#4URFuture: From the Smallest Drop to the Largest Ocean by Emma

#4URFuture: From the Smallest Drop to the Largest Ocean by Emma - April 2018 Scholarship Essay

#4URFuture
Education is one of the most effective tools in crafting a society. It has the power to drive people to innovate and create and expand their horizons while the lack of it can cause mental, technological, and cultural stagnation. For me, my education has been my everything. In school is where I feel most successful, the most challenged, and stretched beyond my capacities to become better every day. To me, education is #4URFuture because it is our responsibility as individuals to embrace education so that society advances as a whole.
I created this hashtag because it has a very dynamic meaning. There are two ways I perceive it being interpreted. The first is centered around the individual. In grammatically correct phrasing, it would be read as “for your future,” because that is truly what access to an education is. It is paving the way to a successful career, a content life, and personal fulfillment. It pains me to know that millions of children do not have the opportunity to go to school, which enforces a perpetual cycle of poverty. If we as a powerful nation could aid these struggling countries, and even the impoverished in our own, it could rescue these victims from the pains of ignorance and enrich the global and local societies. If education provides, though unfortunately does not ensure, a chance at a better life, it must be “for your future.” In my own experience, I have been provided not only a rigorous curriculum, but valuable life experience as well. Through my high school, I serve as vice president of National Honor Society and found employment at a local nonprofit exposing children in underprivileged schools to the arts and how they can facilitate social learning. School has prepared me to face my future without a doubt.
The second interpretation expands beyond the self to the community, to the nation, to the world. This is, “for you, our future.” It is a gift to an individual for the advancement of an entire race. It is often said that hate and discord are the product of ignorance. I see it often where the uninformed declare narrow-minded, discriminatory, or hurtful comments about another individual or group of people. To me, this is because they lack a desire to understand. If we are to do amazing things, we must be willing to develop a profound understanding of our Earth, our fellow men, ourselves. The better educated we are in the ways of the world, the better we will collaborate in the future. So, an education may be specifically for “you”, whoever you are, but it is my hope that it will be used as a force for advancement of the human race.
It may be daunting to face your education as a gateway to the world, but I think that is why this hashtag is so perfect. Start small. I still am trying to figure out what my role in the grand scheme of the universe is, but I can tell you that my education has pointed me in the right direction. It was for me. Soon, I hope to find the right outlet to push along toward our collective future. This scholarship would help me continue my education and achieve that full potential I know everyone is capable of if just given the chance to learn, to understand.