Undergraduate / 'I thought about my Grandma' - My Big Setback- University of Michigan Essay [4]

"Describe a setback that you have faced. How did you resolve it? How did the outcome affect you? If something similar happened in the future, how would you react?" (~500 words)

"David, your Mom just called. It happened last night," my Dad said; my Grandma had died. It was the first major loss in my young life, and it was not easy for me to stop thinking about. I had been driving to her house at least once each month since I was a very young boy and had become very close to her. Monopoly was always our favorite, we would spend hours playing in her dining room always laughing and having a good time, even during her last few weeks when her cancer made her too tired to do most things, not our favorite board game, though.

She always taught me that I should always make the most of every moment, and to do as well as I could in life and school. She helped to set my bar high for academic achievement because if I did not try hard in school, I would not be able to go to a great school as my Grandpa, Uncle, and Dad had at U of M. I read with her from the time I was a young child, always fascinated with words and numbers.

School acted as a refuge for me where I could escape the stress in my household and could try to focus on my school work as much as possible without grieving the recent loss. I worked harder in school than I ever had before, and spent as much time as I could perfecting everything that I turned in, and studying persistently. Subconsciously, I forced myself to stop thinking about what happened that winter, and forced myself to distract myself with other parts of my life. I also worked more to excel in baseball, especially practicing hitting and fielding as much as I could.

Another major outlet for me throughout this experience was my extracurricular activities, namely robotics. It helped me by not only giving me something productive to do by teaching me to use my time efficiently, but also by keeping my mind off of struggles at home. FIRST robotics also allowed me to develop my interest in engineering which I otherwise would not have been able to develop, and taught me how to problem solve with real-life examples that I would not have learned on my own.

Throughout my sophomore year, I thought about my Grandma all the time; the more I thought about her, the more I wanted to impress her by doing exactly what she would have wanted me to do. My memory of her pushed me to do better than I ever had, even with problems with my Grandpa's physical and mental health looming in the background. It has taught me many good ways to deal with future losses in my life, and has exposed bad ways to cope with a loss.

Although my Grandma's passing created a large amount of turbulence in my life, it helped me in many ways that I could not see while it was happening. More than anything, it has taught me that all losses happen for a reason- each one molding you in a different way, making you a stronger person.

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