Vocabulary: The Modern Equalizer by Joseph

Vocabulary: The Modern Equalizer by Joseph - January 2016 Scholarship Essay

Throughout my twelve years of public education, I feel like I have never really been “stumped”. I breezed through middle school and quickly adapted to high school demands. I truly felt as if I was just someone who could learn anything, that is, until it was time for the SAT. When I began studying for this monstrous test, I thought it was going to be like all things, easy, until I was opened up to the world of SAT vocabulary. It was a very humbling, yet exciting, situation for a student like myself to say the least. However, it is what has led me to my academic New Year’s Resolution for 2016.

Maybe my lack of high level vocabulary was because I was so deeply involved with my love for science and mathematics from an early age and was not really into reading until my junior year of high school. Even though I have taken the SAT multiple times already and most likely will not be taking it again in the future, I wonder whether learning words young could have helped me. Excelling in writing at the university level is very critical and that is why I will be devoting a lot of time for the remainder of my senior year to exploring those words that will truly baffle my future professor.

Five days into 2016 and I am very proud of some of the new words that I have acquired into my “vocabulary tool box”. It is going to be very satisfying to be able to use words like demagogue, inchoate, and vestige in everyday conversation even if my peers don’t completely understand what I’m saying.