College Admissions Essay: How Anticipation Changed My Life

Every day, every one, in the world goes through a challenge, big or small. They affect and impact us significantly. They change the way we think, love, act, and approach or do things. Challenges either frighten or motivate us, but they are what make us the person we are today.

Still adding on how gender plays a huge role in society, this statement also involved both the feeling of anger and sadness. Never did I imagine that it would come down at the ballot box where women and men are finally considered equal. In addition, after she said that statement, my outlook on her changed for the better. I was glad to know that an individual like her is fighting for the end of inequality. That not only is she conscious of the current problems women face, but that she’s also making others realize of the issue if they don’t know already. It made me view her beyond that of an extraordinary activist who is setting an example for others, fighting for real world

Martin Luther King once said “If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, whatever you do, never stop moving”. When I first read this quote I wasn't able to comprehend it's meaning, after all I was in the third grade. One thing was clear, my admiration for his courage and tenacity to stand tall in the face of fear. That admiration transcended into my own life when I faced the departure of my father, the reality of the poverty my family lived in and my dark history with concussions.

To bottle the essence in this premier moment- the liquid of success and pride, the raw emotion in that moment that has propelled my character to it's actualized state of being- would have been a fantasy amongst reality. I open my tear dotted eyes as my ears resonate the echoes of confetti cannons and cheers from the arena. My muscles ache with joy, and my mind is chasing the realization that is at hand. I have just won a midwestern color guard championship. The golden haze of chaos that ensues is one that has forever imprinted on my mind, a haze that lingers in my peripheral vision, in constant search of a worthy emotion to compare to. The prime success in this moment alone- has been the sole fuel in the flame of my determination and strive for achieved ambitions.

I was born and raised in Kerala, India, son of an arranged married couple with Indian ancestry. I am the eldest son with one little brother. Because I am the eldest child in the family I have to be little responsible and a good role model for my brother, and my younger cousins. Last four years of my life was like a magic to me. I would say those for the toughest time period I had to face. Some times I wish, “can this all be a dream and go back to my 5th grade year”. I don’t know, fifth grade till my eighth grade was the best years of my life. I could still remember visiting my cousins and family every week, visiting friends, playing cricket, family dinners, and so on. Four years ago, I moved to America. I still remember the exact date-April 18,

Some parents might encourage you. While others will just watch you struggle in silence. A major obstacle that I have faced is the lack of motivation coming from my family and peers, who don’t want me to further my education. My parents do not expect me to further my education, considering none of my family members have furthered their education beyond a high school diploma. Aside from these obstacles I have improved myself academically by staying away from bad influences.

I’m a sixteen year old female who has been raised my whole life around the fact that my mind must be perfect. If I wasn’t meeting up to the standards of my parents, then I needed to change everything about myself to meet them. My anxiety eats at me everyday. It feels like I have a colossal boulder sitting on my chest a lot of the time. The other times, I lose all of my care for anything in that moment. One day, I attempted to explain the situation to my mother and asked her to take me to a doctor. I had been waiting until my parents could afford health insurance for me to go, but all she heard was that there was something was not up to her standards inside of my head, like I was defective. After the odd conditions of my childhood, I didn’t know how to think for myself. I didn’t know how to make rational decisions for myself. I’m still excessively lost. I look all over the place for help. I searched for that help so much anywhere that I could think of. I looked at school,

When you are young, you start out as a carefree spirit, not burdened with any type of sinful emotion. As this blissfully happy child, you see the world revolve around only you, thinking that real pain is only a story that will never come true. Some have the luxury of easing into the ocean of pain, while others are thrown in and drown. Life is a maze of twisted paths that decide your final fate and determine where you end up. The paths that I have explored, led me to the point where I am now in my journey.

Death swiftly swooped in, grabbing my aunt as she lay heavily sedated due to her medicine, which she had to reduce her abdominal pain; colon cancer is usually highly treatable and curable, but unfortunately the cancer had spread to other parts of her body. A year later, Death returned, this time taking my grandfather, three days after his surgery to drain blood around his brain from his stroke. Soon, the beginning of my adolescent years became filled with woes, and due to this I spent years in darkness. Unfortunately, keeping myself in the dark led to sorrowful thoughts. These thoughts manifested themselves in me, although there were times where the sweet, seductive dreams were tempting me to make it a reality; a stalemate war being fought

It was a dark and cold fall evening; the gym was packed and everyone was looking at me. It was my first taekwondo tournament. The pressure was on. I then realized that I’ve practiced for this day for months and I know that I could do it right, so I started to relax. This was the first time I had an immense amount of pressure on me and I realized that this made me who I am today this one night changed my life forever. These months that I trained for was tiresome it required a lot of confidence and self discipline and the constant pushing of the master and instructors to become something better.

From the day I was born to the day I speak of, I had lived in the same square house painted with pastel hues. I had watched the same green- more yellowish- grass grow, the same dimmed streetlights separate me from any impermanent destination, and, of course, the same familiar faces aging as timely as mine.

Life is hard and we face challenges everyday throughout our lives. I live my life by two quotes that I often hear people say. “Expect the unexpected,” and “get comfortable being uncomfortable.” Transitioning from middle school to high school was not the easiest. I did not “expect the unexpected” coming into high school and thought everything will be okay and the same as middle school. Life hit me, and it hit me hard in the face.

“Don’t you dare run out there again,” my mom threatened. I scoffed, bouncing a marbled ball off my white walls to stay entertained - heaven forbid I play outside and hurt myself, or worse, dirty my pink dress. My mom was comfortable being confined to these walls cooking while my baby brother stacked blocks. When my dad pulled into the driveway after a long day at work, the perfect nuclear family was complete.

I was motivated to come to college because of how I grew up watching my parents struggling. My parents immigrated from Mexico before I was born, the older I get the more I realize the immense sacrifices they have made for me. It’s very important to me that I give myself the future that they fought for me to have. Not only did I know their struggle was for me, I also knew that the only way to not struggle like they did was to continue my education and better myself. I grew up in a small american town in the southern states, as a person of color I realized I had to work much harder than others to succeed half as much as they do. I was motivated by how people underestimated me. I was motivated to come to college because of myself. I get to

However, I never imagined that I would have been granted the very opportunity of a lifetime I had been yearning for. Just this Fall I began taking Japanese classes and loving every single moment of it. It was such a small stepping stone towards such a big goal. It impacted me in such a positive, yet emotional level to be able to accomplish that. Above that, I had come to realize that I was being taught by such a patient and open-minded instructor such as Akiko Takamura-Barnes. Ironically it had been just a few days prior that she and I had been talking about opportunistic dreams such as going to Japan in the future. A week later as I was leaving the class for the night I noticed that a study abroad board had been updated at a spot I frequented. At that moment, I couldn’t tell if it had always been there or was it that those big bold letters appeared out of thin air? I became so excited to see it there that I found myself unable to contain the plethora of emotions I had been holding back for so many years that they seemed to have spilled in just seconds. Making a choice in major really helped me to be able to have more faith that I could achieve my goal to visit Japan. It was at that moment that I felt myself falling in love with the country again, but in such a way that it hurt to think about the what if’s and mishaps that I could face if I didn’t take this chance into my own