<p>Prompt: 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>I wasn't rich growing up, and my parents got divorced when I was 3, my Dad took me on the road with him and we settled in California, from the time I was 7 when my mom passed away until the time I was 13 I was constantly depressed on top of being sexually abused by 3 different older male family members. Each didn't know about the other and each had his own way of getting me into their bed, I remember one, my cousin would put on pornographic movies which caused me to be aroused and he would touch me until I was finished and tell me never to tell people because they wouldn't understand, I was 8. When I was 13 I felt like so much had been taken from me in my life that I tried, through stealing to make myself whole again in my mind. From the age of 14 until I was 17 I was in and out of juvenile facilities. Then one day the courts sent me to a Foster care facility. When I moved there I didn't know anyone, but they had counselors who helped people. I talked to them and it made me feel like maybe it wasn't so bad. After being there for about 6 months I felt this sense of need to help people after these people that I didn't even know and had no feelings for surrounded me with help and care, I wasn't there family yet they genuinely cared for me and somewhere deep inside me that touched me. They protected me and wanted nothing but the best for me, before that I was taken advantage of and really had no place to call home, but now for once it looked like maybe, just maybe I had that feeling of wholeness again, and I wanted more than anything in the world to give that same feeling of hope and genuineness to another person who had something happen to them in their life that caused them to lose trust in not only themselves, but the world too. I knew in my heart of hearts that people aren't inherently evil, people might do bad things from time to time but I think that if someone truly cares and is willing to be in their corner to help they can help not only themselves, but society as a whole, because if I can do it anyone can succeed. Ambition is priceless, and on life's long and windy road sometimes you just need someone to be by your side and help you back up when you stumble and fall. This is why my major is sociology, so that I can study social problems and how I can best help to fix them. With my major I am confident that I will be put in a great position to help people as a public defender in California. To help people who have no one and nothing to rehabilitate them like I have been, and to change not only their lives, their families lives' and even my life, but to change society by helping as many people as possible each day. I'm not perfect and I don't aim for perfection, I aim for progress because each day is a new opportunity to move forward and hopefully change a life for the better.</p>
<p>Please give me any thoughts on my draft, comments, or suggestions for improvement.</p>
<p>First, I highly advise against posting your essay so publicly, especially so close to the application deadline.</p>
<p>As for the content of your essay, it seems like you try to indicate that ambition is a quality of yours of which you are proud; from the rest of what you wrote, however, I wasn’t able to discern any sort of quality that you articulate having developed as a result of your experience. I feel like a condensed form of your story better responds to the first prompt about your major selection.</p>
<p>I looked at your past posts, and you seem to be a sincere member of this forum. So I will assume that is the case and give you the best advice I can, which is only as an adult, a UC grad, and a thorough student of the UC process (as least as outlined on CC). I would not submit this essay as outlined. If you feel the need to mention abuse, I would not be so specific as you are above. Here are a few specifics that may or not be helpful to you.
your first sentence is a run on. How about something like:
I wasn’t rich growing up, and my parents got divorced when I was three. [always spell out numbers less than ten, and when beginning or ending a sentence] My Dad took me on the road with him and we settled in California, from the time I was seven, when my mom passed away, until the time I was thirteen. This family upheaval and ongoing abuse at the hands of other family members caused me to be quite depressed.
Foster is not capitalized
check where you need commas
this sentence needs work.
After being there for about six months I felt this sense of need to help people after these people that I didn’t even know and had no feelings for surrounded me with help and care, I wasn’t there family yet they genuinely cared for me and somewhere deep inside me that touched me.</p>
<p>how about something like:
After being there for about six months, I felt a growing need to help other people after the healing experience of having a foster family I hardly knew surround me with help and care. I wasn’t their family, yet they genuinely cared for me and somewhere deep inside me that touched me.
5) you have other sentences that are run on, or could benefit from a semi colon or other means of being broken up
6) you mention both a sociology major and then being a public defender; I think you should make it clearer how you intend one to lead to the other…what is your final ambition?
7) this sentence needs work too…it is a fragment.
To help people who have no one and nothing to rehabilitate them like I have been, and to change not only their lives, their families lives’ and even my life, but to change society by helping as many people as possible each day.</p>
<p>consider changes along these lines:</p>
<p>My life experiences have caused it to be my goal to help people who have no one and nothing to rehabilitate and to change, not only their lives and their families’ lives, but also to change society by helping as many people as possible each day.</p>
<p>If someone wants to plagiarize they can, I’m not the police, and the UC’s know that everyone’s personal life experiences are very different.</p>
<p>No, part of the prompt was that I could write about an experience, my placement in the Foster care facility was that experience which led to my ambition and turned my life around and made me realize that I can do something great with my life.</p>
<p>I sincerely appreciate your interest to help me and will take all considerations into account.</p>
<p>I feel like sure it might not be pleasant to read in some detail about the abuse I incurred growing up, but it allows the reader to feel as I did on those vulnerable moments if only for a second. </p>
<p>As for being a sociology major and eventually a public defender I’m unclear as to what is unclear, I hope to complete my major in sociology then go to law school, pass the Bar and become an attorney, but I think I’ll write about that In the first prompt.</p>
<p>Do you think this essay, if adjustments are made similar to your recommendations would work better for a why my major essay or the second prompt listed above?</p>
<p>I think if you are choosing to talk about how this experience relates to the person you are now, that is appropriate. I just think it would be better to more clearly state you intend to major in sociology with the eventual goal of being a public defender; of course, it’s up to you.
such as:</p>
<p>This is why my major is sociology, so that I can study social problems and how I can best help to fix them. With this as my major, I am confident that I will be in a great position to eventually attend law school and help people as a public defender in California.</p>
<p>1st way too much information. Especially a lot of negative information all in the same place. </p>
<p>2nd and more importantly. You focus too much on going from situation a to b to c to d to e to f… </p>
<p>Your statement should begin at the foster care. Then talk about positive experience there and weave in how they helped you overcome the bad experience. </p>
<p>Also try to be a little less graphic about the abuse. Saying your cousin molested is enough. You don’t need to go into details about the movies, etc.</p>
<p>Lastly be careful how you use negatives. “I wasn’t rich growing up” is very negative and it’s not a good way to start a personal statement. You need to careful weave-in negative things into the story and ALWAYS have some kind of positive to negate or cancel them out. e.g. wasn’t rich growing up, made the best out of the donated toys we got…" Just as an example. For a personal statement you want it show how you OVERCAME your problems. That is the key.</p>
<p>How about if I were to use this as the why my major prompt, along with the changes similar to what GoldenWest said, I can see that working for me, then going into a quality that makes me, me. Such as my ambition, or kindheartedness etc…</p>
<p>I agree with the others about too much detail about things. Deatail is good in a writing like this, but it seems you have it in the wrong place. You use the first 1/3 of your writing to paint a picture of a harsh upbringing, which you should be able to summarize in a few sentences and then focus on the details about being in the foster system and how that changed things for you. Remember, you only have so much “room” (word count), so don’t treat this like a biographical book or 10-page research paper.</p>
<p>Grammatical suggestions:
1.
At (a), you can delete “got” and make room for another precious word count later. It wouldn’t change the meaning of what you’re saying and it would flow better because “got” can be considered passive (rather than active voice). So . . . “my parents divorced when I was 3”
Also, there’s a lot of comma splicing going on here. You have like 3-4 different subjects in the same sentence. Consider revising and I would also suggest not to have this as your openeing sentence. Try to see if you can come up with more of a “clincher” or attention grabber right away - just off the top of my head something like “I thought destitution and divorce defined my family life, but then my mother passed away.”</p>
<p>There’s some more I don’t have the time for right now, but overall I would say that saying less can actually be more. Try to use as few words as possible while still getting your points across and you might see some “flow” in the form of active voice.</p>
<p>Also, I agree that there are details that don’t seem needed. For instance, the pornographic films sound unpleasant and saying that you had a past of sexual abuse is enough. I wouldn’t want the readers to feel uneasy when reading this. </p>
<p>Make it simpler. There’s a lot of run-on sentences.</p>
<p>Also do not use contractions. “I was not poor” sounds a lot more power than “I wasn’t poor”</p>
<p>I would tailor this story to answer prompt two. Prompt one wants more specific details about your major like internships, work experience, research, classes you are taking etc.</p>
<p>“I would tailor this story to answer prompt two. Prompt one wants more specific details about your major like internships, work experience, research, classes you are taking etc.”</p>
<p>What?! Who said this has to be related to school?
I thought the 1st prompt has to be about any LIFE experience and how that relates to you as a person.</p>