College Admissions Essay: How Education Changed My Life

Since the early 1900s, Black women have had a fascination with their hair. More explicitly, they have had a fascination with straightening their hair. The need to be accepted by the majority class has caused them to do so. Though the image of straight hair as being better than coarse hair still hasn’t left the Black community, there has been a surge of non straight hairstyles since the nineteen sixties. Wearing more natural hairstyles, which ironically enough include ‘weaves’ and ‘hair extensions’ has been considered to be more empowered and more enlightened. However, this image comes with a price, and though it appears the ‘natural’ hairstyle movement has advanced Black women, it has actually set

Through personal experience I have learned that an education does truly help you succeed in life. Growing up I have had a good education system and been able to push myself to learn. However, I have met some people who have not been as lucky as me. Around eight years ago, I was twelve years

College is something that most people fear, love, or choose to not even go. I never thought during high school, I would end up going to college and that it would of turned my life around. Everyone has the dark tunnels they have to go through before they eventually find that bright light at the end of the tunnel. I was going through that dark tunnel in high school and then college ended up pulling me out and saving me.

Although mostly unknown in the United States and around the world, in the city of El Cajon, California, I am among the 70,000 that belong to the Chaldean culture, a Christian-Catholic minority from Iraq . Over the course of my educational path, I sometimes wondered why I did not have blonde hair and blue eyes like many of my peers, but I finally came to understand that my background is an important trait as it reflects who I am among many and what I value: a strong connection to religion and faith, close familial ties, and the power to believe that anything is possible. The adversity that my parents faced as immigrants from the religious persecution in Iraq has given me the motivation to succeed as I am immensely honored and grateful for the

In fall of 2017, I will be attending college. I’m not quite sure where precisely, but when I do arrive on campus, I will not be alone. I will carry the weight of my mother’s ambitions with me.

Being a first generation United States citizen in my family, I have experienced both sides of the spectrum where my mother’s mere presence symbolizes a near sacrifice of life for a better quality of mine and work is valued over education. Sounds pretty strange when you think about it because most first generation stories you hear include an overbearing parent that values education over everything else. While my mother does value education, I never posed a need for guidance in that aspect until my junior year of high school but by that time my mother had grown accustomed to me being so independent. My mother in a way had given up on me. She found my struggle with mental health too much of a culture shock for her and consequently treated it as a burden whenever I needed support. I would go weeks without going to school because my depression was too unbearable and I was at the point where suicidal ideations were the norm for me. However, this didn’t phase her in the slightest. Attendance wasn’t something I grew up accustomed to. I

You’ve seen the courses I take, the grades I earn, and the test scores I’ve accomplished, and yes that’s all important, but I want you to know what kind of person I really am. I don’t aim for perfection on tests or assignments in the sense of a grade; I aim for perfection only as reaching my full potential and for what I can show. One night I was lucky enough to be in the company of my father’s college friends (he went to the University of Notre Dame). Inquisitive and curious as I am, I asked them for any kind of career advice that they could muster up for me, or anything that they would do differently in their own careers if they could change anything. After conversations of boring statistics I had heard all before, one of them gave me the best advice I had ever been given.

Life always presents you great opportunities to succeed, but it is you who must decide whether to take them or leave them. This scholarship is a great opportunity for me to continue investing in my own education, since I consider it to be my number one priority, and as I believe that education is the key to impact and motivate others through one’s own testimony, and to also inspire others to pursue their own goals .

Education is central to my identity. My parents moved from Nigeria when I was 3 and my father knew that the only way he could get a better job was if he went back to college and get a degree in the United States. I saw how hard my parents juggled college life and work life to support us and themselves. While I have always loved learning, I have not always unable to learn as much as I wanted. In middle school, despite being a straight A student, I failed my 7th grade statewide math exam. This made me realize that I needed to extend my studies beyond the classroom, and work hard to find work that was challenging enough to allow me to grow intellectually.

I may be a young adolescent but I have experienced so many things in the short seventeen years I have been breathing. I have experienced heartbreak and even physical pain that caused the world to go dark. I have experienced much more than the average teenager. I was dealt a bad hand of cards but somehow I came out on top as a Queen. Throughout my high school years, I have learned to work with people in a way that I never thought possible. I realized in sophomore year that you can’t gain respect until you have respected. I learned to thank teachers for their time that they put into educating me for my future. Time is precious and those that taught us deserve a large amount of respect. I also learned to become organized and to use time wisely.

What is education? According to Webster’s Dictionary education is defined as, (noun) 1: the action or process of being educating or of being educated, 2: the field of study that deals mainly with methods of teaching and learning in schools. What does education provide for us? How important is education in today’s society?

Education has been a part of my life ever since I was born. My mother is a teacher, and I have always been in her classroom, and seeing her teaching kids is something I feel I knew I wanted to do ever since I was little. As I grew older, I had a rough time in school. I was identified with a learning disability in the fourth grade which helped me become successful and also made school difficult too. The impact education has had on my life is why I want to become a teacher.

These past four years have really been a life changing experience. From a childish freshmen not only at school but at home too, to a still sometimes childish senior, one who knows when and how to control himself. This school and its teachers have taught me so many lessons that will not be forgotten any time soon.

As a child and even into adulthood I lacked in caring for my studies. I was never a particularly strong student. Being a poor student was not due to the inability to learn. It stemmed from my lack of understanding the importance of an education. I coasted by, did the bare minimum to get through high school and unfortunately that carried over to college. I graduated from Stow-Munroe Falls High School with a 2.3 GPA. I was in the bottom 20% of my graduating class. I was; however, still accepted into the University of Akron. Unfortunately, I was not mentally mature enough to begin college.

The worth of education has somehow become less. Is it because people think their "social lives" will be hindered by the unlawful time they must give up to read these so called leaves with ancient inscriptions on them? Do they feel that education is beneath them, that if they were to even try to expand their minds; they would be deemed an outcast? The answers to these questions lies in society.