Application Essays (Part 4)

[sweet_love]

...I often feel a sort of vague and general dis-ease since I left Vietnam for England. I have named it a dislike of English culture, or a cultural re-entry shock. But these labels explain little, and the first seems simply false. I have lived and continue to live in England and I am much too happy a person to continue on in this happiness if I am truly living in a culture I dislike. What is going on here?

Essay by Ho Le Viet Hung (Colgate)

Another country evening was passing: peaceful like a melody with the scent of rice and distant sounds of crickets. Over the western horizon, the sun is sinking slowly, painting the sky a shade of blazing red. I stood silently in front of the village gate, watching everything, and thinking. One more week, then I would depart, leaving everything I knew behind to start a new journey. Time is passing; it was just like yesterday when twelve years ago, in the shadow of this banyan tree, I, a small child, waited for my mother to come home from work. Now, I am an eighteen-year-old man, zealous and confident, preparing to go abroad to make my dream come true. Twelve years, so many things in my life have changed, but I know for sure there is one thing will always remain constant: it is my love and respect for my mother, the woman who taught me strength of every kind, and who gave me the courage to pursue my dreams.

My mother grew up in hard days, giving birth to me not long after the dreary shadow of war had passed from our country. In the wake of the violent conflict, my parents and many other fervent Vietnamese youths volunteered to leave Hanoi for distant areas of the country, where they might help to give the people of Vietnam a better nation. My mother was assigned to teach in a small village school with just two classrooms amidst unbounded forest and rice fields while my father, a province two hundred miles away.

Life was extremely hard, with no clean water, electricity, or roads, but I grew up in my mother’s tender love. She endeavored to create the best living conditions for me, and my childhood was embraced the sweet lullabies and fairy tales that she told me each night. In her loving voice, she taught me to believe and to forgive. Her stories were the first lessons of my life, but perhaps the most important.

At the time, I was too young to understand the hardships she endured in our difficult country life. Her teacher’s wage was so limited that she had to work in the fields to earn enough money to support us. She never left the city, always either teaching or working in the fields, transplanting rice seedlings, harvesting, and bailing out water like any other farmer. Despite these and other obstacles that my mother suffered, she constantly struggled to overcome adversity without complaint.

Every time I look back on the past, I all the more admire her remarkable will and spirit. That is why I have always pushed myself to be worthy of her sacrifices. I once asked my mother what miracle enabled her to overcome the difficulties in her life. She smiled and answered, “You should never be afraid of challenges or failures, son. Once you have something to dream for, to live for and to die for, it will help you overcome the highest mountain and the deepest ocean. Challenges make you strong, and failures make you mature.” These words have ever since been the lighthouse to guide my manner and thoughts, and to help me stand firm in the face of adversity.

In addition to all I have learned from her strength, I was also fortunate that my mother was a teacher. She has always encouraged my inquisitive nature, reminding me that knowledge is the most valuable and stable treasure. She taught me to pursue excellence, never being satisfied with what I already knew, and always pushing forward into new horizons of knowledge.

Now that our family has moved to the city, life has been much better. I have matured, and my highest ranking in the National Collegiate Entrance Exam has guaranteed me a bright future in Vietnam. Yet it is my dream to study at an American college. Again, my mother has been greatly encouraging, despite the financial difficulties our family will surely face as a result. She persuaded my father to accept my decision, and she really respects my aspiration. I need to leave, to expand my knowledge, to enrich my country, and to ensure that I honor my mother’s sacrifices by realizing all of my potential.

Essay by Khoa Pham (Bates)

Why, in particular, do you wish to attend Bates?

Over the last couple of years, I have seen the importance and relevance that mathematical techniques have in everyday life: for example, using diagrams to analyze the fluctuation of exchange rates. I believe that further enhancement of my knowledge in this subject would allow me to be more successful in my future career in investment banking. I believe that I am well equipped to follow this programme, as I am currently studying A-Level Mathematics, taking modules in Pure
Maths, Statistics, and Mechanics.

I would like to make my career in investment banking and believe that studying a major in Economics and a secondary concentration in Mathematics at Bates is the best way to achieve this goal. Vietnam, my planned area of focus, is an expanding market with a dearth of skilled business professionals. Therefore, upon completion of my studies, I plan to return to my home country of Vietnam and contribute to its economic development. I am interested in learning about macroeconomic policy and microeconomics since Vietnam is stepping into a new phase of its transition to a market economy under the state's control. Therefore, it is fascinating to see what policies and macroeconomic tools are employed and targets which are set to achieve growth and stability for Vietnam economy. It also fascinates me to learn how firms react to changes in the economic environment or how state-owned firms interact with foreign firms in the light of the market becoming increasingly "free". I would like to play an active part in the process of raising the capital that businesses require for long-term growth. In addition, I wish to advise firms on strategic matters involving mergers, acquisitions and other transactions.

My enthusiasm and activeness extend not just to academics, but to other aspects of life as well. I have obtained good communication skills through working in various teams and professional environments, especially in the BBC World Service where I have an opportunity to network with many BBC correspondents. This has helped me to develop a range of skills, in particular those of analyzing and interpreting complex information and presenting arguments and conclusions in written form and in front of an audience. I like classical and pop music, dancing, singing, martial arts, water sports, and travelling. At Bates, I expect to continue pursuing these activities that have played such a large role in the formation of my personal traits. I owe to these activities most of my leadership and interpersonal skills, such as my position as President of my high school's English club.

Bates is one of the world's finest and most rigorous educational institution. Since academic achievement is an unconditional priority to me, I will not settle for anything less than being one of the top students at the very best academic institution. I look to Bates as I know I would fit in the dynamic, inventive atmosphere and excel in this very important academic community. Bates is the particularly perfect match for me and I deserve the chance. Given an opportunity, I hope Bates will recognise me as a talented individual with much potential.

Culture shock (Macalester)

I often feel a sort of vague and general dis-ease since I left Vietnam for England. I have named it a dislike of English culture, or a cultural re-entry shock. But these labels explain little, and the first seems simply false. I have lived and continue to live in England and I am much too happy a person to continue on in this happiness if I am truly living in a culture I dislike. What is going on here?

The central difference between life as we encounter it and work with it in Vietnam and our lives in England has to do with basic survival. Life in Vietnam, in the circles of our work and primary concern is basic survival. People struggle for daily food, they scrounge for potable water, they hunt for the basic health care to stay alive, they search for shelter from the rains, bugs, rats or beating sun. They struggle to find part-time work on a daily basis. They are underclothed, underfed, undersheltered and undertended. On the other hand, most of us from the middle and upper classes not only have all of these things but we take them for granted, view them as sort of birth right. Our struggles are for growth, security, personal pleasure, entertainment, enrichment, culture etc.

There is nothing wrong with any of this. In fact living on the edge of survival, living in misery -- which I would define as facing what most Vietnamese people face-- is a bloody drag. I find nothing valuable in it at all. Nothing romantic, nothing noble. But, when one has been in intimate contact with people struggling for the basics, when one has thrown one's lot in with them in their struggle, no matter how minimally one has joined them, one gets sensitized to life on the edges. It begins to be part of our thinking, what we enter into each day, what gives our life guidance and meaning.

Here our lives are full. British lives are notoriously full. We pick up our own works, working, studenting, mothering and fathering, whatever. Yet beneath the surface the contrasts are there. Somehow, and I think this is almost always beneath the level of conscious awareness, this duality between the struggle for necessities and the pursuit of what's beyond, raises its nagging head. Something else is required in all of this. There must be mechanisms in us, or at least those of us to whom this happens, which deeply and intuitively recognizes the priority of the necessary over the beyond-the-necessary. If both of these phenomena were in place -- the distinction and awareness of the distinction and the priority of the necessary -- then one could understand and explain this heavy feeling which comes so powerfully.

Suppose this were so. So what? This would seem to be so much counterproductive pain. Why not learn to purge it? What good can it do? This is tricky because such feelings of discontent may well serve no good purpose at all. Certainly we do not want to retreat in our own lives to the level of the struggle for necessity. Most of us simply cannot (either realistically or psychologically) devote our whole lives to others' struggles for survival. So how can these inner proddings be converted into positive energy? I believe there are several powerful messages trying to break through the barriers of our protective consciousness, and these feelings can be put to good use. I have developed a number of these themes in things I have written before, but I will enumerate some of them here.

We need to study the relationships between our world of plenty and others' worlds of the lack of necessities. My contention is that they are related causally, that in numerous cases of having (though not in all cases), our having luxuries --anything which is not a necessity -- (as a culture or whole economy) is had at the expense of others' necessities. To the extent that this is true and discoverable, then we would have a moral guide to shape our own consuming, no matter how "used" to it we were. In addition, whether or not we are causally responsible for others' lack of necessities, each of us could certainly trim our luxuries to make space for others' necessities in our lives. The easiest is with money, or excess goods, which we could share. Much more importantly is with our lives. By cutting back here and there in our pursuit of our luxuries, we can make time and energy and space available to work in solidarity with those who struggle for necessities.

Thus I believe I can better understand what happens to me. Something deep inside me is calling out, pleading with pain, saying in effect: K, do not forget so soon. Do not turn away. You were closer to where you belong. Do not go away, K, do not. And the trouble is not even that I turn away. I really do not. But, I drift. It is as though I had been driving alertly down the highway for hours, then as I get close to home I get sleepy. I am still driving; I am still on the road. But from time to time I am drifting, sliding now toward the center, then toward the shoulder. The consciousness is calling to stay awake in my fullness.

So how should I -- we -- respond? The call for vigilance is a good one. The call to keep alive the struggle and not to get caught up in our other worlds here. That is important. We need to keep the place of the other alive. To work one with the other to reinforce and help each other. To reach out to bring us into the struggle with us and not let them pull us away into their worlds. My mistake is to keep thinking it is some huge call to chuck it all and doing something grandiose. No. I think that is probably not it at all. At least for me. I have chosen my work and it is good work. There is nothing to apologize for or be embarrassed. I do good and important work. I just have to keep hard at it. No doubt there is more going on, and maybe what I describe above is not it at all. But, it seems quite plausible, and seems to fit my own experience.