What personal experiences led you to select your chosen major? by Jacob

What personal experiences led you to select your chosen major? by Jacob - February 2024 Scholarship Essay

My name is Jacob Kellogg. I had a rough start in life, but have learned to embrace challenges. At birth, I was born testing positive for cocaine and was born with a viral infection in my lungs. I was taken from my biological mom at the hospital, and placed into foster care. I met my adoptive parents when I was 2 months old when they started the process to adopt me. I was always a very active kid, running, playing, and enjoyed being outdoors. However, I had asthma at a young age. I had to have breathing treatments every four hours until I was 5 years old which prevented me from being as active as I wanted to be. I tried not to let asthma stop me from playing hard every day. I remember getting up after my treatments and bolting towards the door to play outside. Then shortly after starting school, in the first grade, I was diagnosed with ADHD. I have needed to be on medication since then to help me focus on my schoolwork. The medication does help me manage my inability to focus and also helps me feel a little more in control and calm. However, it comes with some negative side effects like not having an appetite and, therefore, not being able to gain weight. Kids at school have called me names like “bones” or skinny and have made fun of my appearance. On top of that the medication also seemed to make me much more aware when other kids were teasing me. That was a significant challenge for a young boy. This also carried over into my high school years, where I am still made fun of by other kids. I still struggle to gain weight, but I have been successful in adding a few more pounds by eating more fatty foods and protein.

While ADHD can be a negative, for me, it often channels my focus into things I'm passionate about. Since before I was two, I have loved baseball! T-ball, recreation league baseball, all-star baseball, travel baseball, and high-school baseball. I’ve tried basketball and soccer, but always come back to baseball. Especially pitching. For some reason being at the center of a baseball field involved in every play is where I feel the most focused. Baseball provides me with a sense of purpose. I am not the strongest or the fastest, but I am not giving up and make it a point to practice pitching, running, and/ or hitting every day. My goal for the upcoming baseball season is to become a starting pitcher on my High School baseball team.

To help with my ADHD, my parents signed me up for piano lessons at the age of five. At first, I was unsure about it, but now have come to love and enjoy playing the piano. I have been playing for 13 years. Practicing is hardly ever enjoyable for me, but challenging myself to learn tough pieces like Moonlight Sonata and Clair de Lune have made me believe in myself more and know I can accomplish difficult things.

When I was in Middle School and also in High School, I volunteered as a buddy to disabled baseball players in the Mauldin Miracle League. I got to see kids who were happy just to be playing baseball. Some of them were shy, but some stuck to me like glue and talked to me a lot. Maybe they weren’t ever going to be able to compete on a standard baseball field with kids their age, but they sure reminded me what the game of baseball is about: playing your heart out and having fun. Seeing these kids overcome their physical challenges has inspired me to not give up on my dreams of playing ball.

Even with a busy school and baseball schedule, I wanted to be able to earn my own money. Jobs that can be flexible with my schedule are hard to find, but with patience, and several months of searching, I was offered a job at a car wash.

I want to be a coach someday and I am excited to go to college to learn how to be a good one. After many years of hard work, I have been given an opportunity to play baseball in college. I want to learn to balance education with working to be a better baseball player. I believe that my past experiences, both successes, and setbacks, have prepared me well for the challenges that lie ahead. I am looking forward to my college journey and the path it will put me on to making a positive impact on others.