Hey everybody!! This essay is due really soon (within three days) and I really needed to know if it answers the prompt well enough, as well as if there are any excess words that I can cut. Thank you SO much!
Prompt: Essay Question: What field do you intend to pursue if you receive the CHCI Scholarship, and how will the Latino community benefit? *
Word Limit: 300 words minimum; 600 words maximum
My grandfather wiped the sweat from his brow. Working in the fields of Texas was backbreaking labor; the serious faces of the workers around him reflected his own discomfort. But he had to provide for his family; he could not give up. Sadly, at age 67, he would die unexpectedly of a massive heart attack while tending to his garden. Though I was never blessed with the opportunity to know him, his legend lived on through family stories of his perseverance and self-sacrifice. As I aged, I realized that the greatest gift he ever left behind was the opportunity to build my dreams off of the struggles he endured. In my dream, I strive to be a doctor and to ensure the prosperity of families much worse off than my own. Just as my grandfather fought to lay the foundation for future generations, I face the challenge of financing and receiving an education - all in the hopes of rescuing those who make as much a difference in their families as my grandfather had in mine.
My mother, who often frequented her family in Guadalajara, used to take me with her to give me a perspective of my own privileged life. A somber mood hung over the slums like a sickness as we passed through on our way to our destination. There, yellow fever, malaria, and typhoid wreaked havoc in the neighborhoods, and the effects were palpable. The glazed eyes of illness-stricken children followed us wherever we went, peeking out from small shacks. Our visits never lasted long - just long enough to brush up on my own Spanish-speaking skills and maybe get un helado (an ice cream) or two. Soon enough, we would be off, back to the United States and back to our blessed lives. What I had seen remained burned into my mind, but it was miles away, now just a memory. Never did I once think the sickness would follow us home.
I knew something was wrong when my parents entered the house and sat my brother and me down. With tears in their eyes, they told us the doctor's diagnosis: my mom had breast cancer. As time passed, she grew weaker and her checkups at the local hospital evolved into weeks of chemotherapy treatment. While Dad spent days on end by her side, I remained at home delving into various treatments, medicines, and procedures I could recommend to the doctors - as if I were qualified. In school, my chemistry and biology classes could tell me all about the organic compounds in the phospholipid bilayers of a pulmonary artery, but it could never relate to the emotional aspect of watching a loved one wither in the face of illness. I was already a student of that lesson. The medical field was calling and I had a reason to pursue my dream, a duty to not only my mother but also to the children in Mexico.
As Mom slowly recovers and my plans for college narrow, I strive to become the doctor I always knew I could. Today, when I picture the sick children in Mexico, they don't appear as memories of the past; instead, they are goals for the future. If I am additionally blessed with the CHCI Scholarship, I intend to bring my dreams into reality, specifically to the impoverished slums of Mexico in the form of clinics dedicated to treating the most devastating illnesses in their lives. Perhaps - like my grandfather - I can lay the foundation for others to build their own dreams as well, and give them the fighting chance they deserve.
I am blown away by the eloquence and power of your essay and your story! I would leave it as is, since it is still under the word limit. Just one extra word:
As Mom slowly recovers and my plans for college narrow, I strive to become the doctor I always knew I could be .
Great job, and best of luck!
