jazzyjud
09-18-2008, 07:05 PM
Hi All,
I am new to this forum, and I come asking for much needed help on my entrance essay's for Naturopathic medical school. I am open to any sort of feedback, and the more comments and suggestions the better!
The question to the first one is:"please tell us how your background, abilities, interests, and/or hardships you have had to overcome make you a good candidate for National College of Natural Medicine."
I really want it to be refreshing and NOT cliche'.
Thank you thank you thank you, and have a great day!!
I have always wanted to save the world. Not the world so much as humanity, to rid it of some of the unjustness and pain that comes with a world of this size. I made a sort of promise to myself that I was going use my life to make positive changes. That I was going to make things better somehow. I would always put change in expired parking meters, and buy lunch for homeless people to prove, if only to myself, that there was some compassion in life. Once when I was 6, I went with my dad to the hardware store to pick up some fertilizer for our home on Maui, Hawaii. While he talked business with the owner, I went to the spot by the cash register where they kept baby chickens for sale. I always felt a mixture of warmth and sadness as I ran my hand over their fluffy, yellow heads. On this particular trip I noticed a chick in the back of the cage that was especially tiny, the runt of the litter. The owner said that it was going to die because it was so small, and that there was really no hope for it. Upon my insistence, he reluctantly gave it to me, along with some food, and a sad smile. I tried my best to save it. Despite the warm bed I had made for it on the back porch, as well as my vigilant watch, it died that same night. I remember thinking that life was not fair, and that there had to be a way to ease some of the suffering. It became my lifelong quest: To find the solution that would alter humanity and change the world. Simple.
So when I was 12, I assisted an autistic boy to try to make the world clearer for both me and him. I saw great discrepancy in the fact that although we were the same age, we were decades apart. He would never be able to integrate with our peers the way I did, so easily. At 14, I spent hours in an old folk home listening to past lives and forgotten times. Mostly with an old woman who had spent her whole life on Maui, and on the day before she passed, she mentioned that she would have loved to see other countries and speak other languages. I took it to heart. I planned parties at the Maui Aids Foundation with patients who had months left to live, yet were as vibrant and optimistic as my own 16 years. I first celebrated life’s diversity through human interaction and the world’s perfect inconsistencies. Then felt betrayed by them when my best friend had an aneurism while swimming in the ocean, and drowned while we were in high school. The part of me that died with her gave birth to another entity that was determined to live to the best of my ability for the two of us. Upon high school graduation, while most of my friends were having children and getting married, I left my island home for further discovery.
Over the next 8 years, I tried everything. I dabbled in massage school, and studied sociology in Santa Barbara. I moved to Italy for a summer, started a health and wellness program, and stayed for over 3 years. I became fluent in Italian, and learned to speak Spanish. I took up rock climbing in Colorado, and helped a baby lamb being born while trekking through the Swiss Alps. I went to the Vatican to witness Michelangelo’s genius, and listened to the simple, wise words of the Dalai Lama. I learned gratitude and appreciation while teaching English in Thailand, and I started a successful jewelry business in San Francisco.
Through all that, I still haven’t saved humanity, although I see it clearer. In a joke shared among friends, or a boy who gives up his seat for an elderly lady. I see the difference people can make in each others lives with a smile or positive word. We are a remarkable species and I trust that one person can make a difference for human kind. I believe my quest has led me into their service. I have found a way to save the world, and it is through good health and true compassion.
I am new to this forum, and I come asking for much needed help on my entrance essay's for Naturopathic medical school. I am open to any sort of feedback, and the more comments and suggestions the better!
The question to the first one is:"please tell us how your background, abilities, interests, and/or hardships you have had to overcome make you a good candidate for National College of Natural Medicine."
I really want it to be refreshing and NOT cliche'.
Thank you thank you thank you, and have a great day!!
I have always wanted to save the world. Not the world so much as humanity, to rid it of some of the unjustness and pain that comes with a world of this size. I made a sort of promise to myself that I was going use my life to make positive changes. That I was going to make things better somehow. I would always put change in expired parking meters, and buy lunch for homeless people to prove, if only to myself, that there was some compassion in life. Once when I was 6, I went with my dad to the hardware store to pick up some fertilizer for our home on Maui, Hawaii. While he talked business with the owner, I went to the spot by the cash register where they kept baby chickens for sale. I always felt a mixture of warmth and sadness as I ran my hand over their fluffy, yellow heads. On this particular trip I noticed a chick in the back of the cage that was especially tiny, the runt of the litter. The owner said that it was going to die because it was so small, and that there was really no hope for it. Upon my insistence, he reluctantly gave it to me, along with some food, and a sad smile. I tried my best to save it. Despite the warm bed I had made for it on the back porch, as well as my vigilant watch, it died that same night. I remember thinking that life was not fair, and that there had to be a way to ease some of the suffering. It became my lifelong quest: To find the solution that would alter humanity and change the world. Simple.
So when I was 12, I assisted an autistic boy to try to make the world clearer for both me and him. I saw great discrepancy in the fact that although we were the same age, we were decades apart. He would never be able to integrate with our peers the way I did, so easily. At 14, I spent hours in an old folk home listening to past lives and forgotten times. Mostly with an old woman who had spent her whole life on Maui, and on the day before she passed, she mentioned that she would have loved to see other countries and speak other languages. I took it to heart. I planned parties at the Maui Aids Foundation with patients who had months left to live, yet were as vibrant and optimistic as my own 16 years. I first celebrated life’s diversity through human interaction and the world’s perfect inconsistencies. Then felt betrayed by them when my best friend had an aneurism while swimming in the ocean, and drowned while we were in high school. The part of me that died with her gave birth to another entity that was determined to live to the best of my ability for the two of us. Upon high school graduation, while most of my friends were having children and getting married, I left my island home for further discovery.
Over the next 8 years, I tried everything. I dabbled in massage school, and studied sociology in Santa Barbara. I moved to Italy for a summer, started a health and wellness program, and stayed for over 3 years. I became fluent in Italian, and learned to speak Spanish. I took up rock climbing in Colorado, and helped a baby lamb being born while trekking through the Swiss Alps. I went to the Vatican to witness Michelangelo’s genius, and listened to the simple, wise words of the Dalai Lama. I learned gratitude and appreciation while teaching English in Thailand, and I started a successful jewelry business in San Francisco.
Through all that, I still haven’t saved humanity, although I see it clearer. In a joke shared among friends, or a boy who gives up his seat for an elderly lady. I see the difference people can make in each others lives with a smile or positive word. We are a remarkable species and I trust that one person can make a difference for human kind. I believe my quest has led me into their service. I have found a way to save the world, and it is through good health and true compassion.