June was a busy month for us. With over 100 high-quality submissions for our Make My Education Matter contest, we definitely had our hands full. Last month, we were able to narrow down our submissions to just a few finalists, and then a winner for each of the categories. As I mentioned in my previous post, one of the overarching themes that was clear among the majority of the essays was that your education mattered to you, because many of you had goals that you wanted to achieve. That’s definitely something that will continue to inspire us here at eScholar.
Thank you again to everyone who submitted a response, and congratulations to our two winners, Claire N., and Thomas L. Here are their two essays. I hope you are as impressed with them as I am.
From Claire N.:
Could I be where I am today without education? My education does matter to me. It is very important to me that I go to a good college, and get a good job. I really enjoy going to school every day, and learning something new. I will now explain my feelings about school further to you.
When I was younger I would want to be a doctor then a princess, or a police man. Now I know I would like to be an orthodontist when I grow up. I feel that it is one way I could help many people feel better about themselves. Giving people a beautiful smile would make me feel great! In school I don’t see a connection with becoming an orthodontist. Sometimes when I don’t feel like studying I remind myself it will help me get into a great college. That will help me become an awesome orthodontist.
I do wish there were some other subjects in school. I wish there was a class where you could try out other jobs. You could have a new job to try every day. Then you can decide which job you enjoy best, and which one you would like to make your career. I think this class would make the decision of which job I would want to pursue easier. Some goals I would like to achieve are go to a great college and get a good education, and give many people the gift of a great smile.
Having a good education would help me accomplish all my goals. After my family, education is the second most important thing in my life. My education is very important to me, and has gotten me to where I am today. A good education will help me accomplish all I have every wanted to do. I hope I answered your question for you.
From Thomas L.:
There are many different reasons my education is very important to me. Most people think that education would help me get a job in the real world, but for me, it is different. I have so many different reasons that the number is almost stratospheric. Despite this, I will share the three most important reasons to me: I want to expand my horizons as a person, I want to gain knowledge that will help me in my life, and I want to teach people more about Autism and help them understand it more, because believe it or not, I am autistic myself.
The first big reason is that I would like to become more open-minded and be able to expand the abilities that I have, not just intellectually, but also emotionally. Being educated with other students gives me opportunities to talk and become friends with people and expands my horizons. Talking with people also has helped me see how people view the world and how they think about things, which helps me understand people better and I have come to realize that the more people I talk with, the happier and more complete my life is.
The second big reason is that throughout my life, I have always had a hunger for knowledge. The majority of this is due to my father, who was able to get me into a general education classroom instead of being in a Special Education class. By the time I entered Kindergarten, I had over a 1000 word vocabulary because of him teaching me so much. Thus, I have always been curious about things and like to learn things, and school is practically my haven for that. I have always thought that the material I learned was useful and interesting, and I enjoy almost every minute of it.
The third reason that education is important is because of my dream of becoming a neurophysiologist. I have in the past few years read many articles on people with Autism being bullied, and I have been disgusted by the things that have happened to some of these kids. Thus, I started to research more about what Autism actually was, and through that, I got to be very interested in my Autism, and thus, I wanted to know how the symptoms of Autism occur and what factors cause the different types of Autism to be different. Ever since, I have aspired to help people with Autism in my own unique way by becoming a neurophysiologist and discovering more about Autism. In order to reach that however, I have to go to college and get a degree, which means going to school. I have to be educated. It’s just as simple as that.
In conclusion, I feel that without education, I would never be where I am today. All I hope is that one day, everyone will realize why education is so important, and that without it, we wouldn’t have the great things that we have today.
Click here to see our complete list of finalists and more essay excerpts.
