Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement?
Imagine the maps of the USA and India side by side. Now, draw an arc from Chapel Hill, NC to Hyderabad, India. Label it 4th grade. Draw an arc back to Chapel Hill. Call it 5th grade. Draw a third arc called 7th grade from Chapel Hill to Hyderabad. Draw another back from Hyderabad to Durham, NC and label it Senior Year. You might think that we’d have a knotty mess by now. But I see a beautiful pattern of concentric colorful arcs. These arcs represent my schooling from elementary school onward—frequent switching as my professor-parents moved between their US universities and India on research, trundling my sister and me.
The challenging transitions across vastly different school systems, different cultures, and social circumstances brought rewards. I evolved quickly adapting my way of learning, my way of speaking, and my way of living to fit my various homes. However, the greatest benefit is that I became more aware of how unequal life is, and learned to care. I have worked with my parents and their American students in underprivileged schools in Hyderabad over summers since I was only nine. I learned that when children don’t write, it may not be because they are idle, but perhaps because they don’t have pencils. Repairing broken water-tanks and painting fish figures on them, and engaging children in play taught me how to transform dejected areas into vibrant spaces.
Constant transitions have also adversely affected me. In 11th grade, in India, I caught dengue, a viral fever that has taken many lives across India. I almost needed a blood transfusion. I have improved and continue to recover under medical treatment in the US. The long recovery process compromised the energy and intense mental focus that characterizes me. This was frustrating both athletically for an award-winning long distance runner like me, and academically when I found that I could not focus during the hours-long SAT examinations. Despite these challenges, I am proud of what I have accomplished - I have interned with seasoned architects, I have learned to fight inequity, and I’m ready for the challenges ahead.