A Forgotten Blessing by Fariha

A Forgotten Blessing by Fariha - November 2015 Scholarship Essay

Living in the greatest nation on the planet in the twenty-first century is truly a blessing that we, as Americans, often forget to be thankful for. We are so busy and preoccupied with the trials and tribulations of our day-to-day lives that we tend to neglect the little luxuries. As a high school senior, I have been waking up early in the morning, before the sun has even risen, to get on a bus and spend the next eight hours of my day getting an education for the last thirteen years. It has become a daily part of my life that I do not even have to think about; I am obligated to attend my classes. This nation cares so much for my education that it completely pays for all its expenses until college and even penalizes me for not attending school. I often catch myself complaining about school and the amount of work we receive. What I, and many others, often fail to see is the bigger picture: we are sitting in a class with AC, computers, qualified teachers, new textbooks, paid classes and are literally spoon-fed our education while millions of children around the world do not have even a fraction of this same luxury. It may be the twenty-first century, and we may be surrounded by all the tech-savvy pleasures money can buy, but it is still as far as the nineteenth century in many, many countries around the world. There are so many kids around the world that are not allowed to go get an education because their duties lie in making money to eat, cannot afford tuition, cannot afford supplies, or even cannot attend school because of their gender. Who am I to sit and COMPLAIN about the knowledge that is being given to me without these a single of the burdens just listed? I, as an American citizen, am most thankful for simply the fact that I have access to an education.
As a south Asian female, if my parents had not immigrated to the United States twenty three years ago, there is a very high probability that I could be in my motherland of Bangladesh fighting for my rights as a female to get an education. It is a very real and horrid reality that there are still many parts of the world that still deny an equal education to girls because of traditional social stigmas. Living in America, I do not have to even think about my sex standing in the way of my knowledge.
Similarly, just south of us, in Mexico, there are hundreds of thousands of children in shantytowns that cannot afford a mere pencil and paper to study for their futures. They are stuck in a parasitic cycle of their parents’ debts falling upon their own backs and must opt to give up school as a small child to go work and attempt to (usually unsuccessfully) pay it off. Living in America, despite my parents’ financial status, this nation has obligated me to go to school and receive my righteous education by creating laws requiring attendance since 1852.
Being raised in a country with such a high abundance of luxuries and rights, it is so very easy to forget that the opportunity of even something as simple as being able to attend school without worrying about money, books, pens, etc. is not as simple as we perceive it to be. To a large percentage of the world, the concept of attaining knowledge for free for all genders and colors is a fantasy. Out of the many burdens this nation has lifted off my shoulders, the opportunity to merely attend school and receive my education free of worrying about anything getting in my way is truly a blessing.