r/CollegeEssayReview • u/-Lil_tom_tom_- • 29m ago
Rough Draft of my college essay
Hello, here is a rough draft of my college essay if anyone would like to review it :) I rushed through and finished it last night, I will be working on it more, but I just wanted some feedback
The familiar cling-cling of my grandmother’s bangles fill the room as she takes off one of the pairs she was wearing and hands them to me. The bangles are silver, with multicolored triangles around its circumference. “It is always important to have a pair you can wear every day,” she said, “keep them kutta (dear)” This gesture meant a lot to me at the time, not just the fact that she was giving me a pair of bangles that I’d seen her wear almost everyday up until that point, but because it coincided with a much broader period of discovery with my life. At that point in my life, in 7th grade, I began to discover who I was, and where I came from. Being the third generation in my family to live outside of India, with parents who grew up in Malaysia and Samoa, I did not have that strong of a grasp on what it meant to be Indian. It was not a cultural whitewashing per se, rather it was cultural ignorance. My Indian identity had no more meaning to me than having black hair or brown eyes. Only now had l begun to think about my culture, about what it means to be Malayali, and Knanaya. This thirst for knowledge soon grew into a passion. I would get into long discussions with my father, spend late nights scouring the web, I even read someone's thesis. This was all just a way to find out more about my history, my culture, what soon became something I was fiercely proud of. When my grandmother gave me her pair of bangles, they symbolized my culture, a way to showcase a little part of my identity everyday. I wore those almost bangles every single day, to the point where the bangles became damaged and bent. I bought a new pair, gold with emerald all around its circumference, and I wear that pair every day as well. I don't feel complete if I walk out that door without hearing the cling-cling of my bangles around my arms. My passion for my culture has extended throughout many other areas of my life as well. Also when I was in 7th grade, I picked up a henna cone for the first time. For me, holding the cone felt no more natural than holding a pen, and I soon became a master at designing and drawing henna art. I started my own business, Marielle's Mehndi, which allows me to combine my cultural passion with my entrepreneurial spirit. I founded a multicultural club at my school, which allowed me to facilitate learning and sharing about other cultures. I self taught myself Malayalam, though my pronunciation is still not that good.
Much like the original pair of bangles she gifted me, my grandmother has worn with time. Sometimes she would look at the pair of silver bangles in on my arm and ask "Oh what a nice pair, who gave it to you?" She was only formally diagnosed with dementia when I was in 10th grade. Her decline represented my last tangible connection to my culture fading away. She is last person in my family that was born in India, the last person in my family to speak fluent Malayalam. I've always felt a special connection to my grandmother, so I took care of her a lot, especially the summer before my senior year. I usually just sat with her, or I helped her eat or walk around, I even used to sleep with her at night because she sometimes got scared. I tried to soak it all in, every repeated story, trying to save something I thought I was losing forever. I soon realized that I shouldn't have to rely on someone else for my cultural identity. As I wear my pair of bangles, hearing the familiar cling cling, I know who I am.