PROVE YOURSELF WRONG. by ZAINAB

PROVE YOURSELF WRONG. by ZAINAB - April 2016 Scholarship Essay

I am an international student, the first in my immediate family to attend college abroad. Where I come from, when someone like my father decides to send his daughter abroad, everyone’s attention is caught, not in the good way, most times, these people are jealous, most of the people send their children to attend local colleges and thus expect my father to do the same. Unlike many, my father is quite different, I decided to study in America, because I wanted to be overwhelmed with culture, fun and experience. My father agreed and sent me to school here. I am here finally, what do I feel, like an entire group of people are gawking at me, waiting for me to fail, trying to see if there would any difference between having an education in America or in Africa. The interesting thing is that they are not the problem, I am. Ever since I was a kid, I bared the responsibility of trying to be the best. My father had already achieved so much, coming from a poor and mostly uneducated background. I am the first child of three kids, and as you can imagine, there’s a lot of heavy weight on shoulders. To spare you the bore, I’ll tell you why it’s most important to prove yourself wrong, if you’re anything like me.
When I came to college, I was surprisingly not inundated by culture shock, I was perfectly comfortable, just a few things surprised me, like how racism and sexism is still thing. But the most thing that surprised me was that I was still a loner. I wrote stories most of the time, and during my first year I wrote about it, though I might be boring, I had some really interesting people around me. I wrote the story, it was pretty good, but I wasn’t going to be the judge of that. I decided to get a ton of “how to get published” books from amazon and barnes and nobles. Guess what I never got to read them. I get excited, start reading a few pages, then stop. Telling myself I’m never going to get published. I was my own enemy, and the fear of doing anything exciting or scary was so deep that I never got around to actually do anything fun, you know typical college parties, get drunk etc. the thing is I’m more of an intellectual being, I get A’s and B’s in classes, a 3.7 GPA. But when it comes to executing an idea, I just freeze, I get scared no one is going to like my work, my idea, or no one is going to give me an opportunity because I’m black and a female.
I decide that every year, I make a promise to myself, I’m going to write a plan, I’m going to stick to that plan. This year, I tried learning Italian, it got great, I was fluent in the basic conversation, but then that fear came knocking telling me that I was never going to achieve that level of fluency, so I gave in and stopped. Wasting all of the subscriptions and bookmarks to Italian learning websites. Couldn’t do it anymore. Planned to got to the gym, did not work out, start afresh and learn another language, still haven’t started. You get the idea. I am a terrible procrastinator and wimp.
There’s a silver lining though, I’m getting better, I’m reading books about trusting your instincts and not giving in to fear, its working brilliantly, I’m learning to accept change and most important, I am not listening to that little voice that brings me down. Guess what, every idea I’ve had, 90% of the time, I have executed it. I recently I had a plan to study the difference between child care in west Africa and the us and the psychology behind it. I already started working on it and I continue to learn Italian. The point is that, everyone has that little voice, that says we can’t do things we set our minds to, but I’m telling you prove yourself wrong and do great things because college is right place to start. So those people who plenty of ideas that think could change the world, I know how you feel, being there, still there, but coping. I want you to know that you’ll always be scared, but instead of moping, just push a little and DO IT. whether you fail or not, it’s a win win situation, because your failures will end up carving you into a person you truly want to become.