The Personal Statement
I figured I'd post it here and get some feed back before I hit the submit button on my applications.
It has been said when one door closes another door opens. Doors have been opening for me everywhere lately, but there is only one through which I want to walk. As a child, I was given everything I wanted within reason. I never had a want unfulfilled and I should be happier about the door I have recently been thrust through as it fulfills everything I could want at twenty-six--stability, income, creativity, and upward mobility. Now as I finish my masters, waiting to get that diploma, I long for another door which is standing open.
As a child I only had one dream: to be an attorney rising above my small town roots. The path had been set and I had been walking it. But last year I went from industrious, stop at nothing manager to a practically homeless individual traveling from Atlantic City to New York City each day for a temporary job. While I spent the past summer on the East Coast, my family was forced out of my childhood home into a rental I did not see until August. Between my father’s cancer and the subsequent reduction in income, the foreclosure had caused a lot of strain within my family. My world, everything I had ever known, was changing right before my eyes, and I the one family member who never cracked was crumbling.
At twenty-six, no one should have to be facing the loss of her home, no income, and a law suit by every creditor she had ever worked with. Alas this was my life this past spring and summer as I accepted the job that would change everything.
Working in New York City is a job situation many twenty-somethings long to do; one I never really thought about. My chance came out of the blue. Thankfully, relatives in New Jersey where a strong public transit system exists, I was able to have the best summer of my life to this date. Spending one hundred combined hours over four weeks on a bus gave me plenty of time to think about where I was headed in my life. Law school had been put on hold and a Master’s degree was pursued in its place. The challenge of working full time and getting a degree through an accelerated program was what I needed right out of college. And like the Master’s program gave me the challenge and additional skills I needed, the New York job gave me time to think and the life experience I had missed growing up.
The experience of the New York job is worth more than the money I made during those four weeks. The stress free month away from home was what I needed more than anything to get reorganized. At twelve I made the decision to be an attorney—going to Harvard Law School was the exact goal. But like many things in my life, that specific goal changed as I got older. The career path changed to Federal Court justice and the specific school was no longer the ultimate goal. Through it all I had never thought about the type of law I would study, a realization that occurred during bus ride hour twelve. With it came the realization why I had struggled making a decision about where to study.
In bus ride fifteen, I came to terms with my strength. I have always been the rock in my family and among my friends. I’m unbreakable in many eyes. But during the months leading up to New York, I had been starting to crumble due to the stress. I realized in those bus rides I had survived and was actually thriving in spite of what was happening in my life. I was still alive and had a job; even though it was temporary, I was working. Everything would be fine. The door to my goal is still open; I just have to walk through it.
By bus hour ninety-seven, I had come to a decision about law school. No matter what happened from that point on, I was going to law school and I will study family law. The strength I have is from a dark place; a place I have tried to forget for years. The strength is from the want to never be in a situation again where I was the weak one like the day when I was molested at four. I never want to feel hopeless and helpless again. And more than anything, I never want to see another individual have to go through what I did. Getting off the bus for the last time, I was happier than I had been in years. Who would have thought a bus door was the door I needed to walk through to get to the law school door.
Spurred on by this found purpose, I returned home to start the law school application process again. And like magic, the doors started opening. Doors that had never been open previously, were standing wide open. When I applied before, I was denied entry which was just one more crushing blow in the many occurring at that time. But after a summer away, I returned with many doors opening again along with many new ones. Between law schools and other academic programs, jobs started showing up everywhere; jobs that did not exist to me six months previously. I haven’t felt this hopeful for my future since I graduated high school in 2003. Finally I have options again, but there is only one door I want to walk through.
Now fourteen years, one hundred bus ride hours, and many miles after the initial decision, I am embracing like never before my law school goal. The doors are narrowed down, and the list has changed considerably from the list of one school when I was twelve. I am now in a place where I am completely confident in myself and my ability to work through the stress of my life and the life a career in law will give me. I am poised, ready to walk through that door; the door that leads to my future; my goal; my dream.
It has been said when one door closes another door opens. Doors have been opening for me everywhere lately, but there is only one through which I want to walk. As a child, I was given everything I wanted within reason. I never had a want unfulfilled and I should be happier about the door I have recently been thrust through as it fulfills everything I could want at twenty-six--stability, income, creativity, and upward mobility. Now as I finish my masters, waiting to get that diploma, I long for another door which is standing open.
As a child I only had one dream: to be an attorney rising above my small town roots. The path had been set and I had been walking it. But last year I went from industrious, stop at nothing manager to a practically homeless individual traveling from Atlantic City to New York City each day for a temporary job. While I spent the past summer on the East Coast, my family was forced out of my childhood home into a rental I did not see until August. Between my father’s cancer and the subsequent reduction in income, the foreclosure had caused a lot of strain within my family. My world, everything I had ever known, was changing right before my eyes, and I the one family member who never cracked was crumbling.
At twenty-six, no one should have to be facing the loss of her home, no income, and a law suit by every creditor she had ever worked with. Alas this was my life this past spring and summer as I accepted the job that would change everything.
Working in New York City is a job situation many twenty-somethings long to do; one I never really thought about. My chance came out of the blue. Thankfully, relatives in New Jersey where a strong public transit system exists, I was able to have the best summer of my life to this date. Spending one hundred combined hours over four weeks on a bus gave me plenty of time to think about where I was headed in my life. Law school had been put on hold and a Master’s degree was pursued in its place. The challenge of working full time and getting a degree through an accelerated program was what I needed right out of college. And like the Master’s program gave me the challenge and additional skills I needed, the New York job gave me time to think and the life experience I had missed growing up.
The experience of the New York job is worth more than the money I made during those four weeks. The stress free month away from home was what I needed more than anything to get reorganized. At twelve I made the decision to be an attorney—going to Harvard Law School was the exact goal. But like many things in my life, that specific goal changed as I got older. The career path changed to Federal Court justice and the specific school was no longer the ultimate goal. Through it all I had never thought about the type of law I would study, a realization that occurred during bus ride hour twelve. With it came the realization why I had struggled making a decision about where to study.
In bus ride fifteen, I came to terms with my strength. I have always been the rock in my family and among my friends. I’m unbreakable in many eyes. But during the months leading up to New York, I had been starting to crumble due to the stress. I realized in those bus rides I had survived and was actually thriving in spite of what was happening in my life. I was still alive and had a job; even though it was temporary, I was working. Everything would be fine. The door to my goal is still open; I just have to walk through it.
By bus hour ninety-seven, I had come to a decision about law school. No matter what happened from that point on, I was going to law school and I will study family law. The strength I have is from a dark place; a place I have tried to forget for years. The strength is from the want to never be in a situation again where I was the weak one like the day when I was molested at four. I never want to feel hopeless and helpless again. And more than anything, I never want to see another individual have to go through what I did. Getting off the bus for the last time, I was happier than I had been in years. Who would have thought a bus door was the door I needed to walk through to get to the law school door.
Spurred on by this found purpose, I returned home to start the law school application process again. And like magic, the doors started opening. Doors that had never been open previously, were standing wide open. When I applied before, I was denied entry which was just one more crushing blow in the many occurring at that time. But after a summer away, I returned with many doors opening again along with many new ones. Between law schools and other academic programs, jobs started showing up everywhere; jobs that did not exist to me six months previously. I haven’t felt this hopeful for my future since I graduated high school in 2003. Finally I have options again, but there is only one door I want to walk through.
Now fourteen years, one hundred bus ride hours, and many miles after the initial decision, I am embracing like never before my law school goal. The doors are narrowed down, and the list has changed considerably from the list of one school when I was twelve. I am now in a place where I am completely confident in myself and my ability to work through the stress of my life and the life a career in law will give me. I am poised, ready to walk through that door; the door that leads to my future; my goal; my dream.
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