Interests/Life Experiences

What special interests or experiences set you apart from your peers? How have you cultivated these interests? Write a reflection that demonstrates a keen interest in a topic or a skill that you have cultivated throughout your life.

• • In what ways is this interest reflected in what you do in your free time? Have you joined organizations, started a blog, participated in online discussions, volunteered for service, taught yourself how to do something, etc.?

  • What artifacts demonstrate this interest? Consider linking to your blog, uploading a slideshow, or linking to other artifacts that show something interesting and unique about you.

Use the Guiding Questions listed in the Experience and Skills section for additional prompts.

What other experiences set you apart from your peers or influence your perspective of others? Have you traveled, spent time internationally, studied abroad, or experienced another culture?

• • How did you prepare to meet the cultural and geographical differences you would encounter, differences that could include (but are not limited to) language, safety, economics, gender, religion, and politics?

  • How did you adjust to these differences?

  • Did you have to learn something new or see something from a different point of view?

  • How did your travel or study abroad experience help you identify your own cultural biases? What happened during your study abroad trip that prompted you to see a difference between what the "abroad" culture values and your own? For example, how would you complete finish this thought? "I had never recognized my preference for . . . until I encountered a situation where . . . ."

Now what?

• • How has your perspective changed regarding other people and cultures?

  • How will this new perspective influence your actions in new contexts? In other words, how do you see things differently, based on your travel experience, and what will you do differently because of this new perspective?

• Describe a situation in your study abroad or other travel experience that represents what you learned and how you learned it about the "abroad" history, politics, communication.

Are you a transfer student or an international student? What challenges have you faced entering the university in this capacity? For example,

• How has this experience/situation required you to adapt?

• What did you have to learn, change, rethink? What did this mean or look like for you?

• How have you dealt with any language barrier?

• What resources or methods did you use to help you adjust to the changes brought on by this situation?

• How well did they work? Why?

Now what?

• • How do you see yourself applying what you have learned from this previous experience to a new situation? Provide an example.

  • What advantages do you bring to the workplace (or you next career move) because of what you learned from this experience? In other words, what unique credentials does a non-traditional student have?