Dreams by Nathalie

Dreams by Nathalie - June 2013 Scholarship Essay

  You hear it every day: college is not for everyone. Not everyone has the need to attend college, or the drive, or the money. For a long time, I thought that I was one of those people that college wasn’t right for. My family doesn’t have a lot of money, and to be frank, another four years of school just didn’t seem worth the trouble.
  That all started to change about a year ago. With all my friends getting geared up for college and taking SATs and ACTs galore, I really began to think about things. What did I plan on doing with my life? If I could do anything in the world, what would I want to do? I wanted to be a writer, I realized. I had toyed with that idea before, but dismissed it without even really considering it. Everyone and their mother thinks that they can be a writer, after all. What made me different? Who was I to think that I could make it?
  I tried to dismiss it all, just as I had done time after time before, but the little thoughts wouldn’t stop niggling at me. “You might as well try,” they whispered. “You write anyway. Maybe someone else would like to read it.” The process was a slow build, like water rising up behind a dam. The dam broke when, while poking around online, I discovered that there was such a thing as a Creative Writing major. Previously, I had thought that English was my only option if I were to be a writer. Creative Writing seemed tailor made for me, and was offered at North Carolina State University; the very college I had always thought I would attend, if I did indeed go to college.
  Now, my plans are set and I find myself excited about the prospect of college; quite a change from but a single year ago! To me, college now represents my ability to chase my dreams and grasp them. It’s always tempting to take the easy way out; to sit on the sidelines and just roll with the punches. That is not what I want for my life, and I am ready to take the first steps towards turning dreams into realities.