My goals by Mallory

My goals by Mallory - July 2022 Scholarship Essay

All my life, I knew that I wanted to go to college to study history. I want to uncover the secrets of the past and inform others about the transformations of the human race. I wavered between being a teacher, a professor, an archaeologist, or simply a researcher, but after my eighth grade job shadowing experience, I decided I wanted to be a museum curator or historic preservationist. The job shadowing opportunity was at our local York County Historical Society, where they took me through their archives and various rooms of stored artifacts. They taught me about the research they did and how they prepared exhibits for our local museum and historical sites, and I fell in love. I felt like it gave me a hands-on way to look into the past and share just a glimpse of our history with others. My lifelong career goal immediately became to be a museum curator.
As I began my college search the summer before my junior year, I had four constraints: the school must be beautiful, historic, more than 6 hours from home, and bigger than my high school. That’s when we stumbled upon the College of William and Mary. It seemed perfect on paper: a beautiful campus in the heart of Colonial Williamsburg, the second oldest institution in the USA, five and a half hours from my home, and around 3,500 more students than Clover High School. I toured the campus a few months later and it was too good to be true. Everything about it seemed perfect and I knew that was where I was meant to pursue my goal of becoming a curator. I had toured other schools which I loved; Duke University, the College of Charleston, and Anderson University-but none of them captured my heart the way William and Mary did.
After falling in love with William and Mary, I realized I would have to pay out-of -state tuition of $60,000 a year, and my family just cannot afford that. So, I began looking for scholarships. I am hoping to receive large scholarships to cover the majority of my tuition from the college I chose to attend and my high school; however, I will need as many small scholarships as I can get to cover room and board, food, books, and whatever tuition is not covered. I’ve dreamed my whole life of going to college and studying what I love and I’ve worked really hard throughout high school to be able to do so. I have maintained a 4.0 GPA while becoming a yearbook editor, the captain of the varsity girl’s golf team, an FCA and NHS leader, and member of many other clubs. I hope my involvement will allow me to get into the school of my dreams; I just need as much scholarship funding as possible to actually go.