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Personal Statement Essay My academic background, which has been both varied and informed by different academic settings, has seen my succeeding as a student in South Korea, Guam, and Seattle. Because of the nature of my father’s job, I have had the rare opportunity to study and to learn in a variety of different educational settings with a variety of different intellectual approaches and cultural influences. My family and I arrived in Seattle from Guam in 2003; the family’s collective goal was to relocate in order to find better educational opportunities for my younger brother and myself. Though I had taken piano lessons for many years, I decided to pursue piano as a hobby while I devoted more attention to working part-time in order to finance my studies. As a student in Seattle, I soon learned that music and psychology were my passions and my music professor truly seemed to respect my musical ability and constantly encouraged me to pursue my musical interests. Taking my professor’s advice, two years ago on Christmas Eve, a Korean woman’s association had a party to raise money for a charity organization. Needing some form of entertainment, they invited me to perform a piece of music on stage during dinnertime. I played Schubert’s impromptu op 90. Eb major. I was nervous but on the other hand I felt delighted and hoped it wouldn’t be the last performing in public and for a worthy charitable cause. Music, in sum, allows me to blend my personal passions with my academic talents in a manner that can be used to benefit society. In terms of my career goals, and my specific interest in the University of Washington, the fact is that Id like to transfer to this university because I want to learn from experts with more experience and to share my interests with peers with similar goals and aspirations. My greatest dream, is to comfort peoples’ hearts as a Music Therapist. I genuinely enjoy sharing what I have learned with everyone and I am most delighted when I sing with people while playing piano. I enjoy getting to know peoples’ minds and emotions because I have empathy and this influences my musical styles and performances. Personally, for example, I have played synthesizer in church bands throughout Korea, Guam and Seattle, and gave my time to serve as a music tutor to many students. If I’m admitted into this school, Id like to be attend in schools choir and jazz club. Sharing, both personally and academically, is the greatest way to learn and the greatest way to give back to the community/ Culture, in my view, is a manifestation of diversity. That excellence cannot be attained without diversity it seems, in the modern world, to be a rather intuitive deduction. Such a deduction is perfectly consistent with the underlying nature of any intellectually honest type of inquiry. A thesis must be formulated, tested against all of the available data, and conclusions drawn. Diversity contributes, indeed it is a necessary ingredient, for any type of rigorous analysis. Social truths cannot exist in a vacuum; truths must be tested in the real world and with real people rather than with imaginary prototypes that do not reflect the true diversity of opinion and contrary world views that reflect both our own society and the world at large. What might seem a perfectly plausible theory to one individual might seem extraordinarily unjust to another individual; a traditional approach that seems to one individual to bring the greatest good to society to another individual might threaten to socially ostracize minority opinions; and, finally, ethnocentric views inhibit academic inquiry whereas culturally diverse pools of learners break down biases and contribute to more meaningful discussions and theoretical paradigms. In the final analysis, the University of Washington is an ideal setting in which to study and shares ideas that have profound social implications As a young person already immersed in an increasingly multicultural community and world, I am especially interested in the emphasis given to multicultural approaches at the University of Washington. Such an approach, respecting and encouraging both personal development and academic development through the embrace of different cultural values and perspectives, lends itself exceptionally well to my own goals and aspirations. One of the causes of so much conflict in the world today can be attributed to a lack of effective communication that results in unnecessary misunderstandings and confusion. In reality, in my experience, people around the world have so many positive characteristics and dreams in common. People throughout the world desire peaceful environments in which to live; people desire to pursue harmonious relationships with family members and neighbors; and, most of all, people desire to avoid conflicts that are damaging in so many ways.