Columbia University personal essay - a sense of who you are
Facing the challenge - the way to succeed
An experience from the past two and half years has taught me something that will be invaluable for me in the future. I have learned not to flee but to stay and face something that is unavoidable in life: challenges and difficulties.
Unlike my classmates, Swedish is not my mother tongue. It is in fact the third language I learned. I came to Stockholm when I was seven and for the first three years I attended an international school. When it was decided that my family and I were going to stay in Sweden permanently, I was thrown into a Swedish school.
During my first year at Enskilda Gymnasiet, the inadequacy in my Swedish proficiency started to become more and more noticeable. My first two essays from the course Swedish A were filled with dispositional and grammatical errors. They also lacked, as my teacher had called it, "a decent flow". By the end of the first term, I hated everything that had to do with Swedish because it screamed the words 'incompetent' and 'dumb' to me. In frustration, I tossed away my Swedish notebooks, but deep down inside, I kept asking myself 'am I having the right attitude?'
When spring came, I decided to give extra Swedish tuition a shot. Even though I was feeling pretty dejected, a part of me thought that it was time to do something. That spring, I buried myself in stacks of books and papers, and wrote one essay after another. As my second year in high school approached, I stood before two choices: I could either take the course native Swedish B or the course Swedish as a Second Language. Shall I challenge myself or shall I flee from the tough difficulties that faced me? My decision was the former one because I wanted to show myself that I could reach the native standard.
That fall, the first assignment in Swedish B was an analytical essay about a book my classmates and I had read that summer. I sat in front of my computer four nights in row writing and deleting until every sentence got perfect, and it was one of the best moments in my life when I got an A with a star on the assignment. This achievement gave me the encouragement I needed as I continued to fight for the highest grade in Swedish B. The biggest reward came in March when I was one the few who got an A on the mid-term grade report in the course.
I know now that the right way to tackle a difficulty is not to give up. If I face and work on it, I will make it. In the future, I will face more and bigger difficulties than what I am facing today. I may not succeed in dealing with them at first, but I will definitely not turn my back on them and just walk away. I will persist and improve until I succeed. As life continues, there will be plenty of frustration and tears, but if I have the right attitude, nothing is impossible. If practice makes perfection, then tenacity makes success.
In frustration, I tossed away my Swedish notebooks, but deep down inside, I kept asking myself, 'am I having the right attitude?'
When spring came, I decided to give extra Swedish tuition a shot. What does that mean?
As my second year in high school approached, I had two choices: I could...
Shall I challenge myself or shall I flee from the tough difficulties that faced me?
I sat in front of my computer four nights in row writing and deleting until every sentence was perfect, and it was one of the best...
If practice makes perfection, then tenacity makes success.I like this sentence!
Excellent! You explained this very well, and I think this essay has some great sentences -- you write very artfully.
The theme of never giving up may be a little too simple. I think you can add something to this theme at the end. You can add some insight about how you can avoid the temptation to give up or how persistence can be meaningful. The trick is to explain the theme of "not giving up" in a way that expresses an important, unique, related truth.
However, that is just an idea; the essay is already impressive!
