Shawn Coleman Personal Statement For most of my childhood, I was always faced with challenges but I never had to deal with any sudden life changing challenges. However, the major turning point in my life started as I began my undergraduate studies. I recall it was just about the time that the recession began and with it came numerous challenges both financially and socially in my family. This was a new experience for me and dramatically entering into such adversity at first was very difficult for me to handle. These difficult times had a negative impact on me in many ways including my undergraduate performance, but as time went by; my experience nurtured me to cultivate more resilience to overcome these problems. Throughout my college studies, …show more content…
When I look back at the manner in which my family’s financial stability was crippled and ultimately changed my life during the time, I feel much more empowered to follow this path and succeed in it. Whereas I marvel at conditions that have brought me to this juncture in my life, I appreciate the fact that I have learned the importance of hard work, the rewards of determination and most importantly the strong belief in oneself that is a prerequisite for any success. I will remain forever grateful to my parents for nurturing in me the moral responsibility to reject indecision especially in the face of adversity as a way to perceive the …show more content…
It’s been close to five years since I received my BA from Mississippi State University and the skills I have gained since then has matured me to a new level. In addition I have gained key time management, leadership, communication and strong ethics skills which will be very beneficial toward pursuing my law degree. I am stronger now and more focused than ever to pursue my dream. I am prepared to take on the rigorous courses at Florida Coastal Law School and become a success story. I am willing to take any route for admission including the AAMPLE program, if necessary. I vow to work to ensure that my past issues do not hinder me from achieving my goals and determining my future. I believe that my experiences have made me mature to reach this life-long desire and hopefully inspire others in the way. Through my journey from the beginning I have always taken responsibility for my mistakes but equally importantly, I have drawn valuable lessons from them and ultimately gotten wiser and stronger. I can also credit these experiences for allowing me to be successful with the challenges I faced as a young entrepreneur and operating my own
Halfway through dinner I decided to tell them. “That 's great baby, you know we support you no matter what,” says my Mom. As I bring out the numbers for college tuition, their faces seem to changed from excited to nervous. “I cannot afford that, honey,” says my Dad quietly, being unemployed then. That upset me because I was determined to follow my dreams.
Upon being faced with adversity many individuals are prone to shutting down but true strength derives from the ability to become stronger from obstacles in your path and how you develop them into opportunities. Throughout a person’s lifespan, an individual will always be confronted with hard and difficult obstacles that they must overcome such as the divorce of parents, the death of a loved one, or even relocating homes. People should try to approach these obstructions with open arms and try to learn how to become better individuals from it and not just try to get over it. I believe that everybody should try to face their obstacles in their life slowly and accumulatively, starting from the smallest problem in their life and end up ultimately being able to overcome very and difficult obstacles in the
My story began on a cool summer’s night twenty short years ago. From my earliest memory, I recall my father’s disdain for pursuing education. “Quit school and get a job” was his motto. My mother, in contrast, valued education, but she would never put pressure on anyone: a sixty-five was passing, and there was no motivation to do better. As a child, my uncle was my major role-model. He was a living example of how one could strive for greatness with a proper education and hard work. At this tender age of seven, I knew little about how I would achieve my goals, but I knew that education and hard work were going to be valuable. However, all of my youthful fantasies for broader horizons vanished like smoke when school began.
When my father lost his job, our family lost many of the comforts that we once took for granted due to a reduced income. Money became a very large issue and with it came many limitations on wants and desires that were so accessible before my father lost his job. Furthermore, the loss of his job brought about immense shame for my father. Yet, rather than become embarrassed over my father losing his job and sad due to the fact that I could no longer have as many material possessions, I came to accept the different lifestyle. By letting go and accepting, the room was made for new experiences, joys, understandings, and lessons.
In Junot Diaz’s essay “The Money” he explains where his family stands economically. Stating that his father was regularly being fired from his forklifting jobs and his mother 's only job was to care for him and his four siblings. With the money brought home by his father, his mom would save some. Her reason was to raise enough to send to her parents back in the Dominican Republic. When his family went on a vacation, they came back to an unpleasant surprise; their house had been broke into. Eventually Diaz was able to get back their money and belongings. Diaz returned the money to his mother although she didn’t thank him for it, this disappointed him. Like Diaz I have also encountered a similar situation where I was disappointed. When I was in second grade, my life life took a completely different turn. My dad took an unexpected trip to Guatemala, on his return, the outcome was not what I expected.
After reviewing my life, I have decided my life defining moment was when my family and I moved to Texas from Oklahoma. I consider this move my life changing moment because it changed so many things in my life. This move set the stage for an entirely new life for me. Moving six hours away from the only home I knew certainly called for many changes.
I never once in my life sat down with myself and really thought about what my parents had to go through and all the sacrifices they had to make in order to ensure that I have a better life and a brighter future. Thinking back now, the frustration I feel eats away at me constantly that I was not more thankful and did not do more to help. This is most definitely a lesson that is learned better late than never. Going forward now I have three main focuses for when I enter college, the first is undoubtedly God and my spiritual life, which forced me to have this revelation. The second focus has to be my family, which I appreciate and value more than ever now. The final focus I have, but certainly not the least, is to be successful in my endeavors throughout college. Seeing how much my parents cared for me by seeing them work as hard as they could just so my siblings and I could live a better life gives me all the motivation in the world to work as hard as I can to not only give back to them, but for my future children to live an even better life than I
The area of my life that I chose to make a positive change in was my inability to be wise with money. This element of my life was something I had intended to work on for quite some time, and this mini-journey was the perfect way to kick-start my goal. I found this process to be exceptionally successful, but it didn’t come without its challenges.
As I am preparing for a new chapter in my life, I have put a lot thought in about what I want out of life and what to look forward to as I get older. In order for one to achieve anything, they need to set goals to reach for. I have a handful of goals for my future, short term and long term, that I will actively work towards in my college years and beyond. In my time at UW Eau Claire, I plan to be involved and engaged in student activities on campus. Being active will help me meet new people, build a better resume, and have fun at college. At UWEC, I would like to get involved in anything musical, along with various clubs and Greek life. Similarly, another goal of mine is to have a job on campus. Having a job will not only help me make some
It’s lucky for me to have parents who can support me to go to school and have a happy life. I see the miserable life of those people and I feel more than ever that I should work hard so that I’m not wasting my advantages. That’s the most important thing I learnt from this job. And it’s good to learn it before too late.
Throughout my life, I’ve always had big dreams and goals set for my life just like everyone else. I would constantly daydream and picture myself fulfilling my dreams. But, when the time came to actually plan out how I was going to reach my goal, I couldn’t figure out which path would lead me to my desired future. Every option I would contemplate on doing and try would somehow fail and crumble before my very eyes. After several attempts, I began to question if I was even good enough or qualified enough to go to college. To me, it seemed like the people who had a chance to make it in life were the ones with resourceful parents or the students who were in I.B or in numerous A.P courses. The possibilities of a little Hispanic girl like myself,
Like everyone else, family and friends have played a vital part in my life and have affected my outlook on money and career. I grew up in a family of six, with my father, who is an IT engineer, as the head and sole breadwinner of the family because in my country -Saudi Arabia- there aren’t many opportunities for women to advance. Although he made sure that we lived a pretty comfortable life, I would often see him foregoing his needs and wants to fulfil those of his family. So, I wondered about how different our lives could have been if my mom (or me as the oldest child) were working along with him. I believe that a person
There has been so many obstacles in my way as I have gone on this journey to success
I have made many achievements in my life. I am happy to be such an achiever at things. I remember my first achievement which was in kindergarten. In kindergarten I got on the honor roll for the first time. I was so happy, but I was just happy because my mom was happy. I didn’t even know what honor roll meant, but I finally founded out that is meant that I got all A’s. My mom was so happy for me, and I got lot of money for my A’s. After that my next achievement was that I learn how to ride a bike. When I first started to ride a bike with no training wheels I kept on falling. After I kept falling I didn’t want to learn anymore, but I saw that my little cousin was riding a bike, so I just had to learn how to ride a bike. Finally, after all the sores and burses, I learned how to ride a bike. I still fall every now and then.
My whole life I have lived with a single thought in the back of my mind, that thought haunted me sometimes and made me worry about who I might become as a person in the future. I always wondered what I was going to do with my life even when I was young. With the consistent pressure from my parents to work at a young age and to also keep up with my good grades, I began to develop a lot of stress. Through it all, I realized that enjoying time spending time with my friends and sitting on my latest console gaming all day was going to change.