UC Personal Statements

prompt one
Personally, I do not know if Oscar Mayer actually has a way with B-O-L-O-G-N-A. However, I do know that I have a way with advertising. On my first day of my summer session at the Academy of Art University, I passed the pop quiz about advertising jingles and icons with flying colors, and was even willing to sing the Oscar Mayer jingle in reward for a special Sharpie marker. Needless to say, my summer at the Academy of Art University was an incredibly enlightening experience.
In class, I learned to work competitively by myself and in groups, learning to acknowledge my classmates’ opinions in our assignments. In addition, I learned about different formats of advertisements and various ways of attracting consumers. In fact, advertising is a very competitive field, requiring hard work to stay on top of the game.
With so many available opportunities open for high school students, I was able to have a taste of what a college environment felt like. Even if I do not pursue an artistic career, I have learned skills that can be used for life. I am proud to have accomplished something worthwhile that will benefit me in the future.





prompt two
I walked out of school at twelve o’clock in the morning. On that particular day, I had worked for exactly sixteen hours and twenty five minutes as an officer for the committee preparing for Spirit Week, a school homecoming tradition of competition between classes. As excited as I was, I did not mind the long hours, yet I did not expect the preparation to be as strenuous as hiking the Himalayas.
During the few months the Spirit Committee met, I sweated and toiled my way through an illness, the sun, and a temporary lack of materials. At one point, my nose started to run every time I worked close to the floor, and I carried tissues around as artillery. I measured walls, painted posters, and kept an eye on the rapidly disappearing paint. All my hard work and effort paid off when the senior class won first place overall in the Spirit Week competitions.
Through this experience, I proved my leadership and organization capabilities. I remind myself that life is too valuable to waste, and that if I ever want to stay at school until midnight again, I should start stocking up on tissues.




prompt three
According to the US Census Bureau, 6,470,818,671 people live in the world today. Approximately 1.1 out of the 6 billion currently lives in absolute poverty, or under a dollar a day. About 8 million of these people living in poverty die each day.
I am only one person but I believe that if one person a day can do something to help change the world for the better, there would be fewer people living in absolute poverty. Whenever I make a comparison, I appreciate all that I have been given. I do not deserve all this luxury when there are people around the world needing help, some even starving to death.
As a person intrigued by the media, I was oblivious to the amount of money wasted on satisfying consumer desires. However, one special music video showed me just how much money was wasted by music videos. The homemade video, through online streaming, featured many hopeless children in Africa and other third world countries who were in need of education, food, clothing, and shelter. Instead, these resources go toward satisfying the wrong consumers--consumers who do not need the money as much as others do.
In economics class, I learned that, in life, there will always be unlimited wants. People in our society focus on their desires, their needs, and their self-survival. To me, these people can be classified as greedy and selfish. If society continues at this rate, there will be no human race left. Only human “kings” and “queens” will remain, accumulating too much wealth for their own good. Every minute we waste deciding which shirt to buy from Saks Fifth Avenue, people are starving. What about them?
I understand that in order for our economy to maximize its resources, it needs to find ways to cope financially. Individual proprietors, the big businesses and expensive stores downtown, depend on consumers to purchase their products in order to gain profit. With these objectives in mind, people in need are low in priority. They fall below the materialistic desires of consumers who contribute to the ideals of survival of the fittest.
Every second, someone passes away. There is a possibility that the person has died of natural causes, such as premature birth, genetic defects, or plain old age. However, there is a bigger possibility that the person died of hunger in a third world country. As an aspiring sociology major, I believe that my voice, as well as others, will play a role in saving people’s lives. If I can persuade one person to believe in my cause, that is one more person who is more knowledgeable than they were prior to meeting me.
There are 6,470,818,671 people in the world. Every one of these six billion people deserves to live each day, just as we all have the right to live life to our full extent. Not one day goes by when I do not think about the people living on the other side of the world; how they suffer while I am safe inside the comfort of a school classroom, how they cope with an ill-nourished stomach when I am eating my warm lunch, and how they feel knowing they are less of a concern than my hair appointment next week. I await the day when the world understands just how low we have fallen. Until then, I will continue my efforts to save the world from killing itself.