How Halloween Influenced My Major by Lila

How Halloween Influenced My Major by Lila - February 2024 Scholarship Essay

I’m an English major with a specialization in Professional Writing, and I owe it all to my seventh grade English teacher, Mr. Dabney. His class taught me to enjoy something I previously did not. I hated writing, I thought it boring and tedious and extremely difficult. Mr. Dabney is one of the best teachers I have ever had. He was thoughtful and patient and he changed my entire perspective on the English subject as a whole with just one particular project.

It was around Halloween, and we had an assignment: write a short story based on and inspired by one of the various pictures and photos on the projector. There was one in particular that stuck out to me, a creepy-looking lighthouse surrounded in mist, and my mind started racing immediately. The story I ended up writing wasn’t anything special on the outside, and I don’t remember it being particularly good. But I enjoyed every second of it, and I wanted to write as much as I could. Slowly, my love for other forms of English and writing grew and I began to branch out into different ways to explore. I found great pleasure in editing my own writing, enjoying the nuances of finding a different and better way to say something and correcting grammar mistakes and flow issues. It was surprising how good at it I was, too, and once I’d discovered this newfound passion I decided to pursue it.

Now, just because I had discovered my love of writing didn’t mean I came to the conclusion of being an English major immediately. It took me years to realize that was what I actually wanted to pursue, and that I had a pretty good chance of actually turning it into an enjoyable career. Right now I’m greatly content with my choice and excited for what college will bring, and I could not imagine a better path I could have taken.