To Try Is Enough by Anna-Maria

To Try Is Enough by Anna-Maria - July 2016 Scholarship Essay

Something very important that I have learned throughout all 4 years of high school is that advice from teachers should be taken with high-regard, most generally due to their length of experience. A teacher that has greatly affected my life taught my Algebra 2 as well as my AP Calculus class. Her name is Mrs. Lenhart, and the advice she gave me before I graduated leaves me grounded and able to focus on what’s important in my studies.

I remember that day before graduation like it was yesterday. Reflecting on the past four years of high school, Mrs. Lenhart shared a piece of advice with me after school. She told me that if I ever faced any hardships in life, “remember to keep on trying.” Those 5 simple words have greater meaning to me due to the fact that Mrs. Lenhart personally gave me this advice. She fueled the love I have for mathematics and influenced what occupation I wish to strive towards.

It’s sort of ironic how the words “remember to keep on trying” only truly impacted me on the last day of school. Mrs. Lenhart would constantly remind her classes to keep on trying, with structuring how she graded the homework through sheer effort, not through the amount of correct answers. If one of us came across a math problem that would seem legitimately impossible, Mrs. Lenhart would just tell us those 5 simple words. If even after trying to solve the problem and not coming up with a plausible answer, she would of course show us the correct way of doing it. After hearing this advice throughout the 2 years of math classes I was lucky enough to have her teach, it finally clicked when I realized effort and incentive will be the main factor in pushing me through obstacles in life. Through drawbacks and disadvantages, to “try” will be enough to overcome them.