I thought I'd post up my personal statement for the UC system, since it was very much just a personal expression.
Tell us about a talent, experience, contribution or personal quality you will bring to the University of California.
Tell us about a talent, experience, contribution or personal quality you will bring to the University of California.
As I struggle to keep focused on the task at hand, I resist the nagging temptation to get up once again from the lifeless creature that cradles me in its antiquated leather arms as I comb my room for even the slightest hint of inspiration. With a grimace I write thesis after thesis, each one finding less focus and substance that the previous, but at the same time, leading me closer to where I’m destined to go. Unfortunately for me, turning a half used tube of Chapstick or an oversized bottle of Pepsi full of change into a metaphor of my academic successes and failures thus far just isn’t my style.
Instead I find my true inspiration in the absence of focus, in the desperation of the mind to latch onto a thought coherent enough to be transformed into an intelligent piece of composition. Indeed I have a talent for creating an expansive work out of absolute nothingness, pulling substance from the distractions that surround my so called “work space.” What this means for my contribution to a University campus, I have yet to figure out, but I have all the confidence in the world that through spontaneity, mixed with determination, I can convince anyone just how necessary my presence is.
I beg you reconsider what I have expressed so far in my attempt to wow whoever is reading this, and perhaps construct a positive image from the rather unflattering combination of words I have used to describe my technique. Rather than calling this an act of my mind’s desperation to find a topic, let us call it improvisation. By typing what comes to mind instead of following a rigid and structured reference such as an outline, the wording that comes forth flows with the rhythm of the mind, taking each word as a beat in another melody composed on paper.
Again, you (and me) may be asking, how does this contribute to the university community as a whole? While writing word after word, wondering where those words will take this paper, I find the dictionary in my brain easing its way into what may possibly be a word to describe myself. As it comes to a stop, I see two words: audacity, and sitting close behind it, a less favorable, yet ironically honest second choice, recklessness. I think though, that regardless of the opposing connotations involved with both words, they share a basic theme of action without hesitancy. Miraculously, I have found the focus that I knew that I would eventually arrive at.
Whether it is running for a position as an ASB Commissioner, or merely garnering up the courage to ask that special someone to the upcoming dance, such boldness in my life has undoubtedly yielded unfathomable success. Additionally, such boldness has also resulted in failure, but only in an immediate sense. As Sir Winston Churchill rather eloquently said, “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.”
With that in mind, I find in myself a certain sense of accomplishment. Using what I have inadvertently identified as courageousness, I have managed to complete an entire essay about myself by doing nothing more than spitting out whatever truths I could muster up. Whether it is as convincing as I had originally intended is now out of my control, but not out of mind. Even if it fails, I will continue on tackling obstacles with the same daring I have exhibited here. There’s no harm in hoping for the best though, is there?