Cultural Change by Shayelin

Cultural Change by Shayelin - May 2022 Scholarship Essay

I’ve lived in Washington state most of my life. When I came to Texas it was a huge cultural shock for me and I had to adapt to the way of living down here. I went from a cold town at the base of Mountain Rainier, to a hot suburban area. Everybody acted differently, looked differently, and even talked differently. I wasn’t allowed to go and wander around like I used to while before, I could go anywhere and hang with anybody I wanted to, knowing I was safe. Now, I have to be careful, watch my surroundings, and be sceptical with who I'm talking to because I live in a shanty town. There’s fights almost every day, drug dogs walk the halls at my school, and you can’t go five minutes without hearing somebody blirt out in some vulgar form of profanity. Before, I didn’t have to worry about any of that.
Even though it was a big change for me I never fell into the influence of my peers. I made sure to stay focused while keeping my grades up and never missing a day of high school, even to this very day. I always try to do my best even when I feel like the odds are against me. For example, I’m in a Dual Credit, Early College program. Four times a week I go to Tarrant County College taking classes to earn my associates degree while also taking my required high school classes. I’ll admit joining this program was a huge step for me and I was very shy whenever I transferred to Texas. It made things very difficult especially when it came to talking to others and trying to make friends. I overcame that whenever I started working and I gained a new ability to talk in front of people. Gaining that skill really helped me overall and even allowed for me to succeed in my classes.
A major setback in my academic career occurred when we were on break starting my Junior year. The Coronavirus had just hit our area and nobody knew what to do in this global pandemic that was stirring up. At first everybody was doing school online and eventually they allowed some students to come back; I was one of those students. When in the classroom, the teachers wouldn’t give me much attention because they were more focused on the students online. Meanwhile, Tarrant County College was completely shut down. For those classes I had to log in online and complete the work as best I could with little to no instructions on how to complete the assignments like my previous years. Not being able to communicate in person and constantly struggling to contact the professors really stressed me out and made things far more difficult than they should have been. Even with all that going on though, I was able to overcome it.
Overall, no matter how many obstacles I’ve encountered, I was able to conquer them all. I’m in the top 25% of my class with a GPA of 3.57 and my goal is to graduate with an even higher GPA than that. The way I see it is, everybody has a great chance to succeed. Elon Musk once said, “When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.” That is my goal for this year and I will make it happen as well as getting into a great college that is right for me.