Nguyễn Quỳnh My
(nguyenquynhmy)
Thành viên danh dự
Just to continue the essay-posting tradition, yet I want this thread to be samples & comments only. Essay writing tips, if you will, should be posted on the old thread.
I'm gonna post several essays from the "50 Successful Harvard application essays" book, published by Harvard Crimson. Hopefully for the sole educational purpose, this would not violate the book's copywright.
The first one is written by UYen-Khanh Quang-Dang, who attended a public high school in Santa Clara, CA. She is a talented yound lady, who has just graduated from Harvard Medical School last year and who was a former president of HVA - Harvard-Vietnamese Association.
Wendy
I was walking down the hallway, my shoulders sagging from the weight of my backpack nearly bursting with books on the way to a student council meeting, from the worries of the canned food drive, from all the thoughts which cluttered my brain just moments before. I sank into a deep thought about the two names, Wendy and Uyen-Khanh.
My parents, my grandmother, and all my peers at the Sunday Vietnamese Languages School know me as Uyen-Khanh, my name as written on my birth certificate. Yet I was a wholly different person to my “American” friends and teacher – I had always been Wendy. Even some of the award certificates I received read: “Wendy Quang-Dang.”
Wendy is an invented name bestowed upon me by my kindergarten teacher who decided that Uyen-Khanh was too difficult to pronounce. In fact, it became so convenient that I began to introduce myself as Wendy to avoid the hassle of having to slowly enunciate each syllable of “Uyen-Khanh” and hear it transformed into “won-ton” or “ooh-yenkong.” It was especially hard on substitute teachers, who would look up from the roll book, flustered and perplexed as they tried their best not to completely destroy my name. Wendy also greatly decreased the looks of terror and embarrassment as people would struggle to remember how to say “Uyen-Khanh” two minutes after we had been introduced.
But at that moment standing alone in the hallway, I decided that I wanted to be known to all as one person: Uyen-Khanh. Wendy had served me well for the past eight years since kindergarten, but it was time I let go of a nickname and recognized the name written on my birth certificate.
I took me over three months of consistent persistence and patience to erase the name so many had known me by. Letting up on my determination to brand Uyen-Khanh into everyone’s memory for even just a second was not a possibility if I wanted my mission to be successful. This meant pretending not to hear someone calling me unless it was some form of Uyen-Khanh. I would interrupt people mid-greeting and stand my ground when my friends would glare angrily at me and whine, But I’ve always known you as Wendy!” My philosophy was that people must respect my wishes to say Uyen-Khanh. By the end of those three long months my resoluteness had paid off and I was richly rewarded by the sound of Uyen-Khanh pronounced smoothly and effortlessly by my closest friends.
I was thirteen years old born and raised in San Jose, the second largest Vietnamese populated city in the United States. A first generation Vietnamese citizen of this country, English was as native to me as the language of my ancestors, Vietnamese. I grew up a “true American,” as my grandmother would call it, for I did not just adapt to the all-American lifestyle, I lived it. When I decided to shed the name casually given to me in kindergarten, it seemed to some that I was “going back” to my true heritage, believing that being called Uyen-Khanh would somehow make me more Vietnamese. The truth was I was more “American” then ever when Uyen-Khanh replaced Wendy. Being born and raised in San Jose as a first-generation Vietnamese citizen made me who I am, a Vietnamese-American. Uyen-Khanh was just the name I was given at birth, and it was simply time to acknowledge it.
I'm gonna post several essays from the "50 Successful Harvard application essays" book, published by Harvard Crimson. Hopefully for the sole educational purpose, this would not violate the book's copywright.
The first one is written by UYen-Khanh Quang-Dang, who attended a public high school in Santa Clara, CA. She is a talented yound lady, who has just graduated from Harvard Medical School last year and who was a former president of HVA - Harvard-Vietnamese Association.
Wendy
I was walking down the hallway, my shoulders sagging from the weight of my backpack nearly bursting with books on the way to a student council meeting, from the worries of the canned food drive, from all the thoughts which cluttered my brain just moments before. I sank into a deep thought about the two names, Wendy and Uyen-Khanh.
My parents, my grandmother, and all my peers at the Sunday Vietnamese Languages School know me as Uyen-Khanh, my name as written on my birth certificate. Yet I was a wholly different person to my “American” friends and teacher – I had always been Wendy. Even some of the award certificates I received read: “Wendy Quang-Dang.”
Wendy is an invented name bestowed upon me by my kindergarten teacher who decided that Uyen-Khanh was too difficult to pronounce. In fact, it became so convenient that I began to introduce myself as Wendy to avoid the hassle of having to slowly enunciate each syllable of “Uyen-Khanh” and hear it transformed into “won-ton” or “ooh-yenkong.” It was especially hard on substitute teachers, who would look up from the roll book, flustered and perplexed as they tried their best not to completely destroy my name. Wendy also greatly decreased the looks of terror and embarrassment as people would struggle to remember how to say “Uyen-Khanh” two minutes after we had been introduced.
But at that moment standing alone in the hallway, I decided that I wanted to be known to all as one person: Uyen-Khanh. Wendy had served me well for the past eight years since kindergarten, but it was time I let go of a nickname and recognized the name written on my birth certificate.
I took me over three months of consistent persistence and patience to erase the name so many had known me by. Letting up on my determination to brand Uyen-Khanh into everyone’s memory for even just a second was not a possibility if I wanted my mission to be successful. This meant pretending not to hear someone calling me unless it was some form of Uyen-Khanh. I would interrupt people mid-greeting and stand my ground when my friends would glare angrily at me and whine, But I’ve always known you as Wendy!” My philosophy was that people must respect my wishes to say Uyen-Khanh. By the end of those three long months my resoluteness had paid off and I was richly rewarded by the sound of Uyen-Khanh pronounced smoothly and effortlessly by my closest friends.
I was thirteen years old born and raised in San Jose, the second largest Vietnamese populated city in the United States. A first generation Vietnamese citizen of this country, English was as native to me as the language of my ancestors, Vietnamese. I grew up a “true American,” as my grandmother would call it, for I did not just adapt to the all-American lifestyle, I lived it. When I decided to shed the name casually given to me in kindergarten, it seemed to some that I was “going back” to my true heritage, believing that being called Uyen-Khanh would somehow make me more Vietnamese. The truth was I was more “American” then ever when Uyen-Khanh replaced Wendy. Being born and raised in San Jose as a first-generation Vietnamese citizen made me who I am, a Vietnamese-American. Uyen-Khanh was just the name I was given at birth, and it was simply time to acknowledge it.
Chỉnh sửa lần cuối:
essays(*), this topic has been and will be for our "cây nhà lá vườn" masterpieces. If anyone comes up with a clearer title, please tell us.
