She's Unique by Alexis

She's Unique by Alexis - December 2020 Scholarship Essay

I grew up and graduated high school in the same town, with the same teachers, alongside the same 46 classmates throughout the twelve years. Now, as a post-community-college-graduate, I am transferring across the country to the largest public university in the nation. I am eager to start this incredible opportunity for growth and experience. This small town Iowan has had more than enough experience with the normal temperature-below-zero to driving through ice storms and blizzards. Putting the advantage of no snow to the side, Arizona has more than just sunshine to offer me. It offers the opportunity for growth.

Coming from a town of less than two-thousand, I should fear a university with a record-breaking enrollment of over 97.7 thousand students- and that's only counting the fall semester of 2020. Yet I believe I am a small-town girl at heart but destined to be a big-city woman. I have goals, aspirations, and desires far too big to stay in one place. Arizona will allow my outgoing personality to thrive in a heavily-populated area. There are too many "knowns" when growing up in a small town. I feel as if I have become incapable of growing as a person because of the environment I've resided in, and that is frightening.

I'm the type of person who finds meeting new people effortless, but I will continue to grow even if it means leaving them behind. I'm the one pushed to the front when entering a haunted house. The one to instinctively speak out for what I believe in. Given these characteristics, I have never fit in with the like-minded people that make up this town. There's nothing wrong with siding with the majority, but it becomes wrong if the decision is motivated by the fear of being the minority. Being proud to be in a minority is something the entire nation is trying to normalize. In Arizona, I will be able to freely speak without trying to be silenced by a majority. That itself is more than enough encouragement to commit to Arizona.

I wish I could share exactly what Arizona has to offer me, but the main idea of it all is that it's unknown. In general, I am thankful to have been raised here in small-town Iowa. But I am also thankful that I was born to be different. Both events have made me who I am today, but I have reached the point of needing change. Growth is my 2021 resolution. Growing as a person, growing in experiences, growing more independent are all things that remain on my agenda. I want to live up to what I was meant to be, for the reason being that anything that's different is also unique.