Scholarship / "when my mom went to prison..." - Significant setback Essay [5]

Significant Setback/Challenge/Opportunity Essay:

One major set back in my life, was when my mom went to prison. I was living with my step dad at the time, so to say, in our trailer. My mom was away for about a year, and she went to a halfway house for another year following her release. This time was very hard on me, not being able to see my mother was sickening, but I made the best of it. My step dad was the only person in my entire life, besides my mother, that cared about me. My biological father left when I was young, about 5 or so, I tried to get in contact with my father during the time my mom was gone, but I could not get a hold of him, so I assume he wants nothing to do with me.

Before my mother got to come home from the halfway house my step dad died from lung cancer, it killed me when I found out. I went to school like just another day, but something was different that day. I went to school that day, just as I did any other; it was raining on the way to school. I have made my peace with it, but I had felt some kind of uneasiness that day. I went home, when I walked through the door everyone was sitting in the living room, I knew before anyone ever told me what had happened. I walked quietly to my room and began to cry. That was kind of wired to me because I have hardly ever cried in my whole life. It took a very long time for me to make peace with this and move on. I just could not interpret the fact that he was gone, and there was no thing I could do.

I had just turned 11 at the time, I was strong through this time, and it taught me a lot. I have learned how to deal with problems better, to be strong and think clearly through the hard times, and not to just go off and do something stupid. It serves no point to go off and hurt yourself or anyone else, would someone you love want you to go off and do something stupid or get hurt in the process. I never really thought things through or about them very clearly, until this moment in my life. It put my life in perspective, I saw things clearly for the first time, my thought process changed, it had affected me deeply. If not for that moment in my life I don't really know where I would be right now. Sometimes the bad things in life are blessings, and we do not even realize it.

Im not the best at writing, its acctully my worst subject, but tell me what yall think! thanks!

Undergraduate / "just realize how important education is" - Issue of Importance [2]

Choose an issue of importance to you-the issue could be personal, school related, local, political, or international in scope-and write an essay in which you explain the significance of that issue to yourself, your family, your community, or your generation.

No longer than 120 eighty-character lines of text (including spaces and blank lines).

I have lived in poverty most of my life, in the last four years of my high school career we have finally moved out of poverty. It has just been my mother and me, my dad left early on and hasn't done much with his life. I have had to move from school to school, from city to city, because my mother never really had a good education, only her GED, so we never really had a nice or steady place to live. It was really hard, but I never let any of it get me down, because I am always looking for the positive and to the future, I know I have a bright future ahead of me. To just think about all the people that have dropped out of high school and to know they know what they set themselves up for is so sad. To think if I had it hard growing up the way I did, barley making it, it must have been pretty bad on the kids for the parents who choose not to further their education. It makes me mad to know the people who are offered a free education throw it away not knowing they just threw there life away, if we could just show them how important school is, then there might just be less turmoil, terrorism, and corruption. My education is the best thing that could have ever happened to me, it has helped shape who I am, my personality and has taught me so many wonderful things about life.

Most of the greatest things in this world have been discovered or created by educated people. That's why I have always had a positive outlook on life, I plan to be one of those educated people, I plan to have the life I never had, be able to give my mother the nice things she never had, while I still have time with her. I want to be able to look back on my life and say "look at all the stuff I have accomplished" and not be the one who has to say " look at all the stuff I could have done". I want to be the one who succeeds in life, that's why education is so vital to everyone. I do truly believe that everyone should be able to have an education, but sadly some just do not have the opportunity to get schooled or be apart of the school experience, where people can grow and learn, even create there own personality and make many friends. If more people could be educated there would be less chaos in this world. I do not think we could ever rid this world of mischief, but we could greatly reduce it. The more people that get educated the more good that would come out of it, the more productive we would be and this so-called world would be such a better place.

I would love that everyone could get educated, but people make excuses about almost everything, even if it is just in reach of their fingertips. I would hope that finances would not stand in anyone's way, but most people don't go to college due to finances. To me that is just another excuses, there are so many scholarships and grants out there. People could get a free education if they just put some time into it, no one will just realize how important education is. The people that go to college that become the next Doctors, Lawyers, or even Engineers, are the people that do care, that know exactly what I am talking about, that know why education is important and there living the dream rather than sitting at home putting it off. I plan to go join them in the success and make my own. You never know what people are capable of with an education, Education, something so simple can make such a huge change in so many lives, and education is simply the stepping-stones to a successful life.

Thank y'all so much. I am getting ready to submit everything in a few days!! any correction or comment is welcome!!!! thanks again!!