Getting to the Light by Jessica

Getting to the Light by Jessica - December 2015 Scholarship Essay

It is dark. I don’t entirely know what I am doing, but I do know that I have to keep moving forward. Then, a light appears. It seems quite a way off, but I can see it there. Everything else continues to happen and move around me, and all I know is that I must not allow myself to get distracted. If that happens, that light will never be reached, so I keep moving forward. The light is growing brighter and brighter as I draw nearer to it. The closeness grows, and soon there is an easily detectable noise coming from my light. I hear voices and crashes that remind me of metal clanking together. There is a sizzling sound, “pssssss…,” and I recognize the calamity. It sounds like something I know and love. It sounds... like a kitchen. Then, I realize something. That might just be my future. That is where I have been trying to go, and it is where I know deep down I want to be. If any of my calculations are correct, that could be my future about ten years from now. In ten years I picture myself working as an executive chef in a four star restaurant making delicious food for hungry people. My education guides me and will continue to do so to send me ever closer to that light at the end of this tunnel.
This future is something that I have wanted for myself for some years now. I have always looked to school for the way to get to this dream. School is where there are classes that will assist me with the development of the skills that I will use in my future career. I took advantage of some of these classes. Some of the home economic classes, for example, Foods One and Foods Two, taught me some of the basic skills within a house kitchen. However, I want to take it so much further than that. There are also the foreign language classes that I have taken. The world of food is a multilingual and multicultural world. The guests that I might be serving may not always speak English. My coworkers and/or bosses might not speak English very well or at all, for that matter. Since the language of Spanish seems to be on the rise as of late, I have deemed it to be a necessary skill and am proud to say I have over three years of learning under my belt.
In order to finally reach the light at the end of this long and challenging tunnel of life, I know that I must take my schooling even further. I must go to a higher level of training, a place where I can be with people who have the same goals and ideals as I. It is in this place I can discover even more about myself and my favored career. It is the terrifying stepping stone filled with hopes for the future. This place is called college. That is the place to strengthen my skills that I have already obtained and learn even more. In college I can practice until I am the best that I can be, and as it seems to turn out, the better I am at something, the more I want to do it. I cannot wait for the amazing opportunity to cook for many years to come.
Hopefully in ten years I will not be simply advancing my skills; I will be using them. All the years I spend at school will push me in the direction of my desired career, my light at the end of the tunnel. It is this light that I will continue to strive towards in this extremely long and seemingly endless tunnel called life.