What Education Means to Me; A Journey by Gabriela

What Education Means to Me; A Journey by Gabriela - August 2024 Scholarship Essay

Embracing uncertainty in my own life has clarified my educational path: I want to pursue studies in Environmental Science and Spanish. This goal reflects my intention to support communities facing climate risks and to use my passion for Spanish as a cultural bridge towards sustainability for people and our beautiful blue planet. While this next goal may seem to follow logically from what I’ve attained thus far, the reality is a more complicated story.

My perception of what education means to me has drastically shapeshifted throughout the last 17 years of my life. School has been a metric to theoretically measure growth and box parts of my life into different categories - elementary, middle, and high school. However, what these boxes fail to contain are the lessons and experiences that transcend any predictable path, the desires to travel to the future or go back in time, or the immense pressure a girl can put on herself to have it all figured out.

I vividly remember my elementary aged self eagerly waiting for the day I would finally be a high schooler. When I got my first iPod Touch in the fifth grade, I scoured Youtube, borderline obsessively, for role models I could imagine myself becoming. The future became a tool to escape whatever issues I experienced in my younger years; trouble making friends, the pressure I put on myself to be academically exceptional, or my Mom being sick with cancer. However, at the same time, growing up seemed so far away, always out of reach and seemingly unattainable. A dessert that could only be admired and studied, never touched or enjoyed.

Not only was I daydreaming of my future self, I started to become her - and much faster than I should have. During these years of my life many people told me how mature I was and that I act older than I am. I think the only thing that has changed is how I perceive their comments. I used to take it as a compliment - wanting to be older was always my goal, but somewhere along the way I started to resent it, feeling as though I was being robbed or robbing myself of experiencing childhood how I was meant to. I felt a strong sense of responsibility taking care of my brother and myself when I saw my Mom struggling with her sickness and my Dad’s unpredictability due to his workaholic tendencies, at least in the memories I recall. I continued to push myself to the highest standards in school, to points of increased anxiety and deficits to my social life.

All of these external and internal tensions reached a turning point after my middle school graduation, as I sobbed in my backyard after the ceremony. I was not ready to let go of my childhood. I resented my younger self for wanting to grow up so much faster than I was intended to. But alas, the world didn’t stop spinning and I went on to high school.

An aspect of having the opportunity to attend a college-preparatory school with many resources is that college is always in the backdrop. In conversations with peers, parents, and those in my own head - college became not only an anxiety - but one validated by everyone around me. I took the most rigorous courses and endlessly worried about the fact that I had no idea what I wanted to do. Soon college became boiled down to something of obligation and competition - rather than what it is to me - a privilege, not always a linear path, and a place where you work hard because of your own goals.

However, now that I am entering my senior year and the finish line is in sight, the value of education has never been clearer to me as it is now. Ironically, I learned this through one of the hardest experiences of my life - losing my Mom in February of this year. This major life event stopped my life in its tracks and I could finally see through all the fog my life had become. In those moments, I respected myself enough to know that everything would turn out how it needed to - that it is okay not to know what the next step it, how to move on, and finally - that I don’t have to go to college if I don’t want to. This realization was a daunting one, and not easy to accept. But as I learned to acclimate to the discomfort of the unknown - I began rediscovering things that brought me joy and imagining ways I could use them to make the world a better place.

Somehow, during one of the most difficult periods of my life, I released my anxieties I held onto about my future and uncovered what I want my life's path to look like. I want to be able to help people and the planet as the climate crisis makes so many people's lives unpredictable, unmanageable, and dangerous. I want to be able to use my love of the Spanish language to communicate across cultural and national borders. Most of all I want to continue learning. My next big educational goal is to obtain a Bachelor's degree in Environmental Science and Spanish at a university that shares my values of community service, curiosity, and exploration.