autobiography

Pan Zhao

Engl 106-i73

Jann 27th 2020

Autobiography (second draft)

I am a Chinese national. I was born in Shanghai, China 21 years ago. I studied in

shanghai until 9th grade and then moved to Los Angeles, California where I enrolled in high

school before moving to another shortly afterward. The first was catholic affiliated; the second

one was also Christian based. I graduated from high school. I am now seeking an opportunity to

pursue an undergrad in Sales Management at Purdue; while I would like to pursue a major in

sales management, I would not say with finality that it’s the course I will settle for. I am still

scouting. I have a couple of options that I also like. I will settle on one in due course. Aside from

being enthusiastic about academics, I also have hobbies; the things I like doing during my free

time. Oftentimes, I play basketball, work out, follow the stock market, and play video games in

my free time. I come from a loving family. My father was a college professor; he is now a

businessman. My mother was once a high school teacher. She is now a CEO in of education

outfit.

Aside from my background. I would also like to share my life experiences here in the US.

In this biography, I explore the good, the bad and the ugly in relation to the experiences I have

faced during my stay in Los Angeles. First off, I would like to indicate that my formative years

were spent in a completely different culture. So, I was socialized differently relative to most of

the people I interacted with in high school. I moved from a collectivistic cultural orientation into

a completely different setup. My upbringing impacted my level of class connectedness; I was

passive in class. I also grappled with loneliness for a considerable amount of time. Most of the

students I interacted with during my high school years were somewhat language proficient; I,

however, grappled with perceived language incompetence; my friends were outspoken; they

responded freely to questions raised by teachers.

Also, I would say that the collision between the Chinese and the American cultures

somehow impeded the extent to which I could realize socio-cultural adjustments. I, from time to

time, entertained the thoughts that my cultural predisposition was somewhat inferior. These

thoughts made me overly self-conscious and bled into my classroom participation. While this

was a challenge in my freshman and sophomore years, I was lucky enough to have good friends

by my side by the time I transitioned to junior. This company provided the needed support and

entrenched a sense of belonging in me in ways that encouraged me to interact more with others

and to learn from them as well. Looking back, I would say that I have come a long way. I

converse freely with people these days; I am more proactive now than I was when I first got to

Los Angeles. It took me a lot of reading, talking to people in attempts to get off my comfort

zone.

I was initially not good in writing the English language as opposed to the Chinese

language. Even though I had started writing the English language in China, success was more in

the United States when I moved to the United States. This is because the need for the English

language was more and I had to adjust to knowing how to write in English more fluently for me

to cope with my stay in the United States. When I lived with my host parents, they taught me a

lot on writing skills. Once I got an assignment from my high school english teacher which let me

write a six hundreds words essay. At that time, six hundreds works means I have to use at least a

week to do it, it was really hard for me, then I decided to tell my host mom. At the first, she let

me use Chinese to write couple bullet points about what I am going to write about, and translate

to English. After that, she helped me to express every bullet points to sentences and paragraphs.

Then she helped me correct the grammar and spelling by each sentence. At the same time, she

taught me a lot about how to write a good essay, how to use those higher level vocabulary, and

how to be a better writer.

My woes, however, did not stop with the challenges in school; my initial weeks in the US

were also marked by dietary challenges. I harbored misgivings about food which compounded

my already unpleasant experience in the US; I would say, overall, my stay in LA and school life

at the outset was a nightmare, but a shinny star was be with me the whole time, my host mom

which I should use my whole life the appreciate to. While I did experience such a challenge at

the beginning of my sojourn here in the US, I do not experience them as much. I am more

acclimatized now and I enjoy my stay here.