Admission Letter to Sofia University

Studying at an esteemed institution like Sofia University’s Faculty of Liberal Arts is one of my life’s impending accomplished achievements.

I would like to grasp the chance offered at your institute to sharpen my skills in reading, composition, and expository writing as a native Japanese speaker. This is a chance that is limited in other schools of your caliber. I am interested in taking economics as a minor due to the restricted quantity of social sciences choices offered – the only ones taught were world history and geography despite my growing interest and budding potential in the sciences.

I was born into an art-loving family which nurtured and encouraged not only formal education but also extra-curricular activities such as sports and drama. My parents are native to Japan but their search for a better life and their hard work propelled them to move to the USA, the land of opportunities, where I was born. I had two years of preschool study in the USA after which we moved back to Japan where I got a chance to study at an international school which utilized the English medium for studies through to 6th grade. This was a difficult shift and a culture shock in my young life but I have come to appreciate the exposure gained through the move. Seeking to learn and derive more from my life in Japan, I decided to study the Japanese language. This was a search to learn more about my identity and my culture. I transferred to a local junior high which teaches in Japanese, for grades 7 and 8. However the last two years at junior high school would prove to be a major character test. This background has kept my interest in the dynamics of the Japanese language, and I feel your institution offers a unique opportunity for this to develop further.

Studying at Sofia University, in the Faculty of Liberal Arts has for a long time been an experience I was hoping to grab. English as a first language has given me the upper hand to fully comprehend other languages that exhibit similar language structures as Japanese. I have found my passion in the art of writing. I feel that writing is very therapeutic and can be an outlet for beauty to share with the world. The diverse cultures I have experienced through travel, my sense of adventure, a quest to learn, and hunger for life fits in with the culture of your institution. I am keen on fulfilling my family’s aspiration of my father handing down his torch to run his company, which has for a long time not only provided employment to the youth in Japan but also continued building the country. I aspire to step into his big shoes and make my own mark, not only nationally but also globally. The staggering success of your alumni gives me hope that my dreams too are achievable given the opportunity to study in your institution.

Environmental sustainability has been a course that I’ve actively been engrossed in here at home. In Grade 11, I led a team of my classmates in a sustainability project where I took the role of project planning and design. The mission involved was developing an irrigation scheme for a greenhouse – no small feat but ultimately successful. Additionally, I managed to secure an assistant lifeguard certificate through Canadian National Lifeguard; I also conducted a salmon survey for the Streamkeepers Society of West Vancouver an experience that made me understand more on the importance of habitat and environment.