INTRODUCE YOURSELF TO YOUR CLASSMATES
Write your mini autobiography introducing yourself to your classmates.
Skip the details about your school and college career (courses, major, employment goals.)
Focus rather on your "intellectual" history: the books, films, hobbies and creative activities that helped you grow.
Avoid mentioning the "most important people" in your life. Keep the focus on yourself and your personal, individual, unique path, the choices you made that took you where you are.
(This may take more than the traditional 3 minutes of standard platitudes and laundry list of achievements. Actually, failures or dead-ends are more interesting than success stories.)
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Here is a powerful example. This was the very first comment posted by a student in a previous semester: it set the tone for the entire class.
"Hello, my name is ________________. Most of my life has revolved around cancer. Although I am not a cancer “survivor” I have survived cancer. A couple of days after my sixth birthday my younger brother was diagnosed with leukemia. My life changed. At a very young age I had to learn to take care of myself. To escape the lonely feelings I started writing in a journal. Writing made me feel at peace. Music and dancing also lifted me. Performing during my recitals, parades and charity events was thrilling and liberating. As I was starting to feel in control of my life, here comes cancer again. This time attacking my mother and my aunt, which were diagnosed with breast cancer. Immediately, I had to learn how to manage my feelings of anger. As a freshman in high school, I decided to join the cheer team. Performing to express my anger worked. I moved up fast and became varsity captain. As Captain of the cheerleading team I was accountable not only for myself but also for my teammates. I improved my skills on how to be a leader, and take responsibility for my actions and words. Throughout my stages of development, I was unconsciously characterizing and identifying myself. In Piaget’s stages of cognitive development theory, children experience sensorimotor. That is when they are experiencing the world through senses and actions. That is who I was; I first observed and then determined to face my fears. I never said, “I can not do it,” I just did it even if it was a challenge I did not stop until I succeeded. Cancer was one of the many situations that helped me grow into the person I am today. Ironically someone approached me at my job a few days ago, and said “ I see the care you have for people in your eyes, not many have that.”
For years I had searched the answer at the bottom of a bottle, only to find that my answer was found in bottoming out instead. I grew up a traditional blue collar town life, the grandchild of immigrants, parents that loved me, little league and sleepovers. Even though I moved quite a bit as a child, even becoming an immigrant myself, I never seemed to find issue with my personal development and growth. I made friends everywhere we went, got good grades, and aside from a few speeding tickets stayed out of trouble. I was an all-American kind of kid, even though I wasn't even a Yankee.
ReplyDeleteBy the time I reached my late twenties I had found moderate success, both vocationally and romantically. I had worked my way up to become an events coordinator, making good money and finding love every now and again. But I had also become a drunk, and somewhere along the way I had turned into a not very good person. There was the idea of the man I was - both what others believed and what I believed myself - and the man I actually had become, and somewhere they diverged.
It was right about this time that everything changed. The restaurant I worked for unexpectedly shut down a week before Christmas. I was jobless, penniless (for I drank my paychecks away), heartbroken, unhealthy (in every sense of the word), and on the precipice of eviction. Forced to get a job any way possible, I ended up at a workforce in West Chicago. That's when I witnessed a man washing his genitals. Everything changed.
The experience was cathartic, and I am so blessed to have gone through it all and survived. The man I am now is version 3.0, and who I am, who I am thought to be, and who I want to be have slowly begun to be the same person once again. Through internal and external exploration I began to discover the beauty of life, traveling and coming to the understanding that education is not solely a schooling oriented process. There have been bumps along the way, like when I sold all of my worldly possessions and moved to India, but each one has left me a better man. On a whim I moved to New York, arriving without a pot to piss in. Since then I've worked my way up to being a gestionnaire de vol (live flight manager) for Air France, and met the love of my life, my soulmate. There are few [materialistic] things I am more proud than the stamps in my passport, the books I've read and the ones I've written. As I have grown - both in age and as a man - I have found renewed value and reward in my family and brothers, and in the beauty of life in general.
Whenever someone asks me how I am, I always have the same response: "I'm living the dream." After all, it's true. I may not have the best life imaginable, and some mornings I wake up on the wrong side of the bed, just like everyone else. But at least I wake up, which sure does beat the alternative; no matter how bad things sometime seem, I take care to remember that it could always be worse, and it has served me well.
Back home in Ukraine I was an excellent student, you can say I was a teacher's favorite. When I moved to America, I was really struggling in school because of not knowing the English language. I still remember in 6th grade how a teacher was embarrassing me in front of everyone because I dint know how to say this or that. Or how I would learn a phrase, which i was practicing for a long time, and she would just make a show in front of everyone and made fun of my accent. This of course put me in the real depression and I was so ashamed of myself not knowing how to speak and write in English. This affected my social life and so is my education. I had problems with English classes and every class that involves writing, especially speaking in front of people. But somehow I made american friends and speaking to them daily, really helped me with my English. My accent still remained and I'm not ashamed of it anymore. I still might have some grammar problems but its all takes time to learn. As I started reading more, it really helped me with my writing. I'm still learning and I accept every help that I could get.
ReplyDeleteHello, my name is Sherica Dawkins. I am an only child which makes the expectations for me to succeed in my career higher. Throughout my years of school, it was not always easy. I have faced with many challenges especially with math. During my time at the community college I struggled with passing my remedial math which takes me 3 years to complete my Associate Degree. This was my biggest struggle because, I am a very hardworking student and I take my work seriously. By constantly failing, I started to become discouraged and frustrated because I wanted to move on to the next step, which is to pass my math and graduate. I seek help in many different ways, and I even went above and beyond by asking the dean of my school for help. They were happy to help and provide resources that I could use to study. Along the same line, I was presented with a lucky charm pig, that I taught was very sweet. However, I played and watch different sports especially soccer as a way to help me function and be determine to pass my test. As a soccer coach, whenever I am coaching I always tell the kids to not give up, and strive for what they want, no matter what obstacles they faced. Therefore, because of my hard work and determination I was able to pass my math and graduate with honors. On the other hand, I like to read lots of inspirational books that I can relate to and use to stay positive. These are the few things that help me get to where I am today here at Brooklyn College, and I am plan on continuing this great path to my success.
ReplyDeleteMy name is Hannah Butt. Four years ago was the first time I traveled out of the country. Since then I have traveled to six countries and my love for travel keeps growing. I have seen it all from the richest to the poorest of countries and it has changed my views on life tremendously. Traveling exposed me to different perspectives, experiences, culture, history, religions and in the end a better self. Meeting people from other cultures taught me that the way I've been looking at the world isn't the way everybody does. I developed friendships with people who were nothing like me, but were exactly what I needed. This taught me to embrace, not fear, experiences and relationships that were outside my comfort zone. It also taught me the importance of communication skills. People around the world live harsh realities, it made me realize how lucky I was and how much I took for granted and it made me learn to say thanks.
ReplyDeleteAs a kid, I was always running around creating and trying new things. I was an adventurous and curious little girl born in a very big and close-knit family. I tried everything that my cousins would do even if it ended up with me getting hurt from falling off a branch or getting a bloody knee. It didn't matter much when I was at that age because I was having fun. I grew up in a small but lively town and everything was our playground. From the small marketplace that vendors abandoned on the weekends to the small mountain that grew my favorite fruit, to the forest we deemed "haunted", and to the river where our make-shift rafts kept on sinking. Often, I would end up with a beating from one or both of my parents for doing things I am not supposed to and going to places I should not be in. Although, I spent most of my time outside, I still excelled in school. I was an honor student and loved by my teachers. I played roles as a leader both academically, in class projects, and leisurely, in looking for things to do during recess. My favorite things to learn in school are Math and English. If I was not running around outside, I would grab a book and read it until I finished. There was one summer, when my family moved away from the little town I grew up in, where I did nothing but read everyday until I finished every single book in the house. Then I turned to my school library and borrowed books that caught my attention. At a school event, I was awarded as the Bookworm of the Year and the Best Reader of the Year for having read the most books in the library. My mother, who was already working in New York at that time, became my regular supplier of books. Nancy Drew was my childhood book obssession and my favorite sleuth. I owned 36 of Caroline Keene's works and was planning to collect all of them until I met J.K. Rowling and Dan Brown. The Da Vinci Code was the most controversial book at that time so I did not pass the chance of reading it while vacationing with my family. I will never forget how that book had me glued to my chair at every pages turned.
ReplyDeleteWhen I moved to New York and as I was slowly adjusting my life to this new scene, leisure reading became less. I was preoccupied with part-time jobs, travelling, church meetings and college courses. When I began reading again, I turned less from fictional novels and more to ministry books and the Bible. I have been a christian since I was a little girl but moving to New York caused me to turn more to my spirit than I did before. I can say that migrating to New York somewhat molded me. That spirited girl is still here, still curious and adventurous, but just a little more refined by her new found interests and goals. I know my days of experiencing and learning fresher things are not culminating. There is still so much out there left for me to experience.
My name is Ashley Matos. I’ve recently gotten back from a semester in England that I originally went on to escape from an incredibly bad situation. It was a means to runaway from a string of abusive relationships and my problems instead of facing them, but the trip turned out to be my solution. I went to a different country, for the first time in my life, by myself and managed to make a life there for 6 months. By the end of the trip, I wasn’t leaving alone like I had arrived. I made connections with people that I never could have imagined, and opened up to a side of me I didn’t know existed. Before I had closed myself off after the first one ended, believing everything that he had told me to keep me trapped with him in the unending cycle of anguish he caused me. I was scared that other people would agree with the horrible things he had told me, so I hid. I went about my life avoiding those around me, but now that fear is gone. I still have panic attacks and sleepless nights when thoughts of what had influenced me to leave manage to sneak their way back into my mind, but I don’t let it keep me from achieving my goals the way it use to.
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ReplyDeleteHello my name is Blondine Jean Pierre, most of my life I always depend on my friends and families. I decide to change that situation by deciding to be Independent and do everything by myself. I started being independent by moving out of my parent house, and starting my journey as a young independent woman who is ready for the world on my own. Being independent is not easy but i manage to do everything. I started good by finding a great place to live, getting a good job, and taking care of my self. After a short amount of time I lost my job which lead to life starting to get hard. I cry to myself when I realize that life was getting harder and jobs was hard to get quickly which lead to some sacrifices that needed to be made. I had to spend less on myself in order to take care of what was most important to me. As I sit and realize how I was not ready for that road I had choose to take, I begin to remember home. I started to remember how easy my life was when I was living with my parents and how paying bills and worried about jobs was not a problem. The fact that I didn't need to worry about no bills or rent was a blessing and how my mom use to always gives me allowances when I needed it. The problem that motivate me on making that decision of becoming independent was the complicated drama that was building in my families home and how everyday was getting worst and focussing on my studies was not easy. As I visualize how my life use to be when I was living with my families beside the inevitable, I started to doubt myself and thinking that I wasn't ready to take this big step of becoming independent no matter how my families home was making my life a hectic but at least I didn't need to worried about bills at a young age. On the following days I decided to stay focus on being independent and let no negative though take over me. Some day, not today or tomorrow but soon I might come to my senses and make the decision to go back and live with my families again because I realize to be independent i need to be super ready, but for now I'm just focusing on my goals and giving myself a better future to actually not be afraid of taking that step of becoming independent.
ReplyDeleteHi my name is Davi Anthony and I'm try at my best to have a good education so that in the future I can have a good job. I'm currently studying Food and Nutrition Sci to become a registered dietitian. I'm not sure yet if I will be going for masters but as of now I'm going for my bachelors.. One step at a time. Lately I haven be trying to become more independently and it feels good when you don't have to depend on others. In the future I hope I can stand by myself and make everything worth it
ReplyDeleteHi, my name is Catherine Papadatos, and I am a writer. The first time I ever wrote something for myself was when I was twelve years old, when my parents divorced. I realized it was a perfect outlet for me to express how I felt without having to tell anyone directly. I also realized I was pretty good at it. When I was thirteen, my teacher told me to apply for an essay contest in a Greek newspaper. I wrote about my life as a first-generation Greek American. I won.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was fourteen, I learned how to write abstract essays. I was hurt in a way I was told I was not allowed to say to anyone, so I taught myself how to write about my experience without explicitly saying it. When I was fifteen, my teacher taught us about writing an implicit thesis. I taught myself that already the year before.
When I was sixteen, I transferred to a new high school. Halfway through the school year, my teacher wrote a request for me to be placed in the AP Composition class, because my writing was too advanced to be in the mainstream class. I ended up paying $80 for a perfect score on an exam that brought me nowhere. When I was seventeen, I forgot how to write. I was in AP Literature, and I was in a relationship. I was graduating, and there were more important things on my mind than school. I ended up paying $80 for an exam to get a 3 on it. My mother took out the wooden spoon I hadn't seen since I was seven.
When I was eighteen, I was exempted from my Writing 101 class at Stony Brook. I received an 800 in the writing section of the SAT. My professor for Writing 102 said I must have cheated because there was no way I could have written a perfect essay. He still hates me to this day. When I was nineteen, I dropped out of school. My boyfriend of two years died in a car accident while he was driving to me. I blamed myself, and threw out all of my writing journals. I worked, and I didn't write. I started to go insane. I ended up writing essays for friends who were in school that semester.
When I was twenty, I went back to school. I went to BMCC, and had to start from the beginning, from English 101. My professor said my writing was so beautiful. I had the story, and I had the talent. I should become a young adult novelist. I cried and felt confident for the first time in six years.
Today, I am twenty-one years old. I graduated from BMCC with an Associate's Degree, and I am currently a double major in English Education and Creative Writing. My life is a whirlwind of change, and the only constant was my writing. Even when I tried to stop, it always managed to find a way back to my fingertips.
Hi Guys! My name is Muhammad Abbas Ali Sajjad, but most people just call me Ali. The reason I have such a long name is a story longer than my name. Im the mild flavor to every situation nothing too hot or too cold.
ReplyDeleteI've learned a whole lot in my 22 years in this world, mostly things I shouldn't do. Don't eat that if you want to be fit, don't sleep too much or too little, you get the idea. I try to live my life to learn as much as possible or at least I think I that's what I want. I always wished I was more of a reader growing up because certain things would have been so much better, such my vocabulary and ability to understand what I wrote. I learned a lot from television which is good and bad, but mostly damaging in my opinion. But for the last couple years if been reading more and more and watching less and less. I even read 1984 by George Orwell for the first time which was pretty awesome but a tiny bit underwhelming because of all the good I've heard, nonetheless I hope to grow more and learn both from my experiences and studies.
I even grew my own plants successfully from seeds for the first time that didn't shrivel up and die after a week which was pretty cool.
Hi, my name is Michael Azor and I want to be visual-story teller. I not only enjoy watching movies but I enjoy the the entire process of how its made (from beginning to end). I used to watch a lot of movies when I was younger but that has been decreasing because I now try to avoid watching Netflix or movie theaters because I rather be making my own stories within that medium. I used to write also when I was young too, especially, because I had creative imagination and want those stories to come to life. It's ironic because I hate to write but I only do it to so I would retain it for later use in the future, but anyway I cant see the future so I don't know. I hope to do so anyway. Out of all the movies I viewed, I know Just only one movie that I would bring to on an stranded island, 'Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind'. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind is a insane movie that I cant help myself from getting tired of re-watching (although I haven't been watching it lately) because it tells such a honest depiction of people and how everyone is so different and not perfect but somehow it has a fun creative style of expressing it's story with low budget compared to the traditional Hollywood blockbuster. The movie isn't afraid to be weird. I love that about it. It isn't afraid to expose the reality of people and I'm so tired of movies of being repetitive and staying safe. For anyone who doesn't know what the film is about its pretty much is about a couple who breaks up and they both erase each others memories but at the end they end up finding each other. I like the the fact it has a hope at the end. I try to be optimistic about life, although its obvious its not that easy because of the in the world we live in is very complex and divided, but I don't care and I still cant ever let that hope fade away cause it's apart of me.
ReplyDeleteHello, my name is Isatu Barrie. I was born in Freetown, Sierra leone; which is on the west coast of Africa. Due to my parents being poor, my dad decided to come to america when i was about three years old. Then, me and my brother later joined him. It was very difficult to go to school in America. Most of the kids treated me like and outcast, and they would bully me for no reason. It was really hard for my dad to find a job that pays well, so he had to work two jobs. We barely saw him, but we understood the situation. All these things mad me grew a tough skin. When i graduated high school, my dad made me get into nursing. I hate blood, needles, hospitals, etc. But inorder to make my dad happy, and not dissapoint him, i went to school for nursing. But i was very unhappy, i barely went to class, or even study. I endedup getting C's in class, i was feeling so miserable. So i finally decided to do what was right for me, and changed my major to business. My dad was surprised, and upset, but he had no choice but to respect my decisions. it made really happy, and i felt like i achieved something big. To stand up for my self, and to make myself happy. I was so used to making sure everyone else is happy, but meanwhile i am really unhappy. This was one of my biggest weakness, and i finally overcame it.
ReplyDeleteMy name is Pavel Martinez (You can call me Pavlo). I have been putting off filling this out because I'm not a fan about talking about myself and I envy those who can do. There are many personal stories in here and I am hesitant to include one of my own, but here goes; I am a former drug addict with 10+ years of sobriety from various narcotics. I haven't told this to anyone, not even my own mother and father. I was about 14 when I started using drugs and it spiraled out of control when I turned 20 and I lost a lot of friends and career opportunities because of it. I'm not proud of my past choices and continue to persevere with sobriety despite bouts with depression. I don't consider myself good or bad, I'm just trying to be the best version of myself that I can be which sometimes can be harder than it looks. I have recently learned that the more I talk about my past incidents with drug abuse the easier it gets (at least that works for some people), so there you go. I'm a film student in my early thirties trying to get a writing career off the ground. I'm politically progressive-leaning-on-the-side-of-Marxism, pro-feminist, science-fiction geek who loves movies and the escapism they provide. I hope for nothing better than a day when I can have a family of my own and maybe educating others about surviving the demons of narcotic use. That's it, I think.
ReplyDeleteMy name is George Aspris i am a greek american. i follow my culture values i visit my grandparents and relatives in Greece ever summer. I love to travel with my family and explore different parts of Greece that i have never been to. I am family oriented they raised me with values and morals. I believe that religion plays a major key in my success in life. I enjoy playing soccer and basketball with my friends. Coffee is what keeps me awake. I like to exercise a lot running and going to the gym it helps me release stress and makes me feel more stable. I enjoy watching movies that have meaning like the films in this class. My favorite directors are Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick, Frederico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman and Roman Polanski. these directors have made masterpieces that have meaning they don't make movies like this anymore and its sad. I enjoy listening to music my favorite is dance and greek music. i believe in hard work no excuses admit when you are wrong and pay attention to what others have to say before you criticize them. every one has the right to say what they want even if there wrong you can respond with a positive response instead of putting them down for not knowing something. that a little bit about me and I'm looking forward to reading about you.
ReplyDeletemy name is rehman you can call me as (ray) if i want. I'm not that much of a social person, i like to keep most stuff to myself. me being a muslim there are certain things which i can't do and my religion doesn't allow it, but truth to be told I'm not very religious and i try to be honest as possible. also i don't judge people for their options, cause we live in a country where we have different people coming from different parts of the globe so everyone have different views so we shouldn't judge others. i like to listen to most genres of music, depends on my mood too.
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ReplyDeleteMy name is SooJin Lee. I am an international students here, so most of it is really new to me. Many people think I am from China and really a shy person. I am from Korea, and it is somehow true that I am a shy person, especially when I am with people, who I feel uncomfortable. However, I become so energetic and passionate when I get to comfortable with the new environment.
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