Education in America: Personal Statement

Leaving Home

We were all in tears about my leaving, my grandmother wept like she would never see me again. My little cousins clutched my pant legs and I considered abandoning this silly dream of living and learning in America. My mother approached and pressed her flower-petal soft voice in my ear. She made an indentation with her melodic Portuguese when she said: “Vivemos a nossa melhor vida de hoje. Nunca coloque desligado até amanhã o que você pode fazer agora.” The refrain stuck in my head the first few months I attended the UCLA Extension program: “We live our best lives today. Never put off until tomorrow what you can do now.” It has not always been easy to pursue my dreams at the expense of family; mama’s spicy moqueca capixaba (a tomato and onion base seafood stew); and the sights, sounds and colors of the carnival as it breezes through every spring – but it has always been worth it.

As I participated in English language immersion in Los Angeles, I have come to value new and very interesting skills and traits that I never knew that I possessed. I discovered a love of languages – their rhythms, cadence, their ability to transcend difference and the way that words attach to memories and indelibly stain the psyche. I decided to embrace every cultural experience that I could as I learned to master my new English-speaking self.

While attending Santa Monica College the past two years, I have learned to skillfully interact with people from different cultures with increasing degrees of independence. Moreover, I have blossomed as an athlete at SMC and can proudly say that I am the first athlete in the history of the college to participate in two varsity teams in one season. As a kicker for the football team, I have been honored to be a part of a football program that has been cordoned with the pacific conference title for the third year in a row.

No doubt I wagered that thrusting myself headlong into sports would be a gamble that could pay off if I worked hard enough and it has. My penchant for hard work has earned me the captain band and awarded me a more prominent role on the team. Even though the role of captain has added much more weight on my shoulders, the responsibilities have sharpened and defined leadership abilities. I am a leader, role model, motivator and redirector. Communication can destroy or rebuild, I consciously choose the latter and I push players to do their best by offering praise and redirection when needed.

My undergraduate education at University of California Los Angeles will open a lot of doors for me. Not only will I have the opportunity to absorb a wealth of information about a topic that I am deeply interested in, but, I will be exposed to cultures that serve as real-world training for my future consulting firm. I plan to pursue my dream of international consulting with small to medium-sized businesses in America. I will serve as a native Brazilian liaison that leverages contacts and language skills abroad to ease talks and negotiations with private and public organizations for the mutual good and growth of both parties. Brazil is one of the top 10 largest economies in the world. I would like to do my part to sustain and effect its growth while ensuring that jobs and resources begin to be visible in the favellas. I am interested in lobbying to provide opportunities in the agriculture, automobile, steel, petrochemical, IT and durable goods sectors. My Bachelor’s of Arts in Communication will be a significant hallmark of my future plans. UCLA will give me substantive preparation to create a life for myself and for my family that is conducive to the development of the community I think of as home.

Personal Qualities and Accomplishments

Our lives are best lived as children, racing with the wind. We pop in and out of experiences, seemingly unscathed by all that life unwittingly reveals to us. Times are happy and carefree because youth affords children with opportunities to experience perpetual freedom. I am a product of the lessons my mother taught me from a very early age. And though she is not here with me, my mother’s impact upon my life continues to be unrivaled. Her lessons have stretched some 5,500 miles across the Caribbean from the family I left in Brazil, to the work and studies I approached in California.

My mother imparted wisdom to us through verbal communication. A competent communicator responds with discipline and tact under pressure. As a child, I watched my mother negotiate over prices with other women in the market. Her skilled oratory could mean a new soccer ball at the start of each summer or a bowl of Tapioca on the way home. Strong and confident communication spilled throughout the corridors of my childhood home.

As captain of my soccer team at SMC, I viewed seasoned communication as an integral aspect of my personal success. Other than enhancing my skills and ability to work well with others, soccer brought out a sense of leadership that has propelled my success in school. I channel the competitiveness from on the field and use it in the classroom. On field and off, practice breeds perfection. This has been the case sense I pulled myself out of my mother’s loving arms to participate in the English language immersion experience at UCLA, to my immersion in American culture while attending SMC.

Life is a journey well traveled if (and only if) it leads us back to the place we started. At the nexus of my journey, I will have acquired a deeper strength in and appreciation for cross-cultural communication and diversity, along with a heightened ability to think on my feet. I intend to dedicate my academic achievements to the service of women like my own hero, my mother.