Scholarship essay

Scholarship essay

As Franklin Roosevelt once said “It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage that we move on to better things”. My childhood was filled with memories of happiness, sadness and the loss of experiences that have made it hard for me to grow up. I’ve had to show my strength to overcome things and the courage to walk away from things that aren’t good for me without knowing if it will affect me in a bad way. Throughout the past few years I have found that in life people go through things that have extreme effects on them, in my life it was the loss of my parents raising me but by moving on from that loss and allowing it to influence them; they become a better person.
I grew up in a Mexican household of only boys where my parents taught my brothers and me that family meant everything and would overcome all obstacles. I was also taught that family is the backbone and that love within a family should always be unconditional and something that drives a person to never leave it. I have countless memories about my family all meeting up for special occasions and it seemed like no matter how far we were or fights and problems within the family we were always family at the end of the day. While growing up the words my parents stated seemed harder to believe, especially the day I entered foster care. At the age of thirteen I was placed into foster care for my parents neglecting me and ever since then I’ve been raising myself. The real actual time I can say I had a family I knew was the day I entered foster because every day after that I lost them more and more. My parents were there for me for about a year going to supervised visits and attending therapy and I thought that everything was okay until the day I actually stood up for myself. In one of my court hearings I decided to state that I wanted to attend public school because every day before that I had been going to homeschool for my parents giving them their wishes. After that day my mother wouldn’t treat me the same I was just known as someone who had went against her she would argue with me every chance she got and it tore me apart inside. My parents started changing after that one getting on drugs while the other spent money on the guy who put me in foster care, it was their way to run away from things but also the way my family was ruined. Within months my parents were gone and my family fell apart. The influence I got from that experience was probably something that changed me the most I’ve become a very emotional person and haven’t been able to trust people fully. It has also made it very hard for me to have a relationship with people because I’m afraid to experience that loss again. The way that it influenced the way I feel about my appearance was that it made me feel really ugly and like I was worthless, that led to me starting to work out so that I could feel good about myself. When going to the gym it wasn’t so much how many pounds I lost, but I wanted to walk out of there feeling beautiful, I wanted to feel like I belonged to something.
In a Mexican family a man is expected to work to care for his family while his wife is expected to make sure the house is in order. My mother and father taught me different, which gave me the opinion that marriage is equal and neither the husband nor the wife should have the upper hand. The fact that I grew up with a disabled father makes a difference and allowed me to see that sometimes the man can’t always do the work and at that point it’s the woman’s responsibility to take control and take the lead. I remember countless times watching my father cook while my mother went out and worked and others when the roles would be switched. They have also influenced me to believe that a woman can make something of herself and can pursue an education in her dreams with or without the support of a man. The expectations of women in society today have allowed women the chance to show that they are useful for something other than cleaning and cooking. My parents were not the only ones to influence me about a marriage, my aunt and uncle gave me the idea that there should always be support within a marriage and without it the marriage may not last. The respect between couples is very important without it either the women or the man will feel worthless and that feeling may lead them to do things that will hurt them. There are thousands of pieces of proof all over the world with abusive relationships and neglect that prove that, I’m one of them. Awhile back I was in a relationship where the guy I was with was controlling. The relationship entered a point where he didn’t have respect for me he would make me cry constantly and it would make me feel ugly inside. I didn’t do anything dumb but the relationship brought me to a point of depression and changed the way I viewed things.
The hardships I have faced have been a tremendous motivation for me to pursue my dreams into what I want to do; which is be a social worker or special education teacher . The reason that I want to become a social worker is because of how much of an affect foster care has had on me as a person. Foster care has helped me grow into someone respectful and cherish the things that I have in my life. I feel that I could give hope to other children who experience the things that I have or even things that are worse. The things that make me good for the job is that I have a great understanding of how it feels to go through something and then try to pick yourself up after and that would help me in what I want to do. Being in foster care has also given me a chance to experience what most kids I want to work with will go through and will help me connect with them. Most kids that go through foster care believe that they are the problem but as a foster child I believe the parent knows better than us and the child is never to blame. My parents spent most of the time they had with me to blame me for everything that went wrong and put me here but I know now it wasn’t my fault. If my parents leaving taught me anything I would say that it taught me that if you have a dream go for it, because nobody is going to hand it to you. While some of the experiences I have been through have affected me badly others have taught me that I can’t forget who I am or my dreams. My only goal in life would be to not follow the route my parents chose, I have spent a lot of my life trying to avoid every possible chance of becoming like them. All the heartbreaks brought me a pain I’ll never forget but they brought strength inside me that helps me every day to believe that I have a reason to be in this world and that I can make it to my dreams.
Despite all the loss of experiences and my parents I have been able to overcome a lot of obstacles that have been put into my path and have been able to stay on track to reach my dreams. My parents deciding not to be a part of who I become put me in a bad position because it made me not know if I was really going to be able to make it on my own but I have. I have become a really good person inside and out and learned from what I’ve gone through and used it to my advantage. In society today if I let the things in my past get me down I’ll never be able to achieve the things that I want to and make a life for myself. Being able to get myself through things and raising myself has given me a chance to experience certain responsibilities that I will have later on in my life. I have taught myself how to handle certain situations and have learned from experience that as a women coming from a childhood of hardships, I have a lot of reasons to strive for my dreams. I have dreams for myself and whether I take on them alone or with a partner I know I’ll be okay because I’ve learned how to be independent and take control of my life. I recently have decided that I am going to go to Fresno State to pursue my dreams and hopefully help children. I have a passion to be able to be there for someone going through obstacles in their life; and know it will give me a sense of relief to know I prevented them from getting hurt. I have learned that no matter where a person comes from it doesn’t define who they will be for the rest of their life. A person always has the choice to stand up and say that’s enough; this is my life. At the end of the day though I can say I’ve become a really strong person inside and out and for that I will never regret what I have gone through. This is why I believe I deserve this scholarship and know that I will work for it and show my abilities if I get it.