A Important Lesson by Jhair

A Important Lesson by Jhair - November 2013 Scholarship Essay

Sometimes people think that if you don’t accomplish your goals and fail, it is a bad thing, but those mistakes are the ones that make people stronger and give them the desire to try again with the new knowledge acquired. When I was in my sophomore year of high school I heard about this completion named “Skills USA”. This is a competition that take place every year to find the best student on certain fields, such as Masonry, Carpentry, Information Technology (IT) and other subjects. At first I wasn’t sure if should compete or not, I was nervous. After a lot of thinking about whatever I should do it or not, I decided to sign up for the competition in the subject I was studying for, which is Information Technology.

The day of the competition came. I was ready to do it I reviewed some of my old books and asked for a couple of friends to help me study. When the time came, I went in, took the test, and then we all left and waited for the award ceremony. For the award ceremony we went to another high school in New Britain. Then, they started calling the names of the people who competed in each field. One by one names were being call to the front until they finally said, Information Technology. I was nervous and I couldn’t wait for my name to be called, but sadly they didn’t call me. I was sad, because it was my first time doing this competition. After the event ended, I realized that this wasn’t a total loss. I gained knowledge that I didn’t have before, now I knew how the competition worked and I knew it needed to prepare for next year.

It had been a year since last Skills USA competition and I knew that if I tried again I would have a greater chance of winning. So here I was trying for my second time. I had more confidence than the last time I signed up for the competition. The day came and I went through the same routine as last year, I took the test and waited for the awards ceremony. They called everyone except me. Again I was sad, and I wondered why I didn’t even make it to the finalists. After, I finally realized that being so confident didn’t helped at all, I was so convinced that I had a chance of winning that I didn’t even like I did last year, I didn’t prepare for it. I learned much from this new event that happened to me. It wasn’t me just thinking that I could win because I once hear, this man say “It doesn’t matter if all the odds are against you, if you think you can do it then you can do it.” Even though I lost I can say that I will win next year and I will say it again. My biggest mistake was that I didn’t prepare and I just let it pass, but I know next year will be different.

What I learned of all this is that when someone has the desire of winning, they can do it even if there are people, or obstacles that will stand in their way. I would like to try as many times as I can until I win, but that is not possible because I graduate this year so this is going to be the last year I have the opportunity to compete. I also learned that it doesn’t matter if you win or not, but just the fact that you tried will make you different from others that didn’t even think about trying. That’s why I think that I am special from the others, and like me, there are others who think that hard work sometimes can beat or equal natural genius.