Admissions Essay

Living in an area where there are several different cultural groups is something that I have not experienced yet in my life. I have lived in areas that are primarily Caucasians my entire life. Living in a town or community with different socio-economic statuses isn’t something I have experienced yet either. I lived in Lake Jackson, Texas for the first 7 years of my life and quite frankly, I was too young to remember the cultural groups, but from everything my parents have told me, it’s a primarily white city. From Texas, my family and I moved to Channahon, Illinois. Once again there were not many different cultural groups. It was a town of farmers instead of business people, but these people still made more than enough money to get by. From Illinois, I moved to the city of Midland in Michigan. Most everyone here had an abundance of money here, and more than enough to get by with daily needs. Shamefully, I can say that I grew accustom to this lifestyle, though, because I was surrounded by a first class lifestyle. I had friends who would get that new brand name, expensive item just because they believed they needed it. I began to think this way as well. I started telling my parents that I needed these materialistic things. For example, I needed the new I-phone, even though I had a working phone. I needed these new shoes because they were “too cute.”

My parents noticed me starting to live this kind of lifestyle and decided to send me on a mission trip; I went to Atlanta, Georgia with a few other kids from my school. This trip was life changing for me. I was put into situations where the socio-economics were tremendously different than what I was used to. For the first time I saw homeless people on the streets, and not just one, dozens of them. I saw women prostituting themselves just so that they could have a bed to go home to and food to eat. It made me realize how fortunate I am, and how unfortunate others are. I had a self realization on this trip that I will