STUDENT0786
Nov 15, 2015
Undergraduate / Even when life is not going as planned, you should never give up. College Application on Failure. [3]
The lessons we take from failure can be fundamental to later success. Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?
Failure is what allowed me to realize that even when life is not going as planned, you should never give up, and take control of your future. In the past few years I have dealt with failure rather often, something that before a few years ago I was quite unfamiliar with. Where once I was meet with this nonfulfillment, it made me feel completely defeated and I let myself along with the goals I worked at for a great deal of my life all go to waste. The inception of this debacle all began in the summer of 2014, the summer before my junior year of high school. I was faced with numerous family issues of which I could not handle any satisfactorily over the summer, and once school started, everything just took a turn for the worse. I left my sophomore year as a student with passion and commitment, a person with unlimited self-confidence, the president of the class, friends with about everyone, a top student academically and most importantly a person who felt a sense of belonging in the world. But as I came out of the summer and into my junior year, the boy that left the prior year was no more. I felt small, I questioned every action I made and overplayed the consequences rather than the benefits. This made me reclusive to everyone I knew, my friends, family, classmates and teachers. My biggest fear was that someone outside of myself would find out about my debacle in life. My sense of belonging disappeared which gave me a lack of motivation to do anything for my future. I grew less and less concerned with my life in all aspects, especially academically. When I entered school in my junior year I gave little attention to my grades. And as I received those first few awful grades, something I never have experienced in my life before, I just didn't understand how to cope with such failure and kept it to myself. This secrecy and fear to let anyone else find out about my grades led me to become even more inclusive and started a domino effect where throughout the year, my situation became worse and worse. Fast forward to the previous summer, where the damage was done and the issues at home settled down. The full impact of what I have done to my future hopes and dreams didn't really set in, until I found a white board in the back of my closet one day. It was from the beginning of freshmen year. I remember sitting down with my sister towards the end that summer in 2012 writing down all the goals and achievements I wanted to complete in high school. As I looked at the board I noticed that up until sophomore year I surpassed let alone fulfilled all of my prior goals I had for myself back then. But when I looked at what I hoped to see myself in my junior year, my heart sunk and I mentally rationalized that I failed to achieve any of my goals that I set for myself. That what I dreamt of myself to be at that point of my life was completely the opposite of where I was actually at. This was especially true for what I wrote for myself on that board for when I would be entering senior year, "Be Happy and have fun" next to a crudely drawn smiley face. I finally realized that even after all that I had done to my academic career, social life, and personal wellbeing that junior year, I was far from being happy. That day I was flooded with millions of different types of emotions of which I had been keeping within myself for the last year. But most importantly I came out that day aware of what I had done and was determined to use all my failures, all those unfulfilled goals, all those low moments in my life to fuel me to strive for what I aspired to see myself back in freshmen year on that white dry erase board.
The lessons we take from failure can be fundamental to later success. Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?
Failure is what allowed me to realize that even when life is not going as planned, you should never give up, and take control of your future. In the past few years I have dealt with failure rather often, something that before a few years ago I was quite unfamiliar with. Where once I was meet with this nonfulfillment, it made me feel completely defeated and I let myself along with the goals I worked at for a great deal of my life all go to waste. The inception of this debacle all began in the summer of 2014, the summer before my junior year of high school. I was faced with numerous family issues of which I could not handle any satisfactorily over the summer, and once school started, everything just took a turn for the worse. I left my sophomore year as a student with passion and commitment, a person with unlimited self-confidence, the president of the class, friends with about everyone, a top student academically and most importantly a person who felt a sense of belonging in the world. But as I came out of the summer and into my junior year, the boy that left the prior year was no more. I felt small, I questioned every action I made and overplayed the consequences rather than the benefits. This made me reclusive to everyone I knew, my friends, family, classmates and teachers. My biggest fear was that someone outside of myself would find out about my debacle in life. My sense of belonging disappeared which gave me a lack of motivation to do anything for my future. I grew less and less concerned with my life in all aspects, especially academically. When I entered school in my junior year I gave little attention to my grades. And as I received those first few awful grades, something I never have experienced in my life before, I just didn't understand how to cope with such failure and kept it to myself. This secrecy and fear to let anyone else find out about my grades led me to become even more inclusive and started a domino effect where throughout the year, my situation became worse and worse. Fast forward to the previous summer, where the damage was done and the issues at home settled down. The full impact of what I have done to my future hopes and dreams didn't really set in, until I found a white board in the back of my closet one day. It was from the beginning of freshmen year. I remember sitting down with my sister towards the end that summer in 2012 writing down all the goals and achievements I wanted to complete in high school. As I looked at the board I noticed that up until sophomore year I surpassed let alone fulfilled all of my prior goals I had for myself back then. But when I looked at what I hoped to see myself in my junior year, my heart sunk and I mentally rationalized that I failed to achieve any of my goals that I set for myself. That what I dreamt of myself to be at that point of my life was completely the opposite of where I was actually at. This was especially true for what I wrote for myself on that board for when I would be entering senior year, "Be Happy and have fun" next to a crudely drawn smiley face. I finally realized that even after all that I had done to my academic career, social life, and personal wellbeing that junior year, I was far from being happy. That day I was flooded with millions of different types of emotions of which I had been keeping within myself for the last year. But most importantly I came out that day aware of what I had done and was determined to use all my failures, all those unfulfilled goals, all those low moments in my life to fuel me to strive for what I aspired to see myself back in freshmen year on that white dry erase board.
