Smart or Smart Working? by Shanna

Smart or Smart Working? by Shanna - January 2016 Scholarship Essay

To me, New Year’s represents a clean slate which brings endless possibilities in the coming year. This is important to me because no matter the successes or failures I’ve had in the prior year, one can begin again with a fresh new perspective. This year, a New Year’s resolution that will help me be a better student in 2016 is to not be overly critical and put unnecessary pressure on myself and my work. I have been a bit of a perfectionist for some time, holding myself at the highest standards. This however, has led me to put unneeded pressure on myself and feeling inept when I believe I have not performed to my fullest potential. This New Year’s resolution will push me to see all that I have accomplished and focus on what I’ve done right instead of what I could have done better.

When I was younger, I was not the brightest of students nor felt that I was smart and had much to attribute to my classes. That was until the 7th grade, when I wanted to be in my friends’ class, who was in advanced science, so badly that I started going to extra help after school and stayed after class to bombard my teacher with questions. Add that with late library nights, which was about 8:30 for a 12 year old, and I started to really understand the material. However, due to my prior standings in school, not everyone believed that I could accomplish this goal, so I was determined to prove them wrong no matter the cost. Several months later, after what seemed like ceaseless amount of work, I had one of the highest grades in my class. The excitement I got from the payoff of my efforts was unlike anything I ever felt before, something they call pride. This pride was only magnified when my teacher approached me at the end of the year asking if I would want to take advanced science in 8th grade due to my high marks. Since that moment, I decided that although I might not be the naturally smart student, I was going to make sure I put in the extra time and effort to be the hardest working student. This drive allowed me to become the student who was top of her class in college biology, microbiology, and chemistry classes nine years later.

Although I have accomplished great things academically through putting in time, hard work, and dedication, the need to get the best scores took its toll. Last year, I started to feel the pressure in school and thought how my grades would determine my acceptance into Binghamton University’s BAT nursing program. I started to get anxiety attacks over upcoming test, quizzes, and presentations. Sometimes they were so bad that I would have to leave the classroom just to feel like I could breathe. When it came to the point that they were impacting my school work I decided that I needed to figure out why exactly this was happening. Finally, it came back to me putting unnecessary pressure and stress on myself to be the best and do the best and prove something to everyone. This was a revelation to me that changed how I handled the rest of the years’ work.

After this epiphany, I decided that I was no longer that child who needed to prove her worth to everyone who doubted her. I looked at my track record which stated that I was in high honor roll throughout all of high school, I was on the dean’s list every college semester, I was accepted into Pi Alpha Sigma, a national honor society, and finished my bachelor degree Summa Cum Laude. With all these accomplishments I recognized I was no longer the girl working hard to be smart, I was the smart girl who was simply working hard. Since then, I realized that I don’t have to be the best all the time and that just doing my best is enough. There was no longer a need to be so critical of myself and my work because it was and is enough to get me through life and accomplish all of my goals. On December 26th of 2015 I received my acceptance letter into the nursing program.

Throughout most of my education I was censorious of my work and my methods of how to be the best in class. I paid the price of the copious amount of pressure I put on myself with terrible bouts of anxiety. When I finally took a look at myself, I came to see that this pressure was deriving from my need to prove that I was good enough and do whatever possible to show I could be the best. After that realization, I looked back and knew that it was unnecessary because I was a capable individual who could accomplish great things without proving anything to anyone or being overly critical. This resolution of unnecessary pressure and less criticism will allow me to not only be a great student but it will also allow me to have peace of mind while studying my passion of nursing.