2002-08-05|5:05 p.m.
UC personal statement:
Throughout my house, aged bookcases held German propaganda leaflets, photographs of Vietnam, war books, and valuable literature from America and around the world. The most sacred of my father�s collections were his shelves of National Geographic magazines, and picture books illustrating the beauty of cultures worldwide. My father taught me the value of scholarly pursuit, and this kindled an appreciation for the rudiments upon which governing bodies interrelate with their people. This early exposure allowed me to not only find interest in lawmaking, but also grow to value people that these laws affect.
When I began elementary school, I was fortunate enough to go to a campus that was rich in racial diversity, enough so that it not only expanded my knowledge of other cultures on a very personal level, but also awakened in me a sense of the inter-associations we all have as a society, and with that a sense of responsibility to help people whenever and however I could. In third grade, I met a girl named Charlene that had just moved from Taiwan with her family, to find escape from the heightened political persecution from China. We instantly became best friends, as I grew to love her family as my own. As the school year ended, Charlene�s father began to make trips back to Taiwan and China very frequently, until one day he never returned. For the whole summer it seemed their family was in silent grief, yet Charlene was not permitted to explain his absence further than that he had not died, but was unable to come home. When our fourth grade year began, Charlene confessed that she had to move back to Taiwan, and revealed what had kept her father from returning: he had felt the responsibility to return to China to protest with fellow Taiwanese citizens, to express their desire for political freedom. He never returned because he was captured and placed in a Chinese prison, sentences to twenty years for his peaceful protest, and Charlene�s family were moving back to be near him. I felt overwhelmingly helpless; I was not only losing my friend, but also losing my sense of comfort. I began to understand that horrible things do occur in this world, often to genuinely good people, and this awoke in me such frustration and anger that I couldn't help but feel a need to combat this sort of injustice, though at that young age I wasn't sure how.
As I entered high school, I needed to direct my interest into a more specific discipline, which I found in political science. I then searched out forums in which I could cultivate my interest in policy, develop my critical thinking skills, and heighten all of the skills it takes to be an effective communicator. The most important forum I found was the competitive realm of Mock Trial, which is a club that competes in the simulation of a criminal case with a pretrial motion on a Bill of Rights issue. In my second year of Mock Trial, I was assigned the role of the pretrial case on both the prosecution and defense teams. It proved to be one of the most exciting and rewarding challenges of my high school career. Activities like competing in Mock Trial, writing and editing for the news and opinion section of my high school newspaper, and designing history fair projects provided forums in which I could continue to learn new things and to express my own views. In my college career, I have tried to find activities like these that could both fill my interests and help me focus on my goals.
As I was beginning college, my father became sick and unable to find work, and so moved out of state to live with his parents; this made it necessary for me to begin working fulltime to support myself. In my freshman year at Victor Valley Community College, I joined the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and began writing and sending letters to politicians about current topics that I had questions and comments about on a weekly basis.
The culmination of all of these experiences, matched with my own interests and passions, has led me to conclude that majoring in Political Science would be the best pathway to my goals for the future. It would allow me to make the best use of my talents and acumen, challenging me to live up to my social conscience and make the biggest positive impact I possibly can.