melal's blog

When I looking back my educational experience, I am not surprised to find that I spent most of my time sitting in the classrooms and listening as carefully as I could to every word the teacher said. Yes, I learned a lot from various kinds of lectures delivered by teachers and successful people, however, for my educational autobiography, I wrote a dialogue happened between a street cleaner and his daughter, which I consider as one of the most important lessons that I have ever had.

The conversation between the father and the daughter provided me with a great opportunity to redefine success. Now in my perspective, success has nothing to do money and fame, it is something with personal contribution. Some people, especially those from lower-class, have much less resources and opportunities than most of us, and therefore it is nearly impossible for them to move up to the upper class. Of course they are not the “successful people” according to the traditional definition. But, they are still making their own contribution to the world: clean the streets, for example. As a matter of fact, a meaningful life does not equal to a successful life

Hi everyone, I'm Ellen Li from Jinan, China. This is my first time in America, excited!!

The high school I attended is one of the best public schools in china, which has the most 5400 outstanding students from different junior high schools in the city. We don’t have much diversity there, everyone has the same skin color, comes from the same city, and has the same goal: get great grades in Gaokao, the college entrance examination (like SAT in America) for high school students. We always studied hard, and never played hard. But I knew it's not what I want. I want to learn more about myself by joining different clubs and organizations; I want to learn more about the world by talking to people from different backgrounds. I want to experience more before I get too old to move, rather than spending most of my day doing math practising books. Therefore, I came to America for my college education.

I still don't know I want to major in right now.  I like math and biology very much, but I also have strong interests in social sciences such as political science and economics.  But I think I will figure out some day in the future.