My name is Marlon Jiménez Oviedo. I am Costa Rican and attended the United World College of South East Asia (2010-2012). My time at the UWC of South East Asia was probably the most enriching period of my life. UWC is able to concentrate so much learning in two years, that by the end of these two years I felt I had grown immensely. After two years in UWCSEA, I feel I am able to make a change. I feel empowered. What I enjoyed the most at UWCSEA was learning how to use action to change something I consider to be wrong.
I applied to Lewis and Clark because it had what I looked for in a college. It is not too big, it has a Liberal Arts program, it is not located directly in the middle of an overwhelming and big urbanized area, and it encourages its students to explore new areas of study. Following that, I am greatly interested in two academic areas that usually do not overlap: Theatre and Environmental Studies. The fact that I can explore these two areas was fundamental when deciding to apply to Lewis and Clark.
Something else I loved about UWCSEA and I want to continue to do at Lewis and Clark is the variety of extracurricular activities that makes the workload bearable and the learning experience complete. I love improvising, dancing, doing service work, and going outdoors to enjoy nature. Those activities are a part of me, and represent the means for me to apply all the knowledge I gain in class.
Living in South East Asia for two years allowed me to discover many things, one of them was that people are very similar everywhere, and that somehow excited me. I enjoyed talking to a stallholder in a Singaporean market who resembled the people at the Costa Rican market where I used to sell my father’s crops. I learned that different cultures have different ways of doing things, but the motivation for doing those things is shared by people everywhere in the world. I learned that our skin color or the shape of our eyes can be different, but, as humans, we all feel, and strive to live happily.
At Lewis and Clark I hope to find an enriching environment that not only unites people so that they can study and become professionals, but also one that teaches people to aim to be part of the active minority that fights what damages the earth and people (as one component of the earth).