Through Struggles Do We Attain Hope For a Brighter Future by Monique

Through Struggles Do We Attain Hope For a Brighter Future by Monique - June 2019 Scholarship Essay

She started the first day of class by telling us the story of her life, how she ended up where she is now, a PhD teaching a high school with a high rate of minorities. With a past described as being riddled with chronic and severe underachievement and experiences that would make any normal person go mad(or at the least, completely resign from life itself), her unique insights of overcoming several struggles for the betterment of her life and somehow finding the strength to excel, eventually attending one of the best universities in the nation is awe inspiring to say the least. Her passion and determination for serving underrepresented communities is a unique one that I am sure several can vouch for, and her motivation derives something beyond a selfish desire to seem charitable or fund her education.
Her story is one that seems to come straight from a novel, but this alone is not what impacted me so greatly. The voracity with which she advocates for the challenged and under challenged students in her classes is one that I had not realized would impact me so much as a college student. The degree of attentiveness and insight she possesses about her students allows her to foster candid conversations with even the shyest students like me and tell us how we are selling ourselves short. Because of this, I was inspired to learn more about myself and why I felt I was underachieving. When I believed I had set myself up for failure, I hear her story in the back of my mind.
She never gave up, in fact she excelled, so I know that I can at least find the right path for me. It makes me revel in the excitement of reinvigorating my passions and overcoming the negative thoughts and conceptions I had internalized throughout my primary and secondary education. Knowing a wonderful woman like her has allowed me to see the beauty in qualities I possess which I was previously ashamed of and begin to embrace them. I never take my teachers for granted, annually sending thank you cards explaining how their actions have positively impacted me, but this one is a gem whose impact on me is one that cannot be expressed in words.