Hi everyone, below is my essay for UWC scholarship. I would appreciate receiving honest feedback on grammar, coherence and cohesion, etc. It means a lot to have you read my essay and give opinions and corrections.
Prompt: In overcoming an obstacle, hard work pays off. More often than not, however, hard work is not enough. Which specific qualities, in addition to diligence, helped you achieve something you did?
In most cases, hard work and intelligence are two main factors necessary for one to overcome adversity. Creativity, however, is often set aside and is considered the third quality following the above two. Some even argue that in our technology-driven society, a person with a smart brain and a diligent spirit is good enough to overcome any challenge comes at hand. I do not disagree, but could not completely agree either, because it is not my case growing up being the creative kid.
From developing and applying new methods to study hard subjects at school, from trying to make use of thrown away items, to embrace in the making of art, creativity has always taken me on an incredible and spectacularly wonderful joyride. Every time I try to make myself different, I feel happy, I feel useful and mostly, I feel a sense of fullness. That is to say I have a feeling of emptiness whenever I temporarily run out of ideas, an irritating feeling that I can hardly describe to its fullest.
Most of the time, creativity is rather depicted as a stream of water, flowing smoothly through the Mountains of Wisdom and the Forest of Hard Work. Together, the trio nurtures me every day, and to find the balance between the three is my ultimate goal to achieve things in life.
With that being said, I value all three qualities, but deep down I know, I have always had a favor for creativity. As a kid who was easily amazed, creativity came to be a great companion along my growing up. Oftentimes others would find myself clinging to problems but managed to get out by doing "crazy" stuffs. After every such time, I would have learned a new way of solving a specific type of problem, and creativity would get credit for having helped me obtaining such reward.
To achieve means to be challenged. And to be ready for challenge means to be new and fresh every time it comes. And there is no better head start other than having a creative attitude, an attitude to look beyond what is ordinary. Having a wealth of knowledge is good, but having the imagination to exploit the possibilities of things is prominent. A mastermind once said: "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution" (Albert Einstein, What Life Means to Einstein, 1929). Having that imprinted in mind, I constantly try to get as far as I could with the help of creativity and imagination, in its inseparable relations with hard work and intelligence.
In the end, I strongly believe that special individual qualities needed to overcome obstacles vary between different people, but for me, it will always be creativity that I can take pride in. And never stop seeking inspiration is what I am doing, because I am happy to know that by nourishing creativity, I am well-prepared for any challenge up ahead.
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Finally, thank you for taking your time reading my essay. Again, I am more than happy to receive honest feedback from you, the more detailed the better. Have a good day!
Prompt: In overcoming an obstacle, hard work pays off. More often than not, however, hard work is not enough. Which specific qualities, in addition to diligence, helped you achieve something you did?
In most cases, hard work and intelligence are two main factors necessary for one to overcome adversity. Creativity, however, is often set aside and is considered the third quality following the above two. Some even argue that in our technology-driven society, a person with a smart brain and a diligent spirit is good enough to overcome any challenge comes at hand. I do not disagree, but could not completely agree either, because it is not my case growing up being the creative kid.
From developing and applying new methods to study hard subjects at school, from trying to make use of thrown away items, to embrace in the making of art, creativity has always taken me on an incredible and spectacularly wonderful joyride. Every time I try to make myself different, I feel happy, I feel useful and mostly, I feel a sense of fullness. That is to say I have a feeling of emptiness whenever I temporarily run out of ideas, an irritating feeling that I can hardly describe to its fullest.
Most of the time, creativity is rather depicted as a stream of water, flowing smoothly through the Mountains of Wisdom and the Forest of Hard Work. Together, the trio nurtures me every day, and to find the balance between the three is my ultimate goal to achieve things in life.
With that being said, I value all three qualities, but deep down I know, I have always had a favor for creativity. As a kid who was easily amazed, creativity came to be a great companion along my growing up. Oftentimes others would find myself clinging to problems but managed to get out by doing "crazy" stuffs. After every such time, I would have learned a new way of solving a specific type of problem, and creativity would get credit for having helped me obtaining such reward.
To achieve means to be challenged. And to be ready for challenge means to be new and fresh every time it comes. And there is no better head start other than having a creative attitude, an attitude to look beyond what is ordinary. Having a wealth of knowledge is good, but having the imagination to exploit the possibilities of things is prominent. A mastermind once said: "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution" (Albert Einstein, What Life Means to Einstein, 1929). Having that imprinted in mind, I constantly try to get as far as I could with the help of creativity and imagination, in its inseparable relations with hard work and intelligence.
In the end, I strongly believe that special individual qualities needed to overcome obstacles vary between different people, but for me, it will always be creativity that I can take pride in. And never stop seeking inspiration is what I am doing, because I am happy to know that by nourishing creativity, I am well-prepared for any challenge up ahead.
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Finally, thank you for taking your time reading my essay. Again, I am more than happy to receive honest feedback from you, the more detailed the better. Have a good day!
