The Long Con by Annika

The Long Con by Annika - August 2024 Scholarship Essay

“You’re such an overachiever.” “You do know what a break is, right?” “Please know you can say ‘no’ to this; I know how much you already have on your plate.” I would be lying if I said I had not heard these things, and every other version of them imaginable, more times than I can count. Perhaps it is because I have always had excellence expected of me. Or it could be because I have always preferred business over boredom. Whatever the reason, my educational goals have always been of tremendous importance to me.
Growing up in a family that homeschooled, which was one of the greatest blessings of my life, I did have an immense amount expected of me. My mother has actually had three people tell her that she expected too much of my siblings and me. Two of them were therapists and one was her own mother. I, however, disagree with that assessment, most notably because I was fully capable of living up to those “too big” expectations. Now I am not claiming to be some sort of Wonder Woman, not by a long shot. Success was incredibly difficult. But I did it. There were days where I thought I would fail. And yet I did not. Then again, there were days where I did fail. Even in those cases, or more accurately, especially in those cases, I picked myself back up and I did what it took to succeed.
They say that life is a marathon and not a sprint, and I have always viewed my education in the same light, primarily because I believe wholeheartedly that education is a lifelong pursuit. It is, I might argue, a long con. Trying to get as much knowledge out of life as possible takes dedication, endurance, patience, tenacity, stubbornness, grit, and a complete understanding of the undeniable fact that one can never learn everything. However, it is still beyond valuable to learn as much of everything as one can in the short time available to do so, and that has always been my goal.
Some of the goals I have set for myself have appeared preposterous to the people around me, and I must admit, some of them have even seemed a little bit ridiculous to me. And yet, I have achieved them. Whether that was memorizing and being able to draw and label every country and capital in the world, or graduating high school with a 4.0 GPA, or learning the violin, or publishing articles and dissertations that I have written, I have achieved those goals with excellence. Some of them have been more modest, like learning how to bake macarons, or navigating the challenges of moving from the city to the country and all of the educational opportunities which that experience provides, or reading a certain number of non-fiction books in a month. Not only can I make a pretty spectacular batch of macarons, but I can also grow my own food, butcher a chicken in under five minutes, and hold fully-informed conversations about any number of random topics. All of this is possible because I treat the minor educational goals with as much respect and value as the major, life-changing goals.
Granted, some of my goals have not quite come to fruition yet, but that is the beauty of the long con: goals do not have to be met overnight. Rome was not built in a day. Life is about growth, not perfection. It may be cliché, but it is true. Honestly, the vast majority of my current goals reflect or springboard off of goals I have met in the past. I learned Latin, and now I will finish becoming fluent in Spanish. Likewise, I graduated high school with a 4.0 GPA, and now I will do the same in college. Becoming proficient in the violin has also led me to set the goal of learning the guitar, in addition to several other instruments that I will one day be able to play.
Of these goals, my intention to graduate with a 4.0 GPA is probably the most major, at this point in my life. I will graduate with two majors in English and Spanish, as well as a minor in music, and I will accomplish all of this in three years. If I am being perfectly honest, it is exhausting, but my secondary subgoal is to make this happen while incurring as little debt as possible, which has provided a fantastic amount of motivation and incentive. No matter how much incentive there is, though, this plan still requires a great deal of me, one facet of which being that I take somewhere around 24 credits each semester.
People have told me that I am crazy to be doing this, but I would argue that this goal is no crazier than some of the other things I have accomplished in the past, and I am quite sure that there will be crazier ones in the future. My dedication to excellence and to learning means that I am willing to do whatever it takes to meet this goal and every other one I have ever - or will ever - set. I will do what it takes, because I am not doing this for the short-term benefits; if I were, well, then it would not be a long con.