Application Essay

I survived a childhood steeped in injustice. Coming from a place of striking incompleteness, I was drawn to what Carl Jung referred to as "The Great Work," the quest for personal and global wholeness. My passion for the Great Work combined with difficult childhood experiences, fashioned me into an adult deeply committed to fighting abuse, inequity, and oppression. There are moments of insight in our lives that define us: perfect, glimmering, golden moments where our strengths coalesce and we recognize just how powerful we can be. Sometimes we can catch glimpses of our future selves as if hidden patterns are made transparent, lending illumination of core essence, revealing truth of form. A life can be seen as a collection of these moments, a personality the culmination of its revealings.

One such moment occurred in the fifth grade when I first felt my strengths galvanize and my need to fight for justice take root. My school was upset that the city was using a nearby public reserve as a temporary trash dump and I was chosen as the school’s representative in an upcoming city council meeting. I felt a sense of public service that allowed me to go beyond the limits of my private life. I vividly remember getting out of bed early to photograph the trash and spending countless hours in the library researching city regulations and environmental toxicity data. Consumed with righteous intent, I pleaded my case and to my school’s great pride, we succeeded. In that moment, I realized an individual can make a tangible difference and discovered the key to transcending my own wounds – fighting for justice for others was a means of claiming justice for myself.

I grew up the daughter of an impoverished and neglectful single mother who brought home abusive boyfriends. My teachers, used to working with disinterested students, actively encouraged my studies. I graduated high school at thirteen, earning the nickname “Doogie Howser” amongst my friends. After graduation, my mother pushed me out of the house immediately putting my ingenuity and resourcefulness to the test. Raising myself was a difficult task and I often looked to philosophy to provide the foundations I didn’t receive through my family. Seeking wholeness, I devoured the words of great thinkers, finding kindred spirits in the library halls. It is from Socrates I gained my fondness of critical discourse and from Thoreau my love of the natural world. From Camus I gained my zeal for a self-created life, from Epictetus the discipline required to live life in accordance with my values, and from Mr. Rogers the greatest lesson of all – how to be a good neighbor.

My interest in environmental activism sharpened in college where I had the opportunity to do environmental justice research on airborne toxins in California schools at the Center for Justice, Tolerance, and Community. I remembered the industrial plants around the schools I attended, contemplated my own VOC (volatile organic compounds) exposure in the temporary classrooms of my childhood, and wondered about the long-term impacts on my health. I saw myself in the face of the children I was researching and saw an opportunity to make a difference in hundreds of thousands of lives by shaping public policy through applied research. I felt at home engaging in the quest to solve real-world problems through collaboration with agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Bay Area Healthy Air Coalition.

After college, I found myself unsure of the specific career path I wanted to take and decided to take a few years to explore myself and round out as an individual. I discovered the art of mosaics and fell in love with creating beauty from recycled and broken items. Learning how to create not only with my mind but also with my hands gave me a new sense of fullness to my earth-centered philosophical views. While I was working as a Big 4 public auditor I had the opportunity to work on the 2006 Apple Forensic Stock Option Investigation. It was here that I finally discovered my love for law as I participated in gathering evidence via interviews and computer searches. There was something real and tangibly fulfilling in the experience. I felt complete.

I had always felt a calling to make a positive impact in the world, but had questioned the means given the world seemed filled with so many pressing problems. Though I felt engaged and active in the Great Work, I found myself searching for where my skills and talents would be best utilized. I discovered the answer was with me crystallized as a singular memory of that childhood experience. Law was the place where all of my talents and passions converged. My first “case” captured an essential truth of my being: my love of complex systems, enjoyment of project-oriented work, and passion for language all led me to realize that law was the right path for me.

I will always be in action: translating and distilling idealistic philosophies and practical scientific research into understandable truths which become the means of creating realistic and progressive change in the world. Serving as an advocate for truth and justice has been, and always will be, my Great Work. Over twenty years later, I look back to that first full-throated shout of my life's calling, to my passion for protecting the underdog. I feel ready to engage in the next step of my Great Work, where I can take all my skills and talents and bring them fully to bear in making the world a better place for all the children that reside within it.

Thank you for listening to my story. I look forward to bringing my passion for justice to the U.C. Berkeley.