Undergraduate / 'minute actions can have impact' - Macaulay Honors: Extracurricular Pursuits Essay [4]

Hello all! Thank you for taking your time to help improve my essay. I think Macaulay Honors is waayyy out of my reach, but I'd still like to try. I wrote as few essays and someone suggested me to work on this one. Please note it is incomplete. Anyhow, here it is! Thank you all again.

As a child, I always thought I had it easy. Not because I had parents to coddle me, but because I had mentors that unconditionally nurtured me, that facilitated my metamorphism into the person I am today. Between the coaches, tutors, artists, and librarians it was impossible to lose my way. With one hand they clenched on to me, guiding me along, as the other held a torch, illuminating the uncertainty ahead. They turned their passions into my values, for example my volunteer soccer coach taught me the importance of health while my tutor pushed me to achieve academically. From them I learned that it "takes a village to raise a child," and that village needs more than parents and teachers. It felt fortunate to be part of such a selfless community, and eventually when I grew out that community I knew I would reenter. Not as a meek, curious, wide-eyed child, but as someone's mentor.

In the beginning of my senior year I found my calling as a tutor for a sixth grader, Ali. I had thought I found it freshman year but as it turns out, doing arts and crafts with third graders and bargaining their attention for animal bracelets left little impact on me or the children. Ali is a Pakistani-American immigrant; however, he has overcome the grueling language barrier and his stutter is a battle scar. While he can spend incessant hours talking about his future aspirations as a fighter pilot-kung fu master, he can barely add a voice to letters. It is my job to teach him the things I always took for granted in language, like pronunciation or the difference between the short 'a' and the normal 'a.' In turn, he indirectly taught me a lesson as well; we are all inspiration to a child somewhere whether we know it or not. Ali explained to me that one morning he saw a suited carrying a briefcase, sprinting to the bus stop. He admired how someone would inconvenience himself to arrive punctually. I was shocked to learn how such minute actions can impact another, and I was reminded the importance of positive influences in life.

From Ali, I learned how interconnected individuals are inadvertently. My past mentors may not even know the impact they have had on my growth. With a child's mind being as malleable and vulnerable as it is, it is imperative to be a favorable model, a person who can evoke curiosity, hope and ambition in a child.