My Whole Life by Maggie

My Whole Life by Maggie - February 2021 Scholarship Essay

My whole life, I have been told that college is the path that you want to take. As a kid, I always wanted to grow up, graduate high school, and move away to have the college experience. It is surreal that the time to move onto my higher education is finally here, and now all I want is to succeed in the next chapter of my life.
To the world, success means to accomplish a task or goal. To me, success means much more than that. I believe that success is a physical accomplishment, but it is also a mental and emotional achievement that can help push you forward in life. It describes the feeling you get when you have given something everything you have, and you finally make it. To make things more specific, success in college means to grow, learn, and achieve step by step. The college experience is different than high school and comes as a shock to many people. It is much more difficult, you have harder classes, higher expectations, and most of the time, you are away from your home and family. To truly succeed in college does not mean to get perfect grades or have the most friends. To me it means to give the experience you have been given everything you have, physically, mentally, and emotionally.
I believe that when you work hard, you are succeeding. Even if the result does not turn out the way you wanted it to, if you worked hard and gave everything you had, I believe you succeeded. If the world or your grade does not say you did, use the opportunity to come back harder next time. I heard the quote that says, “Success happens when preparation meets opportunity”, and I think about that all the time. I do not know who said it, but I truly believe that success comes with hard work and preparation. Everyone has been told at least once in their lives that they are better than they think they are and that they are capable of more than they think. If a person embraces this concept and shoots for so much higher than they ever thought possible, through hard work they can succeed.
Another idea that goes into this, is that through passion and a true love for something can you succeed. My lacrosse coach tells me everyday that if I want something bad enough, I will make it happen. I believe that principle plays a role in someone’s success, especially in college. When we leave home, we are not going to have our parents constantly reminding us to do the important things we need to do, we are going to have to make things happen on our own. If we want to succeed, we are going to have to do everything we can to make it happen. We will have to make sacrifices and make mistakes but if we keep pushing forward not matter how hard it gets, we will find a way to succeed in some fashion.
Succeeding in college is so important to me and I am willing to make the sacrifices I need to make it to college and make the most of it. I have taught the importance of higher education and have felt time and time again that it is what I should do with my life. I am willing to put in the hard work to succeed there and I am grateful that I have the resources to get there.