My Eight-Year-Old Face Pressed Against

My eight-year-old face pressed against the living room window, I stared at ten strange faces outside, boys all my age playing stick ball in the street. No sound carried through the window, so I didn't yet know that they spoke a different language than I did. Peering out from the confines of our new home in New York, I felt insulated, isolated, and protected. To my young ears, laughter was laughter, and words in whatever language were still part of what was an arbitrary code of communication. It wasn't until I mustered up the courage to play with the neighborhood boys that I realized I would have to speak a whole new tongue, learn a whole new set of sounds and syllables.

From that moment on, change would become a constant factor in my life. My parents had just gotten divorced: a major change in a child's memory, and my mom and I moved to the States from our native Puerto Rico. Although the Big Apple was exciting, I missed the tropical sun and I missed my childhood friends. Yet two years later, when my mom sent me back to Puerto Rico to be with my dad, I began to realize that I had it good. My early exposure to new languages and cultures would prepare me to embrace change and to welcome new experiences. Thus, after graduating high school in Puerto Rico I eagerly enlisted in the United States Army and was soon stationed in Germany. Already bilingual and having been exposed to people of all races and ethnicities after living in both New York and Carolina, Puerto Rico, I readily adapted to my new lifestyle and to yet another new language.

In addition to my having developed a keen appreciation for differences in language and culture, I have come to understand the crucial difference between adaptation and assimilation. Because I have been able to preserve my rich cultural heritage, including my native language and love of the tropical sun, I have been better able to adapt to different situations and surroundings without encountering serious setbacks. Especially now, as I stare outside at another bleak New Jersey winter's day, I know that one of the hugest challenges for those who must adapt to new surroundings is to differentiate between adaptation and assimilation, to embrace change without sacrificing core elements of our identity.

Welcoming necessary change once again, I hope to advance my career and further my professional interests in clinical psychology. My Masters Degree in Social Work and my subsequent professional work applying psychological principles toward helping others has prompted me and prepared me to turn my attention toward more theoretical knowledge and inquiry. While I appreciate the groundwork I have already laid as a social worker, I desire to now shift my attention toward active academic and clinical awareness of specific psychological problems. Therefore, with my continual hunger for scientific inquiry and understanding, I am seeking admission into the graduate program in clinical psychology.