<p>Four miles do not tell the whole journey; a journey that I have perfected to second nature these past four years, the journey from my high school in East Harlem, to my home in the South
Bronx .
I always start off the journey when the last bell of the school day rings. I pack my
notebooks and pens up and head to the schools main exit. I walk down East Harlems 116th
Street, bypassing the Thomas Jefferson Housing Projects on my way to the MTA train station on Lexington Avenue to ride the 6 train. As I transfer from the 6 train to the uptown 4 train on 125th Street, I notice the influx of cultural change at the train station. All people who are in the lower socio-economic classes continue their trip uptown to the Bronx, while the higher class passengers transfer to the downtown express 4 train toward lower Manhattan. From the 125th Street train station, I commute 170th Street in the Bronx to go to my job, where I work to cover the missing funds that food stamps and welfare cannot.I work at a Womens Clothing Store where my main duty is to check that all delivered
inventory is present. Then, I direct all floor workers how to organize opened new inventory. If allinventories have been properly taken care of, I then inspect the store for shoplifters. At the end of
the work day, if the manager is not working, I am responsible for counting business profit for the day and employee hours and reporting them to corporate; but if a manager is present, then help the other employees take in the racks that were placed outside for view.
After seven hours of school, and four hours of work, I finally head home. When I get out
of work I have a short four block walk to my home, but must overcome the Townsend Avenue
hill. As I start up the hill, I pass abandoned buildings, reeking of illegal drug use and crime but
when I reach the summit, I run into my old elementary school, located in a place that was
deemed The worst Neighborhood in America by President Jimmy Carter and Senator Ted
Kennedy. This remains the place where single mothers have the hope that when they drop off
their child, they have a chance, a chance to get out of poverty, a chance out of this cycle of
severe living conditions, a chance that is depleted within years when the child drops out of high
school because they are expected to, because the student is just another statistic. I vow not to become another dropout or unsuccessful statistic but to instead become a success and one day a role model for many young children growing up in similar impoverished living conditions.
As I finally reach my building a few feet away from my former elementary school, I push
open the broken door, climb stairs that are ridden with crack pipes and syringes and open my
apartment door. I then apply myself to school review and homework for about another two hours before I get any sleep. At midnight, my day is finally over, only to begin again when I reverse my journey in the morning, but I am hopeful because I believe my foremost purpose in this world is to overcome any obstacle. Whether its a mental roadblock or a financial setback, I have been programmed since my birth in The Sudan to epitomize triumph.
My journey truly began in the Sudan when my family fled a raging civil war, drought,
famine and political torture to come to the United States and a one bedroom apartment in the
South Bronx. While this may seem awful to many, we initially believed it a mansion compared
to where we had last lived in the Sudan.
What I will bring to a college campus is not only diversity, but distinctiveness that makes
me stand out. I have the strength of mind to succeed, which is fueled by my past, by my potential and by the hope that one day my parents will look back and be proud of me. I am a success story, to have made it thus far, but this is only the beginning and there is no limit to my either success or my eventual triumph.</p>
<p>show. not tell.</p>
<p>^ agreed. btw. dont post ur essay here? this is the dumbest thing u can do…</p>
<p>I think he means as in the content of the writing, not the essay itself lol.</p>
<p>What ace said. Simply writing “This is what my life is like and these are the challenges I have surmounted and that is how I feel about it” doesn’t make an incredible essay. It’s decent, sure, but the thing would be much better if you DEMONSTRATED these things instead of just asserting them.</p>
<p>Watch ‘The Green Mile’.</p>
<p>You wrote a nice piece about the obstacles in your life, that’s true. What it looks like, etc:
</p>
<p>but you left the reader wondering who YOU are. What did YOU do? (not just that you went to school and worked for four hours, and then walked home) But who are you? We all have neighborhoods, and this is yours. How does yours affect you? How are you a part of it (or not)?</p>
<p>This advice for resume writing seems to apply here:
It’s not just what your responsibilities are: “I am responsible for counting business profit for the day and employee hours and reporting them to corporate; but if a manager is present, then help the other employees take in the racks that were placed outside for view.” But what are your accomplishments?</p>
<p>loll… yeah. i know that too sandturtle… wat i meant was i agree with wat ace said. but posting this essay on cc is stupid. -___-</p>