Finding your passion by delanie

Finding your passion by delanie - November 2014 Scholarship Essay

Walking into high school for the very first time is one of the scariest things you could ask a 14 year old to do, it comes with a lot of unknowns. What will classes be like, who will my friends be, what will I be involved in? When you flash forward 4 years later to age 18, a student will have figured all of that out and hopefully even more. High school is a time for a lot of opportunity and self-exploration. It is a time where you have room to mess up, that's what high school is about; messing up and learning from it. Take the time in high school to try new things and find your passion. If you can find you passion now you can start to fuel the fire that will drive that passion for the rest of your life.

There are so many things to get involved in during high school, sports, band, honor societies, clubs, and publications. It seems overwhelming and everyone is going to tell you to get involved with as many things as possible. What is more important is that you find one thing that you can get very invested in, versus a lot of things that you aren't able to put a lot of time into. The advice I give here is; join one thing that interests you, but has 4 or less people you actual know in it. That's what I did (unintentionally) but it turned out to be the best decision I made in high school.

Freshman year I was involved in soccer and art but wasn't really feeling "at home" in either of those two places. I randomly found out about our student-run TV show, KCBY, I don't even really remember how. For whatever reason it sounded like it would be fun, so after some road blocks of getting rejected the first time around, I finally made it in my junior year. Going into KCBY I knew about 4 people, and had never done any of the things that a TV station does. When I walked out of the room two years later, as a graduated senior, my life had been changed. Within those two year I became Sports Director, a regular anchor for the show, and gained a new group of friends. Looking back now, the only people I am still friends with from high school, I either met through KCBY, or met through a mutual friend we had that was in KCBY.

The idea here is that I took a jump into the unknown. If I wouldn't have joined KCBY, I don't know how I would've ever found my passion. Now that I am in college, broadcast journalism is the degree I am pursuing, it's my passion. That's something I would have never discovered if I had never joined. People might ask, how do I know what my passion is, or when I've found it? Some of the ways I realized that I had found it was that I felt at home when I was in KCBY or when I was with the people from KCBY who shared the same interests as me. When I was in KCBY I never wanted to leave, homework for that class wasn't work. It was the one class that made school enjoyable. But most importantly it left me feeling full and better about myself, because it was something that brought me joy.

I now look back on my days in KCBY with fond memories. If I would've never joined I would've regretted it. While your in high school, do something scary. Why not, high school is a scary place anyways so what do you really have to lose? If you never take risks you'll never find your passion. Take the risks and time necessary to find your passion now while you still have time to figure it all out. Once you take enough risks you'll find your passion, and once you find your passion all the risks following won't seem so risky at all.