Learning to laugh or cry my way through university by Alicia

Learning to laugh or cry my way through university by Alicia - September 2014 Scholarship Essay

When I finally was able to start attending college, I thought that it was a brave new world and reassured myself that I had the skills I thought necessary: courage, resilience, knowledge, and honor. I imagined myself a knight going into battle, every day a challenge to prove to my professors and myself that I deserved to be there. I was here to succeed and prove myself the best, worthy of the education I was receiving.

Until I realized how often I would be called on to speak up in class. The dreaded point system for “class participation” was based on how often I was able to articulate my opinions, or part of my opinions, in front of my peers. Suddenly my heart seized every time I thought about class participation, which was often. I felt perpetually tongue-tied, even in small group discussions. I felt so much older than the other students; I hadn't been in a classroom in six years. All I knew to talk casually about were shoes and retail sales. As somewhat of a perfectionist, I didn't want to let my grade suffer due to shyness. I didn't know how I would possibly utilize my reserve of courage and resilience in this new environment if I couldn't even bring myself to speak.

I did the only thing I could think to do: I thought about every single embarrassing, mortifying moment or thing I had done during my many years of retail sales, the only thing I felt familiar with. The time I was really hungry and forgot what I was talking with a customer about. The time (or many times) I tripped over my own feet and many boxes of shoes went flying. All the customers I accidentally called by the wrong name, or recalled stories of past sales with them that they didn't remember. The time my boss knocked all of my shoe boxes onto the floor on purpose. There were a lot of flying shoe boxes in children’s shoes departments.

Each one of those instances felt like the end of the world at the time. Yet I survived, and not only that: I learned to laugh at myself. Okay, maybe not every single time. But more often than not, I just try to laugh. A good friend once told me that in difficult situations, you can either laugh or cry; I have taken this to heart, but try to utilize laughing much more than crying. I realized that on some days, this was the only way I would get through college. Surely courage would get me to campus every day no matter what, but if I didn't learn to laugh, it would only be a miserable experience. Laughter might not be the most important skill to gain acceptance to college, but for me, it is definitely a requirement to keep succeeding and pushing myself for further excellence.

So now every time I speak up in class, and can’t quite articulate what I want to express, or all of my peers stare at me when I thought I was being quippy, I let it go. I chalk it up to being a moment that I’ll need to laugh about (but maybe later). I raise my hand every day in every class and laugh for all of the times I can’t remember what I was going to say. I still think of college as a bit of a battle that needs to be conquered, but have realized that unless I laugh at my minor daily failures, I’ll never be able to utilize my resilience to overcome the larger obstacles.