Apply for Darmstaedter Scholarship
I am a Chinese, and I have a common name called “mei ling” in Chinese. My name is means beautiful and successful. This is my parent’s goal for me, and I try to make the significant meaning of my name come true by achieve more about my future.
When I was 2 years old, my father moved to America for a better life, unfortunately, he had car accident when I was 5 years old (1997), he had physical illness since that car accident and he have to stay at hospital, this means my father could no longer make money. So to take care of me and my brother becomes my mother’s responsibilities.
My mother was a hard worker, she usually works at the mosquito net factory, and her job is to sew the mosquito net with long, overlying stitches. I usually helped her to put on the plastic flower at the top of the mosquito net, and I never complain about it because I like to relief my mother’s tension from working. But soon my mother had the disease so she could no longer working, our life is getting worst than before. Even our life is poor, my mother never try to cut off my education, because to her, knowledge would change everything, she told me that it does not matter if we eat and dress well or not, I have to get the education. I learned it from my mother that the only turning point for my future is to getting the education. If I have knowledge more and I can protect my mother more. And I did well at my elementary school, junior high. I joined a lot of school activities, most of them are to help classmates to understand more about art, and I was also a Chinese tutor when I was at junior high. Most of my teacher suggests me to be a teacher since I like to talk to people and to help people.
When I was 15 years old, my mother, my brother, and I moved to America. For me and my brother, our goals is to get a better education, for my mother, the goal is to take care of my father and let us understand more about the “family happiness”.
During the first semester of Lafayette High School I felt I was useless because I did not speak English at all, so I have to learn it from the beginning. To learn the second language is full of obstacles, I get average of 55% for my first semester; I felt the end of the earth was coming. So I struggled from learning the English and I finally find the right way of to study the English, that is, reading more English literature, speaking more in English, and to practice writing in English. Then I achieved my part of goal that I graduated from Lafayette High School in 3 years. I automatically applied to Baruch College because I want to learn more about business then have my own business and to make a better life for my family members.
Most of people around me know that I am a very hardworking and like challenges. I believe that challenge would make me grow more. I learned from my mother that as you do more, you’re achieved more, so I work part-time while attending school full-time as well. I appreciate the valuable experience I get working and I benefit from it as much as I benefit from school. While attending school full-time, I have to work 35 hours a week at nails salon and at the SEEK office of Baruch College. I have to work because my mother has business at China and she usually go back to China about 6 months then she will come back to America to see if I am doing well or not. There has not enough time for me to study. When I look around at the other students studying and I feel envious and even angry, but I know that the work experiences teaches me things that these other students will be unlikely to learn.