This essay took me absolutely much longer than I anticipated when I first looked at the prompt on the MU International Center website.
It’s interesting how a journalist and someone who prides themselves on their writing, can struggle so much with writing about themselves. Writing about people I don’t know, writing about events I’m not directly involved in, writing the thoughts, feelings, and emotions of strangers, no problem. Writing about myself on the other hand, took a lot of effort! I felt, in some sense, vain talking about myself, and on top of this, I didn’t know where to start. The typical essay prompts I am given for my classes are really spelled out (i.e. answer and discuss the following questions using knowledge obtained in lecture and assigned reading material blah blah blah). When I’m not writing essays, I’m writing articles that have nothing to do with me and that are likewise concretely spelled out (i.e. who, what, when, where, why, how). So when I first looked at the prompt on the website and it said to describe my personal and academic goals and to show how the study abroad program I was choosing would contribute to meeting those goals, first thing I thought was, ‘Hmm.. that’s easy.’
Boy did I receive a slap in the face this entire weekend as I put it together. I felt like I was talking circles, being vague, and that it had little direction. I couldn’t even outline it, which says a lot because I love the method of outlining. Also, not only did I discover that telling my life story is difficult for me, the pressure of writing something that would be worth while for an application committee really brought the perfectionist out in me.
So roughly three days after my initial attempts, here is the completed English version of the essay. If you have been following this blog for the last few posts, you can probably tell that I decided to use some thoughts that were previously discussed here. I did this to give myself a little direction. The Spanish version will soon follow.
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If someone were to ask me who I am, I can tell you now that my interests stretch so far and wide that I would not say one thing but instead talk for approximately six hours on a rant that would pull you in 15 different directions. However, last week in my news reporting lecture, we watched an HBO documentary on Nicholas Kristof. The man is an embodiment of all my dreams.
He graduates from college then lives like a vagabond for several years, traveling the world, learning. Then he becomes a renowned New York Times columnist for sharing his stories with the United States; stories that have covered an array of global humanitarian crises including genocide, poverty, and human trafficking.
Of course I am far from being any Nicholas Kristof, but it is my belief that by understanding the language, culture, and perceptions of people in other countries one can make great success as a journalist and peacekeeper.
Subsequently here I am at the University of Missouri studying two things: international studies (my passion) and magazine journalism (my outlet).
It is often said by my sisters and friends that my family extends farther than the walls of my home. Though it may sound cliché, I consider the world my family. I believe it is my purpose to serve all, love all, and do what I can to make a difference.
My goals for the future include: two years in the Peace Corps in, hopefully, a Latin American country, graduate school for environmental studies or anthropology, freelance or a fulltime job with a publication that allows me to travel at least a little bit covering humanitarian and environmental topics, and to raise my future children to appreciate the rewarding aspects of hospitality, justice, and compassion.
So when the narrator at the very start of the film on Tuesday said, “He’s here with a single objective: to make you care about what’s just over the hill,” I nearly cried. I could feel the lump in my throat struggling to find its way out as I pressed it down with a hard swallow.
Since before my discovery of what good journalism can do for the world, I have loved to learn about faraway places and cultures and have wanted to use what I learned to educate the ignorant and encourage positive change. Whether my efforts change one person’s life or hundreds, positive change is positive, no matter how small.
In spite of this, one can only learn so much from books, news articles, and documentaries like the one on Nicholas Kristof. The first step to making people care about what is just over the hill is to explore and experience it myself.
This program focuses on two things that I find to be vital aspects of my studies: language and culture. Spanish is among the most common languages spoken in the U.S., and, even if I do want to travel, knowing this language would greatly improve my chances of covering stories that would otherwise go unheard.
Thus far, I am in my fifth semester of Spanish, but to be honest, I struggle. I can read relatively well. I can speak using the fundamentals. And my essays make sense for the most part. Nevertheless, this is not enough for me. Goals like the ones I have cannot be achieved without fluency in more than just English. I do not want to just get by. I want to fully learn everything I can. Without entirely understanding the language, it is difficult for one to properly understand the culture that speaks the language. There is so much more that I can only learn by physically being in and living in a Spanish-speaking country like Peru.
Additionally, this program offers more than just the opportunity to learn Spanish and immerse ourselves in Peruvian culture. As I have said throughout this entire essay, I want to make a difference, no matter how small. With this, the service learning aspect of this program exhilarates me. I have done only a few service ventures before (a two-week mission trip in Mexico, a month of dog walking at the Humane Society, working as a religious education teacher for a year and working with the afterschool program at the Centro Latino here in Columbia), but each left me with a feeling that I have never forgotten. To know that by giving a helping hand I can change lives and bring happiness gives me a very enriching sense of purpose. It is because of this feeling that I first began to think about the Peace Corps as junior in high school. Having this service experience in Peru can only positively impact my life and my prospects for being accepted into the Corps.
However, while the heart of my livelihood is on a global basis, it may be obvious by now that my personal interests lie very much in the realm of Latin American studies. I am a Latina, a Mexican-American, a Hispanic, Chicana, Tex-Mex, and the list goes on. It does not matter which you choose to call me, because I carry all of these titles. I chose to focus my efforts particularly on Latin America because of the background I come from. As a seventh generation Texan-Mexican, I have no relatives that actually live in Mexico, but I was nonetheless raised to embrace my heritage. I want to use what I learn in Peru to expand the relatively small knowledge I have from my own upbringing and to also better understand the diversity of Latin American culture.
In conclusion, Peru offers more for me than just credit courses. It offers me the opportunity to work toward being a better journalist, a better patron to the global community, and a better me.
By Cecilia Garza 
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