Admissions Essay - Potential to Contribute :: essays research papers

Risks are the essence of life. In the beginning, they are our instinct. But as we get older and gain a greater consciousness of the world around us, somewhere along the way we are presented with failure, at that point, many people try to eliminate most risks from their life. I come from a family that has had to take major risks in order to bring me to the place I am today. My parents grew up in Odessa, Ukraine, which was once a part of the Soviet Union. As children of Holocaust survivors, they were dedicated to giving their children an opportunity to enjoy freedoms of an open society, the United States. And so my parents came to this country with me, then four year-old son in November of 1990 against the advice of all their friends. They had decided that leaving Soviet Union was their only true hope of preserving our identity and raising a family outside of repressions and fear. They were risk takers and they sought a better, freer life for themselves and for their children. That was their generation. And now I am too at a critical juncture of my life, one that is quite different from my parents, but also full of difficult choices nonetheless. Dedicating the next two or three years of my life to a legal education is a risk. Certainly, paying for law school will be a hardship. However, I must also question whether my study of the law will give me the intellectual fulfillment I seek in my college life. This is an inquiry I?ve made to myself countless times. I now know that, given my varied experiences and the direction I?ve found myself taking, law school is the only true option. My parents and grandparents? experiences have left a mark on my life and I will not feel fulfilled until I am able to help others that have been in similarly trying and difficult situations. In fact, one of the ways I hope to do that is with my talent of being polylingual. Learning languages has always been very important to me and it has given me many advantages and helped in my personal growth. If I didn?t know the four languages of English, Russian, French, and Hebrew as I do today, then I would probably be a very different person. Even though my native language of Russian wasn?t something chosen by me, it is something I?