College Essay # 56

56. Discuss how your travel experiences have affected you as a student and a citizen of the world.

When I was little, my family and I would take my holidays to different places. My father would try to give us the best holiday we could imagine, and every time he would try to out do himself. He was telling us a story of when we went to Malaysia. My sister and I were very little; I was six and she was four. But my dad decided that we should still stay in a very good hotel. So, we went and we stayed at Shangri-la in Malaysia. It was a beautiful resort with palm trees and sandy beaches. Our room was right on the beach and we had a hammock where my other would stay the whole day. He told us that my sister and I would play on the beach and make sandcastles and go in the ocean and were pushed around by the waves. He told us that we enjoyed everything except the food. There would always be a huge buffet set for breakfast with all kinds of things from scallops to chicken to cakes to ice cream …for breakfast. He told us that the only thing that my sister and I would eat was Chocos, chocolate cereal. Thinking about that just makes me laugh. We went to a five star hotel near the beach and the only thing we ate was cereal. That was the most pathetic thing I’ve heard in my life. I wish I could do that again, and not be such a loser. But you have to cut us some slack, we were 6 and 4, what do you expect. 

After this experience though, we started to eat different things, and look around and take in the culture of the different places we went to. I got out of my comfort zone, and started accepting things the way they were. I started to realize that everything wasn’t the way that I was used to. I started to understand that the best way to enjoy things is by showing people that you accept them and by getting to know them. The best way is to understand what other people are made of and then learn to befriend them and the culture and tradition that comes along with them.

These travel experiences allow me to adjust to different cultures without having a problem. I know different places and the way people act. The traditions and cultures they come from allow me to understand how to behave with certain groups of people. I’ve learned that you can’t treat everyone the same way because everyone is different with every group of people. My travel experiences have also showed me that you can learn a lot from different people. Having always studied in an international school, I’ve been able to adapt to different situations with different people from different places. Studying in many different places all over the world has also allowed me to open up to differences in environment and I’ve been able to help all communities I’ve been part of in ways appropriate to the setting.