In this blog post, we will explore how you can effectively convey your growth process, which spanned both nature and city life, in your EAN application essay.

 

Growth Process

When I was a child, I grew up in a beautiful rural area where nature and buildings coexisted in harmony. It was not a densely populated or rapidly developing area, but rather a place where people were not greedy and only built buildings when necessary, allowing much of the natural environment to remain intact while the area gradually progressed. Of course, when I was young and ignorant, I did not appreciate the tranquility of my hometown, and I often wondered why we had to live in a place that lacked culture and development. My mother, who had lived in the city but moved to the countryside due to poor health, felt very sorry for me when I complained. Whenever relatives who lived in a relatively busy city came to visit, she would ask them to take me out to play in the city. Every time, I would get very excited and wonder what to wear.
Now I understand the value of harmony with nature, without putting human desires first, but at that time, I remember not being satisfied with the beauty of the mountains and fields that I had grown up seeing every day. I was very excited to go to the city and see various things, but after getting used to the clear air of my hometown, it was quite suffocating to walk around the city for a long time. This was because I had lived in a peaceful hometown, and every time I set foot in a city crowded with people, cars, and buildings, I was overcome by a strange feeling of suffocation. Why did I feel like I was entering a world covered by a thin veil whenever I came here? At that time, I couldn’t imagine that the difference between urban development and my hometown would be so stark, and I just thought about it intently.

 

 

School life

Until I was in junior high school, my parents wanted me to grow up in my relatively small hometown surrounded by nature, but as I grew older and needed higher education, they began to prepare to send me to study in the city. They didn’t want me to lose out on the opportunity to study under a more specialized curriculum and gain many opportunities and possibilities. From then on, I stayed at a relative’s house in the city center and experienced city life, which was completely different from the quiet atmosphere of my hometown. I had visited the city occasionally before, but there was a clear difference between enjoying it as a form of entertainment and living there every day, surrounded by people.
Unlike my life in my hometown, where I tried to live each day peacefully and faithfully, the people in the city were all busy, rushing around and spending their days lightly. I felt dizzy every time I came to the city and spent a few days that passed too quickly, but as someone who was staying there every day, I couldn’t afford to be as relaxed as I used to be. It was then that I realized how rare the beauty of my hometown, which I had taken for granted, really was. I even felt a little homesick and wanted to go back every day, but when I thought of my parents, who had accepted a temporary separation for the sake of my future and potential, I knew I couldn’t waste the time I had been given. Instead of wasting time searching for possibilities, I was always motivated to reach my goals as quickly as possible.

 

 

Strengths and weaknesses

I am a person who always takes things at a leisurely pace and strives to do what is asked of me. This is because I was strongly influenced by my childhood, which was spent not in a bustling city surrounded by many people and various cultures, but in my hometown, where nature was overwhelmingly more present and functional than people, and where I lived in harmony with the quiet tempo of nature. This is a virtue that I have always tried not to lose, even during my brief time living in the city. Rather than constantly calculating the time I have left and the life I have been given, I place more importance on living a fulfilling life, no matter how short it may be.
Some people feel sorry for me, saying that in a world where things are developing so rapidly, if I maintain my laid-back attitude, I will inevitably be left behind in the competition. However, I don’t think it’s necessary to always be at the forefront of whatever cultural developments are happening right now. There’s no point in trying to catch up if it’s going to change again in the near future. Nature has evolved over a long period of time, and humans are part of nature. I want to live my life relying more on the enormous will of the environment that encompasses us all.

 

 

Life Philosophy

Now is the “era of harmony.” In the past, we tended to damage the resources and environment that nature had preserved for a long time in order to achieve radical development. This was because we had to mobilize everything we had at our disposal and keep pace with a rapidly changing world. However, our technology has now advanced considerably, and we have gained a certain amount of leeway, allowing us to reflect on and retrace the path we have taken so far. It is like a child who has relied solely on their parents’ wealth and rushed to grow up, but has gradually grown older and reached the stage where they can look back on their parents.
The foundation that has allowed us to achieve this level of freedom also comes from the blessings of nature. Any person with a sense of shame should recognize how invaluable the sacrifices made for our development have been. Now is the time to harmonize nature and our civilization through appropriate treatment and restoration so that the very foundation of our lives is not shaken.

 

 

Motivation and aspirations

I grew up in beautiful and abundant nature, which shaped my character. After moving to the city, I realized how much our development has ignored nature. I was deeply impressed by your company’s philosophy of striving to build even a single building in harmony with nature. Although it is impossible to overturn all forms of cities and return to the past, your company’s warmth, which seeks to comfort people by gradually adding the beauty of nature to the bleak cityscape that can easily lead to human degradation, has deeply moved me.
If I am able to join your company, I will strive to always keep in mind a humanistic attitude, with the sensitivity cultivated by a rich rural life, while performing architecture-related work that is largely scientific in nature, and with the understanding that buildings are ultimately inhabited by people. We are passionate about the meticulous process of constructing a building, but at the end of the day, it is people who will live in the building and spend their lives there, so we want to create buildings that touch the hearts of the people who will live there for many years to come.