Obstacles by Gabriella

Obstacles by Gabriella - November 2020 Scholarship Essay

Obstacles

The aspect of my education I am most thankful for is the obstacles I have faced. Although I am seldom grateful for obstacles in the moment, my struggles have prepared me well for the challenges of college and a career as a doctor. I am thankful for the educational obstacles I have faced in the forms of course load, age discrepancy, and other surprisingly fortunate issues.
Christian Liberty Academy is essentially homeschool, so each year I challenge myself with the heaviest course load possible by selecting the most advanced curriculum in every subject. For example, two weeks into my current mathematics curriculum, I was learning differential calculus. Adding to this physics, my first year of Latin, and the traditional assortment of required textbooks at their highest levels, I created a nightmarish course load obstacle. I am incredibly thankful for my course load obstacle because I am confident that I am fully prepared for whatever course load I receive in college.
Age discrepancy has been another huge obstacle in both my education and business pursuits. My first year of school took place at a public elementary school where I was the first student to transfer to a higher grade in over twenty years. The first grade curriculum was still much too easy, so from second grade on I was a homeschooled student. Although I have never regretted transferring up a grade, my age has been an obstacle in several ways. Everything I do academically I do a year younger than my peers. In certain other areas, such as when I launched a business at age fourteen, the single-year discrepancy made little difference. In others, such as standardized testing, being a year younger is a huge deal. I cannot complain though. Because I have been forced to compete with older students my entire life, I have developed outside-the-box patterns of thinking that allow me to far surpass all expectations. These patterns of thinking give me the ability to learn and adapt quickly to any challenge. For example, my first time taking the ACT at age eleven I increased my score from a 21 on my first practice test to 27 on the real thing. My second time, at age fifteen, I increased from 30 to 34. My third and final time at age sixteen I took three tests without once improving my score. All three were a perfect 36. Every time I create a college application, scholarship application, or resume, I thank God for the obstacle of age discrepancy.
Fortunate issues have been one of my most frustrating obstacles, but I am thankful for them nonetheless. From tests lost in the mail to assignments graded the next year, unexpected issues are a frequent occurrence with my school. The most formidable issue with my curriculum is with no contest my mathematics program. My Saxon curriculum, which endures from seventh to twelfth grade, is generally excellent. The examinations, however, are outright awful. Saxon curriculum is firmly against outside-the-box thinking, which is my greatest academic strength. In order to receive credit for an answer, I must write out every tedious, nonessential step as taught in the textbook regardless of whether that is actually the best way to reach the answer. Particularly in fields like geometry, many methods of reaching the correct answer exist and the examination questions are usually vague as to which method is the only one that will be accepted. I had several incidents in the earlier years where the correct method was not taught until several lessons after the exam, and with only six exams in calculus, the use of any "incorrect" method wrecks my GPA. I am thankful for these issues, however, because they have taught me that to please some professors, I will have to confine myself in ways I would never have considered had it not been for my experiences with Saxon.
Course load, age discrepancy, and surprisingly fortunate issues have been both my greatest obstacles and my greatest blessings academically. These obstacles have prepared me for college in ways that an easy education never could, and for that I am constantly thankful. These obstacles will not go away in college. I will still challenge myself with a heavy course load, I will still be a year younger than my peers, and issues pop up anywhere. I can face the future confidently thanks to these helpful, annoying, invaluable, exhausting, wonderful obstacles.