What My Parents Made Me by Elexus

What My Parents Made Me by Elexus - November 2023 Scholarship Essay

Why do we breathe? Why do we feel emotion? Why do we work hour after hour, day after day, at dead end jobs? Why are we here? My own perceptions and beliefs can try to answer these questions, but one thing I can answer unequivocally is why I need to go to college, for it is not a ‘want’. There is no greater distress than to be trapped in life where you are not all that your potential can allow you to be.

I have been through many hardships and turmoils that I could rant on and on about in this essay. I could tell you how my mother has had a stroke that put her out of her self-employed job as a cosmetologist, or how she proceeded to have a brain aneurysm erupt on the first day of my senior year that caused her to end up in a hospital two hours away, as it was the closest hospital that could treat her in my poverty ridden town. I could tell you how she was there for months and I never saw her as I was busy working to afford the things I needed and attending school to maintain my A honor roll. Or how my dad was never there as he would drive every morning before I woke up for school to be with her, and drive home every night after I had fallen asleep because they would not allow him to stay. I could mention how they were crippling alcoholics prior to this event, and mentally and physically abusive to each other. I could mention every detail as I just have to gain pity and sympathy for what I have been through.

I want a lot of things for myself and my future, and pity is not one.

I want to be separated from the things I have been through and who I am and what I have to offer. Don’t get me wrong, the trifles that I have had to deal with and the setbacks that everything with my family has caused does affect my level of involvement with various activities and extracurriculars, but I am still a hardworking, forward thinking, problem solving, adaptive, and empathetic person. I still am a member of the National Beta Club, the Academically and Intellectually Gifted program, my schools Principles Ambassadors group where by being a member of, I was invited to a trip abroad in the spring of 2023 that I had to work relentlessly for.

On that trip, I learned one thing about myself, and that one thing has forever changed how I view my future. I need to go to college because I need to be a part of this world. I need to travel and build my global perspective of myself and those around me. I need to have an education that allows me to pursue my dreams and make more of myself than my family could make of themselves. I need to go to college so I can make the life for myself that I know I can and I know I will do. Regardless of where or who I came from, I need to go to college to finally fit into the person I am, not the person my parents made me.