p>GPA: 3.52
Pre reqs for all UCs: All done with 4.0!!
Essays: Above
Igetc: Done
No Tap:</p>
<p>Accepted: UCI, UCSD, UCSB, UCD</p>
<p>Rejected: Cal, UCLA</p>
<p>Should I appeal? I have “new and appealing” in which I have doctor’s notes explaing my medical condition when I was 18 and the reason way my academics were affected.</p>
<p>I am 24 years old and had a 5 year absencse from school. When I quit school, I had a 2.4 GPA with about 20 units done. </p>
<p>When I started about 1 1/2 Years ago, I have received only A’s, 4.0 GPA, and raised my cum GPA to 3.52 -> If it wasnt for when I was 18, I would have had a 4.0 GPA
I have worked 40 hours a week since I was 18, have a lot of work experience, acquired my real estate license, bought a home, etc.</p>
<p>I think they would have seen an upward trend in your GPA anyway. It’s really competitive these days. You could appeal, but I think you could focus your time better.</p>
<p>Hey man, I thought the first essay was a little spartan in wording. Yes, I know they say don’t get all flowery, but it was a lot of short sentences, especially in the beginning, and there were some parts that seemed borderline clich</p>
<p>i didnt get tap certified, but i was in the honors program. I have a similar situation as you, I had a D but retook for A. I got into all the UCs i applied to including la and cal. Your major is tough tho. your CC should have an appeals workshop class, u can always try. Your essays were better than others that I have read that got into cal and LA. i dont know if essays have much to do with it at the UCs like they do at Privates, where it is a more holistic process. But I heard that essays are starting to matter more. Who knows without trying?
But as far as flowery? I dunna, my essays were very <em>i dont give a F</em> and I still got in.</p>
<p>Here’s one of my essays, got into haas: Vyruz_reaper, think about appeal, but I woulnd’t put the blame entirely on the essays - econ majors are having a rough round at UCB currently. </p>
<p>All throughout my life I have been a confrontational person, likely stemming from watching my father debate with union members at the Union Hall. Unaware at first, I have come to understand there is a dual purpose to this attribute. While it enables one to confidently take a stance on something, it also requires one to listen to somebody else’s view which may completely contradict their own, hopefully leading to meaningful progress. My father always instilled in me the virtues of having the ability to justify one’s own views and opinions, for there is nothing worse than being the person who is unable or unwilling to find their own standing on anything and defend it. He is the one who always taught me to challenge the status quo. I have tried to live up to this and enjoy giving others my view of current events and issues while remaining thoughtfully considerate of their positions. I believe that having a knowledge base about a given issue is the foundation for being able to exercise one’s opinion competently. As a result, I spend much of my free time reading the newspaper and watching network news.
Though I consider myself understanding of other people’s views, sometimes my confrontational nature may rear its head in an ugly way, as I learned from trying to discuss politics with my boss, which was a disaster. During the election season, I spent hours at phone banks for weeks leading up to Election Day. While initially frustrating listening to differing views of others, I started to enjoy discerning their rational. It confirmed to me that one must have a clear understanding of the other side to have any sort of comprehension of their own. This opportunity proved that confronting others is beneficial in positive ways.<br>
On a whole, being confrontational is one of my core values that make me who I am and is what I use to grow, create progress, as well as create functional relationships. My experiences with confrontation has helped me to not only become confident but also understanding, considerate and patient of other people’s views even if they are not of my own, something which in itself takes courage to do.</p>
<p>you threw in a lot of stuff when you should have just focused on one thing. it would have been a more compelling story if you focused on one aspect of your life in each essay, for example, only discussing your father’s influence on your choice of major, and only discussing the accident that interfered with your school. but perhaps I am grading this more like a teacher… no one really knows what in the world they are looking for. one of my friends got in to la as a psych major and her style of writing is lacking, to say the least. her personal essays were similar to yours, without the passion. her GPA is the same as yours as well. so why did she get in and not you? who knows. it’s been a tough year for certain majors… i recommend you try an appeal, and i wish you luck for it. </p>
<p>Just confirming what others have said. Your essay had a lot of breadth, but not a lot of depth. You needed to focus on one soild topic and write about that.</p>