I took the risk and become an elementary teacher. CBEST- Any risk that you have taken in life!

shifting career from PR publicist to a teacher

'Your life should include innumerable risks' read a hoarding while I was on my way with my mother to the university to pay up for the first semester of my graduate college. I had cleared all the entrance exams with great difficulty to get into the Masters in Public Relations program. I was elated when I had received a mail which confirmed my admission to the esteemed university.

I had graduated with a bachelor of Mass Media with majors in advertising. I had an artistic and creative streak in me which always motivated me to select the field of mass media. Back in school, I was not a very intelligent child or a favorite of any subject teacher. I did not get the best of grades but I would actively participate in all the school events and competitions and always ranked in the top three positions. I could see myself in the entertainment business has a PR publicist n the next seven years after college.

Filling out the details on the application form before paying the fees, I met a bunch of sophomores who were coming out the exam hall. I happened to go up to them on my mother's insistence to ask them about the course which I was applying for. Upon talking to them we came to know that the course had a few drawbacks like the class timings were odd and mostly late nights, the faculty members were mostly absent and not that proficient and there were no job placements upon completion of the program. I was next in line to pay up, but I stepped back and sat on the bench nearby in dubiety to reconsider my decision. I was clueless and lost.

My mother out of the blue asked me to join the Early childhood program which my best friend had applied for. I was unsure about it as I had no background information and no inclination towards teaching. I always wanted to be a PR publicist, unlike someone who would be surrounded by twenty kids and do an 8-2 job. Coincidently, the last day to register for the teaching course was that day itself. Suddenly, the hoarding which I had come across in morning came to my mind and I decided to take the risk of becoming a teacher after constant nagging from my mother.

We immediately left for the teaching institute. It was a very sudden and risky decision as it was a complete career change. I was unsure about the decision but my mother propelled me and explained why this would be one of the best decision of my life. On my way back I came across the hoarding again, and somewhere I felt I a little sure about what I was about to do. The thought of failure did come in my mind but I soon remembered what my professor once told me, "You will at some point in life be confused which direction to go in, always choose the one which you are unsure about." I was constantly struggling with these contradictory thoughts when finally I arrived at the gate of the teaching institute.

Today, I feel proud and brave to take the risk of shifting my career option from a PR publicist to an elementary teacher. The time spent in school is the most pleasurable as I feel relaxed and motivated to teach the kids. This profession has taught me plenty things but the most important lessons I learned was the day when I started taking risks.

Kushboo, due the the lengthy narrative that you used before you finally got to the point in the last 2 paragraphs of your essay, your work will not score higher than a 2. The risk should be evident from the very start of your essay. Instead, you wrote a creative writing piece about how you finally chose your college major. That is not the purpose of this essay. The essay is supposed to focus on a specific risk that you have taken in life. While I will admit that you did take a risk by enrolling in a college major that you had absolutely no interest in, the problem is that you did not say that from the very start. So by the time you got to the point, you had gone so far off track at the start that the examiner would have decided that you lost focus on the idea behind the prompt. The fact that you passed the decision making process to your mother and you just went along with it also shows that you used a very simple response to what should have been a complex decision making process. These are the reasons why this essay cannot score higher than a 2 in my opinion.

Thank You so much for your constructive feedback! I shall try harder now. Apart from focussing on the topic, is there anything else that I need to focus or practice now. I have my exam in 4 days.