From Failure to Success by Lael

From Failure to Success by Lael - July 2023 Scholarship Essay

My biggest failure during my education was not the content itself, rather the confidence aspect involved in learning. There is not one specific instance nor circumstance that I consider a failure. It is an accumulation of my education from high school.
In elementary school, test scores and grades were not as important as they were in middle or high school. Elementary school was a relaxed and less competitive environment. Comparison was minimal because the stakes were not as high. Many mistakes were encouraged because the consequences were lower. As you get older you worry about developing healthy work habits, rigorous AP classes, and applying to college. Furthermore, getting into college is dependent on how you applied your education in high school. Getting wrapped up in numbers, percentages, and grades made me loose the initial confidence I had in my skills and intelligence.
In elementary and middle school, I was always participating and I never felt intimidated by what I was learning. Learning felt natural and came somewhat easy to me. I had the utmost confidence and wasn’t scared to speak my mind during classroom discussions. However, the diversity and intelligence of my peers in high school, as well as preparing to apply to college began to diminish my confidence. In this new environment, I quickly realized that standing out in an academic setting was difficult. Many people had all 4.0 GPAs, took difficult courses, and a handful of students did sports or student government. Comparison and intimidation became a common trend as I prepared to look into colleges.
Slowly, I didn’t participate as much. I began to overthink what to contribute into class conversations. I worried about saying the wrong thing in front of my peers. I took the pressure from high school education and turned it into something that weighed me down, instead of motivating me. I realized that my biggest failure was lacking confidence and caring too much about how intelligent I appeared.
Although I consider this a major failure, it was an important lesson I needed to learn and has shaped me into the person I am today. As I grow older and continue to make mistakes I care less about how others perceive me. Learning from peers and their intelligence now boosts my confidence. Something I consider my biggest failure in education, is now something I continue to work on daily. This failure has helped me to work on improving myself at a pace that works for me, rather than trying to match what others are doing. It made me realize that progress and reflection are ways to learn from these failures in order to achieve success.