Undergraduate /
"Father, whom I don't know" - Iternational student "The Greatest influence" essay [NEW]
I'm an International student from the Czech Republic and I'm applying for Darlington School - College Prep Boarding School. Please, I need your critique. Thanks :)
The topic of essay is "Who would you consider the most positive influence in your life? Who would you consider the most negative influence in your life? What did you learn from each?"
Father, whom I don't knowTwo years old girl was sleeping in her bed when her father came home. He was drunk like always and he shouted at her mother like thousand of times before. But that time it was different. That time mother packed her father's things and told him to leave. The girl has never seen him again. The girl is me. Now, more than 13 years later, I don't remember any of that. I don't remember him.
My father is not an ideal father figure. In fact, he has never behaved like a parent. I can't write an essay about a perfect dad with great personality, who always loved me and pushed me to do my best. My father has never been like that. He had alcohol and drug problems and left me and my mother when I was a little girl. He lives at a small town in Washington state at this time, more than 5,000 miles from Prague where I and my mom live. I haven't seen him for more than 13 years. However, he is the person who influenced me the most both ways. Negatively and positively too.
Of course he negatively influenced my childhood. I was growing up fatherless, only with my mother. She worked as a waitress, often until late at night to make enough money for two of us. That's why she did not have much time for me. It was not easy to live from one salary. When I was a child I wasn't able to understand why I cannot have things which my friends had. Now I know how bad and selfish it was to my mom. Yes, it was not easy for me, but a lot harder for my mother. Her life was not easy at all and now I really appreciate everything she has done for me.
In my teenage years I have discovered who I want to be and who not. I have heard from people all the time that children who grow up with only one parent end up unsuccessful, on drugs or even in prison. And then I decided that I don't want to end up like that, I don't want to end up like my father. I desire to prove everyone that I can achieve something important. I want to prove my father that I deserve his attention. In that time rose my interest in my future and future of other children, my interest in helping people and doing important things for world. I started to teach children who have worse childhood than I had - children without family, parents, children living in Foster home. I'm teaching them Mathematics and English, but I don't want to help them only in their education. In my opinion, the most important is to help them discover what I discovered - discover that you can change your life to be better and to make your future better, if you do everything in your power for that.
My father influence me all my life. Yes, my childhood was not so happy because of him, but he influenced me positively as well. Thank to him I realized that I cannot ignore my future. I stopped being selfish, ignoring needs of others and I started helping people - that all because of him. My father learned me a lot, even he doesn't know that.
