The Subject That Gave Me Hope by Mia

The Subject That Gave Me Hope by Mia - April 2025 Scholarship Essay

When I began high school I had no idea what I was walking into. I just spent two years online, barely learning what I needed and I had to take all these advanced classes. My ninth grade year was by far the hardest for me. I had no friends because of all the stress I was under, Missing assignments piled up very quickly, and I was too afraid to ask for help. Before going into high school my favorite class used to be English which made me want to become an English teacher but when I got to high school the first few years consisted of complex books by Shakespeare which pushed me to lose interest in the career path. I was taking hard classes like Physics and advanced Chinese. It was a struggle and it impacted my mental health severely. I missed many days of school, not putting much effort into assignments, and didn't turn in missing work, it felt like I was at rock bottom. I had a lot of self-doubt and truly thought that I'd already failed at life. That mentality changed in the middle of junior year when I took biology. My life quite literally flipped upside down. I'd never enjoyed a class until I took biology. I started participating regularly and made new friends. I did well on all my quizzes and exams. I was happy, I knew this was what I was supposed to do with my life. For the first time in years, I found something that seemed right for me, something that felt like home. I decided at the end of junior year that I was going to major in biology because it gave me the strength and motivation to keep going. It opened my mind and taught me that the sky is the limit.