My educational journey by jasmina

My educational journey by jasmina - October 2019 Scholarship Essay

My parents came here from Bosnia and Herzegovina 19 years ago to escape the Yugoslav war and the ethnic cleansing many had to endure. Knowing how hard they had to work to restart their lives as well as how hard they tried to make me and my two older brothers good people truly inspired me to make a mark and set an example for my family. My parents started from scratch when they came here, my father worked nights and my mother worked second shift so she wouldn’t have to get a babysitter, my parents barely ever saw each other at the same time in the house but later as I grew up me and my brothers finally understood why they did that; they sacrificed themselves to make sure we had food on the table and clothes to wear. I will only be the 2nd out of the whole family to graduate high school and the 1st to attend college, my parents always encouraged me to make good decisions and to make the most of myself and my intelligence. Throughout my high school career there was moments where I wanted to give up and quit but, I always remembered how hard my parents worked to get me to where I am today. Schoolwork and work was very hard to balance but, through my parents’ encouragement as well as many pep talks from my school counselor Mrs.Fackrell I managed to keep up with all of my AP and honors classes as well as averaging an un weighted GPA of 3.81 and a weighted GPA of 4.01. I am very thankful to have parents like I do they always encouraged me to do the best and saw things in me that I did not, they worked their hardest to make sure my brothers and I would never drink, smoke, use drugs, commit any illegal/criminal act etc. and they did just that. Yes, I had many hardships and obstacles throughout my educational journey but I am very thankful for those due to the fact that with each issue I had I came up with a solution which made me a stronger person physically and mentally. All in all, I was a very blessed person to have the people that I did in my life as a form of encouragement and support system, as well as the hardships that I had because in the end all this did was make me a stronger scholar that would work to her fullest potential to try and make something of herself.