Cornell B.S. in Human Development
Prompt: Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
I spent the first thirteen years of my life as a middle child. When my brother walked out on his 18th birthday, I was suddenly Camille’s only older sibling. This immediate shift revealed the secret strings that bind my family together. When one breaks, we are left untethered and incomplete.
Seeing a 13-year-long connection between my brother and younger sister shatter with the slamming of the front door gave me concern about Camille’s mental state. Camille had always effortlessly cracked jokes, pulling pranks and bringing everyone to tears laughing. After my brother left, I saw her sulking in her bedroom where the only source of light was her stark white phone screen outlining the despondence on her face. I felt the responsibility to tie us back together.
She saw therapists for a time but would joke about the concept of sharing her thoughts with an unfamiliar 60-year-old woman who did more talking than Camille did herself. Driving her home from her therapy appointments, I would take her to get ice cream and she would express how she felt judged more than she felt heard.
Taking a lesson from the therapist’s failures, I chose to listen without prying. As I let Camille rant, she started to tell me about how friends gossiping behind her back reopened the wound of our brother leaving. By the time we finished talking, our Oreo McFlurries had melted in their waxy containers. Seeing her release a sigh of relief, I learned that when I listened nonjudgmentally and with empathy, Camille felt like she could open up to me.
Over months, as we continued our post-therapy therapy sessions over ice cream, I saw Camille inch back into the light from the darkness that gripped her after my brother’s departure. Soon, her door was revolving as she left every day to train dogs and groom horses. Best of all, her booming voice, thundering footsteps, and confidence filled the house again.
Soon after Camille’s transformation, my desire to help others access vulnerability trickled into life outside of my family. I committed to the years-long Peer-to-Peer training program at my school. There, I further developed skills to provide a nonjudgmental safe space for people that did not have one. I trailed my mentors in the halls, riddling them with questions about empathetic listening and effective communication skills. I felt elated to know I was systematically developing the tools to help others unlock emotions they did not know they had.
It was not long before my Spanish teacher paired me with Crystal, a tangly fifth grader from the LA County School District. The moment I saw Crystal timidly approach me in the breezeway, I flung the prompts I had been given. I squatted down to meet her eyes and asked her if she liked drawing. Soon, we were crafting flowers with chalk on the sidewalk, effusing our love for daisies and tulips. When we rose from the pavement, she snickered at the opalescent chalk engraved into every crevice of my knees. Leading with compassion cinched us together, giving Crystal and I the mutual trust and investment that was to form the backbone of our progress.
Despite beginning our sessions with Mad Libs, stories, updates, and laughter, Crystal’s conceptual grasp soared in her subjects. Given we were knotted together as one, she was concentrating in school for us— not just herself.
Instead of going to the root of the problem, I go to the root of the person. In our society, those who care for a person tend to push them to strive. However, I have learned that motivation stems from a strong community with shared goals for success. I lead with compassion because it is through our connections that we gain confidence as individuals.
