Example Admission Essay “Ethical Dilmma You Have Faced”
Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you. “No,” my father said. “I won’t give you money so that
you can donate it to this organization of yours.” To my disbelief, I came to the realization that the two children the school was helping to support through World Vision would not receive anything from me this year. With those words, my grandiose schemes of creating a world without poverty seemed to come to an end, and I realized for the first time that when idealism meets reality, reality hardly ever backs away.
I was 14 back then, and as hopeless an idealist as any fourteen year old adolescent can be. Reading the works of Marx and Engels and various other visionaries, I was immersed in the world of utopian societies, where there is no distinction between rich and poor and where everyone would live in harmony with each other. At school, my friends knew me as the staunch socialist, vaunting the merits of a world without poverty to any fellow student caring to listen. When the school announced that it would be supporting two poor children from Africa in cooperation with World Vision, it was the perfect opportunity for me to express my dedication to the socialist cause. The thought that I will not be able to donate anything shattered my self-protective bubble. How will I explain to my friends that I, who have been talking so vehemently about eradicating poverty, will not donate any money to help poor children in Africa? This event made me realize that between saying something and actually doing it, there is a huge difference.
Since then, I have participated in many community services and worked to help people who are far closer to me. Instead of donating my parent’s money, I resorted to my own skills in order to help the less fortunate. For example, every Sunday the Taoist Tai-Chi Society that I am member of prepares food for the poor people of Montreal, and I have been very active in this endeavor, cleaning and cutting vegetables after finishing my practices. I have also helped my community in various ways such as cleaning the streets of Montreal’s crowded Chinatown and organizing various fund-raising events with my fellow students for the World Vision program in our school. Finally, I will be going to Nicaragua on December 29th for a month in order to undertake what I consider the crowning achievement of my efforts to help people around the world: build a pre-school for the village of Niquinohomo. I have finally found a way to bring idealism and reality together.