Admission Essay

Personal Statement

Life is unpredictable and not as perfect as one would like it to be. It breaks a man and also teaches him how to fight and muster up his courage. My life has been no different. Right from my high school, my life started taking unusual turns, leaving me strangled at first and making me strong at last. As a result of the foreclosure of houses in California, a new housemate arrived in our house. My Aunt, who was a single mom, lost her house in the process of foreclosure. She moved back to Korea, leaving her 15 years old daughter to live with a friend. As a gesture of kindness, my father invited her to live with us, when we were in the midst of the foreclosure ourselves. At that moment, I did not find any valid reason to oppose my father's decision. Our house was not a big one, and we did not have enough place which could have been given to my cousin. So, I decided to volunteer my room and move to the garage so that my cousin could live in it. My dad used the living room of the house as his office, so there was no other place available to sleep other than the couch. It was the most tough part of my life. At that stage of life, when a person needs his personal space to work and think, I had no place of my own. My cousin ended up living in our house permanently. The days of my life passed in utter hardship. I spent four years of my life without a room for myself. I had no computer and not even a desk to write on. The chilly winds and the squeaking mice kept me awake all night. This continued for four years.

The financial conditions of my family had also worsened. I decided to take my part in the family and life some of the financial burden off my parents' shoulders. I decided to start a small business of skateboards so that I may become able to at least bear my own expenses and help my parents. I started buying skate boards from one of the wholesalers of the town. I, then used to sell them on facebook. This helped me in making money for my books and my lunch. But the nights were still the same, torturous and painful.

Every morning after spending a hopeless night, I felt that nothing would ever change. I knew that I would never get my room back. The misery was not about my room, it was about the hopelessness and hollowness that the financial crisis had created in my life. I wondered if my family would ever be able to go to the restaurants like we did before the crisis. I suffered from emotional distress. I ended up blaming my parents and even God sometimes. I blamed them for taking away everything from me. I wanted to grow up like a normal kid, ...