Reduce Yourself to 500 words...

This is the application essay I wrote for the program I'm attending. It was basically an 'explain yourself in 500 words' type of essay, and what I've written was just straightforward and truthful. There's no BS, no clever comparisons or flowery language, just what I actually mean.

-----------------

I am a cinema and media studies major. I want to write and direct my own films in Hollywood. Taking a semester to study Chinese in Beijing is not the standard path of study for a film major, nor is studying film usually accompanied with an interest in Chinese. But the opportunities that knowing Chinese provides are secondary to the desire of knowing the language for the sake of knowing it. My primary reason for studying Chinese is motivated by the language itself. In learning Chinese, I feel like I am becoming privy to a secret code. Inside the strokes of the characters are stories, meaning and pictures that are lacking in any of the Latin-based languages I have studied. For some reason, Chinese makes sense to me, a Caucasian girl from Arizona who grew up speaking only English.

I recently spent a month studying Chinese in Shanghai, and during my first week there, I was so confused that I felt as though the four semesters I had previously studied Chinese were useless. I soon realized that this was incorrect, but it took all four weeks that I was there to tune my brain to China, a frequency that now, upon my return to America, has been significantly muted. However, had I not gone to China, I would not even have such a frequency. I desire to return to China, regain that frequency, and keep it playing in my head.

In terms of creating a sense of belonging, China is not foreigner-friendly, a feeling I have experienced first-hand. Everything is different, and the physical similarities among Chinese people only exaggerate how different an American like me is. Everywhere I went in China, people stared. However, everyone I met was incredibly friendly, and especially impressed when they learned I could (more or less) speak their language. Internalizing the Chinese language and culture is difficult and terrifying, but it is also fascinating and incredibly gratifying. I feel that by studying in China for an extended period of time, something inside me will change. Learning about foreign cultures has always been an interest of mine, and I hope to emerge from this program with not only a working knowledge of the Chinese language, but also with a sense of identification with the culture and a change in world perspective. I could continue my study of Chinese in America, but it would be knowledge without context. Not only would my skill with the language be of a lower level, it would also lack a certain quality that can only be cultivated in China.

This program offers a special chance for me to do this. There are so many study abroad programs, but this one promises intense language immersion. The language pledge, though daunting, is the most appealing aspect of the program. I am not looking for the easy way to learn Chinese, because I know that there isn’t one. I am looking for an experience that will challenge my brain, my tongue, and my sense of the world. The Beijing program will provide me with so many tools that I will not help but evolve, and I am ready to change the way I think and the language in which I do so.