Scholarship / 'I admire the educational opportunity' - APISAF scholarship [3]

List any personal or financial problems that you had to face and how you dealt with them. (something like this). I'm not very good at writing essays. Could you please help me? The limit was 500 words.

Ever since I was little, I had always dreamed about becoming a doctor when I grow up. To help me build up my future, my parents had to go through a lot of hardships and sacrifices. They brought me to America to help me further my future plans. They had always told me that I could study whatever I wanted in America if only I put some time, effort and dedication towards my education. To make my dream come true and to make my family proud, I had to face a lot of challenges personally and financially.

Coping up with the American culture and learning English was the most difficult challenge that I had to overcome when I first came to America in my freshman year of high school. Learning a new language and expressing myself in that language was very difficult for me at first. I had no friends here and I was getting very low grades in English class. I kept saying to myself, "don't give up so early. There will be more challenges in life later on which might be even more difficult to overcome. With a little patience and effort, there is no task that is too difficult". I had a notebook where I would write down 20 new words from the dictionary with their meanings and memorize them every day before I went to bed. This helped me to learn English really fast and my grades started going up in English class.

As I stepped into junior year of high school, I started learning more about the educational system and colleges in America and I realized that without a scholarship it would be impossible for me to further my educational goals. Paying for college would be really expensive and there was no way my parents could afford that amount of money. My dad has been taking care of his whole family ever since he was 18 years old. He had to take care of his 5 sisters and 3 brothers since then and even now he has to send thousands of dollars to Bangladesh every month to pay for my grandmother's medical care and his brothers and their families. His brothers could not further their career because of the lack of educational opportunities we have in Bangladesh and Bangladesh is such a country where unemployment rate is very high. There are millions of people who cannot find jobs even with Masters and professional degrees. When I realized that it was not possible for my dad to pay for my college and provide financial support to my mom, siblings and his brothers and parents at the same time, I started looking for a part time job which would help me save up for college.

Even though I had to face a lot of financial and personal problems throughout my high school years, I truly admire the educational opportunity that I have in America and I think that everyone should appreciate it.