Diversity Essay Idea

[missfrizzle]

I'm having some trouble with my diversity essay, and would appreciate some feedback on my tentative idea.

My parents are immigrants from the Middle East, but I've had a pretty fortunate upper middle class upbringing, and have mostly grown up with Arabs from a similar cultural and socioeconomic background. I'd previously done a lot of volunteer tutoring in this community, relating to my students because we share similar experiences. But when I began teaching English to newly arrived Middle Eastern immigrants (one of my significant ECs), I realized that though we shared a similar culture and language, the difference in SES and experiences made tutoring them different and challenging at first. I ended up developing specific, personalized teaching methods that I used in tutoring them, taking their experiences into account (I can go into specific examples in the essay). Essentially, I learned how to practically balance taking people's cultures into account when working with them with not making assumptions about them due to it, as SES and specific experiences play a big role as well. I think that I'd be able to use this with patients in the future.

Is this a decent starting point, or should I scrap this and look for something else?

 

[Catalystik]

I'm having some trouble with my diversity essay, and would appreciate some feedback on my tentative idea.

My parents are immigrants from the Middle East, but I've had a pretty fortunate upper middle class upbringing, and have mostly grown up with Arabs from a similar cultural and socioeconomic background. I'd previously done a lot of volunteer tutoring in this community, relating to my students because we share similar experiences. But when I began teaching English to newly arrived Middle Eastern immigrants (one of my significant ECs), I realized that though we shared a similar culture and language, the difference in SES and experiences made tutoring them different and challenging at first. I ended up developing specific, personalized teaching methods that I used in tutoring them, taking their experiences into account (I can go into specific examples in the essay). Essentially, I learned how to practically balance taking people's cultures into account when working with them with not making assumptions about them due to it, as SES and specific experiences play a big role as well. I think that I'd be able to use this with patients in the future.

Is this a decent starting point, or should I scrap this and look for something else?

You're mixing together two different potential essays.
1) You are diverse because you understand both American and Middle Eastern cultures. You should have enough to say about that without straying from the topic.
2) It was a challenge you overcame (or even a failure, if it took you awhile to develop successful methods) that despite those similarities, you found that SES was a divide. You solved the problem by incorporating your multicultural outlook to tutor successfully.

 

[missfrizzle]

You're mixing together two different potential essays.
1) You are diverse because you understand both American and Middle Eastern cultures. You should have enough to say about that without straying from the topic.
2) It was a challenge you overcame (or even a failure, if it took you awhile to develop successful methods) that despite those similarities, you found that SES was a divide. You solved the problem by incorporating your multicultural outlook to tutor successfully.

Thanks for your response!

I already have a challenge/failure essay, so I would want to focus more on the diversity part only. I guess I'm having trouble understanding how to demonstrate my understanding of both cultures and how I've used that/will use that without getting into the tutoring

 

[Catalystik]

Thanks for your response!

I already have a challenge/failure essay, so I would want to focus more on the diversity part only. I guess I'm having trouble understanding how to demonstrate my understanding of both cultures and how I've used that/will use that without getting into the tutoring

Then maybe skip the part about SES differences being an issue?

 

[missfrizzle]

Then maybe skip the part about SES differences being an issue?

Got it, thank you!

 

[LizzyM]

I thnk that recognizing that what appears on the surface to be a common culture can be influenced by SES is a huge breakthrough. True for immigrants and true for many other ethnic groups, including URM. Observing this and recognizing the implications shows great maturity and I think it would be worth writing about and even "showing" with an anecdote from your tutoring experience rather than just "telling".