Personal Qualities - Essay Example

 For the past seventeen years of my existence, I have discovered numerous qualities about myself. For instance, I acquired determination; a prominent facet of life, in the seventh grade after repeating the same grade as my peer moved to the next grade. Sharing the same class with new students made me feel out of place and yearn to skip the eighth grade. My yearning was almost impractical if not for the motivation I got from my discouragement. Interminable nights spent studying contributed to my improvement; the usual Cs and Ds became straight As.

In addition to this, the positive results for my test scores in addition to meetings with councilors and summer tutoring materialized my desire for skipping 8th grade. From the time I was allowed to skip 8th grade, I discerned that the greatest element of education is success. I also learned that I can do anything so long as I set my mind well. Currently, I can affirm that I am ever determined in everything I do. I have also grown to be exceptionally open-minded and non-judgmental. One of the factors that contributed to this is my schooling in a private school.

Attending a private school up until seventh grade exposed me to stereotypical judgments. Some students referred me as a pretentious diva living an opulent lifestyle which is often revealed by her designer clothes and expensive handbags. However, this was a false accusation. Torn between two households, a fortune holder father and a poor mother, I could probably not afford such a lifestyle. As a result of their divorce, my parents shared custody with my dad paying for my education. However, I can associate my childhood spoilage with growing up in a gated community.

I associated myself with kids who not only grew up with money, but also showed no appreciation for what they had. The situation was changed however by the fall of my mother’s relationship with her second husband. Being robbed off all her money by her second husband who ran away to Vietnam, me together with my mom was forced to move into an apartment. The switching of houses led to me shifting from private school to public school. My freshman year of high school is the year that I realized how fragile the world truly was.

In private school, I stumbled across hordes of friends who stabbed me in the back and asked why I was bleeding. At this point of my life, I appreciate those knives for building me up because in public school I met people that I would have never talked to; the wealthy kids and the poor kids. My school also contained a significant number of blacks and Hispanics compared to whites. Since I did not share any classes with any of my friends, I associated myself with other people. Among the people who I interacted with in school include kids from broken homes or no homes at all.

Kids from such families not only came everyday wearing the same clothes, but with a unique smell associated with lack of taking bath. From their experiences, I learnt that I was better than them by far. It was as a result of this that I learnt on how not to complain in life and appreciate on everything that I have in life. I believe the values I have learnt in life can be of significance to students who I will interact with in your institution. My sharing of personal life story with some of the students will probably change the perception of those who have given up in life.

I am also convinced of gaining both academically and socially from your institution since I will pursue my preferred education career in addition to interacting with new people.