Change by Dikshant

Change by Dikshant - April 2019 Scholarship Essay

I am from India and recently moved here, to The United States of America. It has been a welcome change for me so far and I am starting to get acquainted with the American culture. I’ve had lots of different types of experiences before moving here and after getting settled here in America. I’ve achieved some of the goals I set and I failed in some, but I always try to learn from my mistakes and keep on trying to do so.

So far I’ve had a good academic career and I plan on keeping it the same way. I am also always interested in sports and other extracurricular activities. I’ve played soccer for about 7 years now and have also taken parts in various other activities such as representing my school’s soccer team, taking part in various school activities, etc. up to 12th grade.

I have observed the academics here to be more practical based as compared to India's more theory based educations system with copious amounts of standardized tests and school tests. The biggest cause preventing academic satisfaction was the amount of stress students had to deal with. I also was a student in India and faced the situation an incessant amount of time.

My personal advice to dealing with academic stress would be to take a day off for yourself and just sit back and relax when you think you're completely drained and cannot do it anymore. It helps students to be more focused and efficient.

This usually happens during finals time and many people have a breakdown because of the huge amount of work load and pressure to perform. Many good students cannot perform under such amounts of pressure and choke where it matters the most. For me, whenever I felt drained out, I used to take a days break where I just relaxed and did not study, I found out that it helps to freshen up the mood and lightens the mood. And I've observed that I had performed well in academic areas whenever I used this method. I'd advice the same to my fellow students and wish the luck in their upcoming tests.