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Just below are 10 essays by Studio SB students that show a range of topics, voices, and styles.
I made up the titles of the essays – most students submit essays without a title. Titles count toward the word count and give content away, so I recommend not having one.
None of the essays are perfect because….there is no such thing. You cannot choose a perfect topic, or write an essay that will please everyone, whether they know you or not. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work hard to write a kick-ass essay. Sofia’s students write, on average 8 drafts before they get to an “almost done” copy.
I feel happiest in an English garden. But not the manicured, architectured, no-walking-on-the-grass kind. More like the kind around ruined castles near my grandfather’s house in …… I love lying in the weedy grass of clovers and dandelions, shielding my eyes from the sun as my hand glows red and a bumblebee floats past my ear. I’m actually a terrible gardener. I think that’s part of the reason why I feel so at home in gardens where I don’t have to fight with nature. An unrefined garden releases me from the urge to seek out perfection.
I often take the manicured approach to my activities. When I auditioned for the All-State chorus, the focus was on strategy and requirements. I failed to consider the art form behind the beautiful pieces I was singing because art didn’t score points. It didn’t matter that my voice didn’t sound the way I hoped because I was looking for quantifiable success and instant gratification. I followed similar meticulousness and accuracy as a tutor at Kumon. The Kumon method was my guide throughout any lesson, dictating how the students were to count (no fingers!), add, read (can you point to the letters? Cuh-ah-tuh: cat!), and write. I wasn’t focused on concepts, but the right answers. Speed and accuracy were the sole measures of mastery. While this created students who were good at arithmetic and Kumon worksheets, I doubted that it improved their critical thinking or even their competency in testing at school. Yet, I went along with the method and felt proud when my students passed their next test.
My difficulty in reconciling discipline and craft is no longer a barrier because I can see the benefits of both. Understanding music theory enables me to decide when to stick by the rules and when to break them. After all, a combination of hard work and emotional investment led me to pass auditions, have a stable part-time job and build up a fencing team. In an English garden, towering topiaries have to be pruned routinely, paths swept clean, grass mown, and tea roses trimmed. Perhaps, my perseverance is foundational for freedom and creativity. Yet a manicured garden can still grow into something close to wilderness. Bulbs once spread evenly in rows multiply to create tangled fields of flowers; smooth, clean stepping stones weather and roughen and grow coverings of moss and lichen. Neat beginnings are not inherently boring or stifling when allowed to flourish into something messier. Now, I prioritize learning over technical prowess. The focus of my audition practices is not on memorization or point-grabbing, but on the resonance, volume, and timbre of my voice. Coloring outside the lines often feels more empowering and rewarding.
My love of English gardens (not the manicured, architectured, no-walking-on-the-grass type) has shown me that I have a choice. I can choose to be disciplined and methodical, or untethered and creative. Or I can choose to be both. Most importantly, I am learning to take risks and try new things. With my job in real estate law, I learn new vocabulary and technology (I even get to use a typewriter!). As a major germaphobe, allowing myself to touch the things everyone else in the office has also handled is a major step in my progress towards imperfection. In sculpture class, I work with unyielding wire to create human figures. The wire either gets bent out of shape too easily or hardly bends at all, but still my person takes shape.
I may be a terrible actual gardener, but I know how to foster growth in my voice, education, and art. I will grow gardens where meaningful work, imagination and fun lead to a life of purpose and contribution. It takes discipline to lay the foundation for imaginative and unpolished work. The discipline is what makes me keep working at these imperfect activities. Creativity allows them to be imperfect.
Music and voice are common topics, so if you choose to write about music/instrument/voice, you need to make sure you discover “uncommon” connections and surprising twists and turns in your essay.
My voice is my strongest weapon that I use beyond the walls of the National Cathedral. It is a weapon I carry to new places, activities, conversations and issues. My voice helps me connect to others and myself at home, at school, in intimate chapels, in clubs, and podcast episodes. I have come to terms with the fact that my voice can be at once harmonizing and dissonant, both supportive and questioning of other voices around me. I have realized that carrying a tune is not always easy but music is that much richer when everyone’s voice is heard.
By discovering singing, I was able to connect to the past and its forgotten composers, and distant history. I discovered old themes and songs written and sung by people who had music as the only way in which they could express their faith and desire for more freedom. I learned how to revive Victoria’s 17th century unaccompanied polyphonic Super Flumina Babylonis and breathe into it my knowledge of history and personal stories. Examining words, notes and keys helped me acknowledge the deeper meaning of lyrics and purposefulness of songs. Whether it is Poulenc’s litany or Dua Lipa’s Levitating, I learned to detect messages of pain, hope and the infinite variety of human experience.
As I was singing old church music, I noticed that there was a lack of music made by women composers. As much as I loved singing Handel and Monteverdi, I started to wonder whose voices have been suppressed and unheard. This came to the forefront when, in April of 2020, in conjunction with the BLM movement, Punjabi farmers in India began to protest oppressive governmental policies. However, unlike in the USA, Punjabi farmers were not allowed to protest and as a result many were imprisoned and killed. I took my voice to social media and various Go Fund Mes. My voice was not mine anymore, rather, I was speaking for those who were silenced.
Singing led me to research social issues, critical historic moments, and people’s undying quest for love and peace. I didn’t have to look far to take my newly-found investigative voice to issues and communities about which I cared deeply. I wanted to learn and engage in conversations about justice and climate change, refugees and migration, women and opportunities. This and COVID prompted me to start a school-wide podcast where students, teachers, queer, Latinx, progressives, conservatives, everyone could be heard.
I soon realized that before raising my voice, I often needed to listen to the voices of others and understand their interests and concerns. During a heated discussion of criminal justice reform in one of the many Gov Club meetings, I needed to step back, read up on complicated ethical and legal arguments, consider general and specific scenarios, and hear all sides. I needed to understand the web of factors before raising my voice against the death penalty. As in music, justice too can be interpreted and re-interpreted and I wanted to find the most inclusive scale.
In my engagements with women’s health, underserved communities, and the politics of climate change, I seek to harmonize dissonant voices and when that is impossible, raise my voice above the rest. Singing, I now realize, is not the only place people can use their voices, and music is not exclusive to people with the perfect pitch. Whether on small or big stages, in tiny rooms or open online forums, my dream is to be able to listen, learn, and contemplate as I find the dynamics and harmony with which I can make a positive change in the world. As of now, I need the impact of Durufle’s Requiem and the confidence of the soprano solo in the Magnificat of Stanford’s Evening Service in G.
I get lost in maps. What I mean is that I can spend hours zooming in on an area to see minute details, and then zooming out to see the big picture. The map I love the most is that of my neighborhood, where within a radius of about ten miles, I have more than twenty relatives, most of them first-generation immigrants, like my family. I have been quite literally raised by a village where change and adaptability are in our DNA.
I know my neighborhood like the back of my hand, including family houses and small businesses, often mixed into one. Unlike English, where there is one word for uncles and aunts, Gujarati has various names depending on who married who and which side of the family they are on. So, at times, when I was younger, it would get confusing who to call what, but with time, I got accustomed to how the titles work. Family is a stretchable term for me. I consider neighbors that are not blood-related to me family, so, in fact, I have countless uncles and aunts. I love my village.
In my house, for as long as I can remember, home, business, and generations have melded in one inextricable whole. When I was younger, and my parents couldn’t afford employees to run their gas stations, Papa, my grandpa, would drop and pick me up from school, take me to the store to start his shift, and transfer me to dad, who’d take me home. While my grandpa introduced me to “sports TV,” watching cricket, the NFL, and NBA, it was dad who taught me how to play basketball, football, and soccer in our backyard (as well as “dhagla baji,” an Indian card game.) He also taught me how to ride my first bike, play table tennis, have good sportsmanship, and brush sadness aside.
The one time I saw dad and Papa cry was when they had to let go of the BP gas station store they had been running for over twenty years. They couldn’t match Wawa’s four-times-above-the-market-price counteroffer, despite the neighborhood petition to keep our family’s store. Dad was forced to get another store, a little way out, which in a short time became the most profitable store we run. Every crisis is an opportunity for a triumph and some well-spent tears, they’d later say.
Sports and spirituality coexist seamlessly in my house. Grandmother, or Bhanu, tends to her small temple in the house with mini statues of Hanuman, Ganesha, Shiv, and other Hindu gods. When Bhanu came to the US, she knew little English and had barely any job experience. When she saw the family struggle, she switched on her entrepreneurship skills and single-handedly introduced the concept of home-cooking services to Richmond. She contacted Indian stores to begin networking and advertising her cooking. I was Bhanu’s first and only English and technology teacher, helping her access, search, and share YouTube videos and use Facebook and WhatsApp. This is how she became the queen of Mexican and Italian cooking.
My family is like an international corporation where each person and household plays a critical role. If one person or family is missing at a get-together, we all feel a bit off, as if a part of a machine is missing. Life experience and spirituality guide this MNC. Even though Papa and Bhanu have little or no education, they have developed marketing, financial and managerial skills I can’t imagine them getting elsewhere. I may have taught Bhanu some English and marketing, but she taught me bigger lessons about how to be brave, caring, and self-aware. “Why are you afraid, ….? If you don’t take the risk, you’d never know what is possible.” This is how I got the courage to jump off the cliff near Rick’s Cafe, drive on the highway for the first time, and present a pitch for Leadership Intiviates.
Like my grandma once said, never put a full stop…
“Confidence In Motion.” That’s how Subaru advertises its cars, propelling those who have that inner belief that they will change the world to achieve new heights and blaze new paths.
I keep trying to start the engine, but the confidence won’t come. The key is in the ignition, and I am ready to go, but no matter how hard I try, the engine is still silent.
I am highly allergic to cashews and pistachios. I always carry an EpiPen with me. I had never used it until one of the most terrifying moments of my life when I mistakenly ate a pistachio on an international flight. I felt myself slipping away, my throat closing in; I felt like I was looking at the situation from outside my body. This is when I remembered my EpiPen. The antidote was injected into my leg: my terror was relieved.
As a child in Burlingame, California, I was often terrified of other kids. Smaller, skinnier, slower than everyone else, I shrunk myself, worried about how others saw me. I was trapped in a vicious cycle. I was not comfortable voicing my opinion or showing my personality. Sadly, there was no EpiPen to relieve my fear.
I have always had that irrepressible desire to learn and discover, go on wild adventures, and solve the world’s greatest problems. But, my ability to act on these aspirations was hindered by anxiety.
Over time, I have learned how to relieve my unease in new situations. I have pushed myself to inject confidence to eliminate self-doubt. I have purposefully pursued activities and situations where I have had to lead and not worry about how others see me. While not used to save me from anaphylactic shock, I have found that a proverbial EpiPen can be used to diffuse a tense situation and could end up saving my life in more ways than I originally thought.
One instance where I needed to stab myself with a dash of confidence was when I started my first job as a restaurant host. Each time someone came up to the hosting station, I felt myself shrinking all over again, feeling that shamefulness; smaller, skinnier, slower. By exposing and forcing myself into a situation that made me feel this way, with my proverbial EpiPen in hand, that all-familiar deafening silence became “Hello, how may I help you.”
Joining my high school’s trivia bowl team (It’s Academic) was a similarly terrifying prospect. Though I have a knack for remembering random facts and remembering them quickly, the thought of having to put myself out in front of an audience and “buzz in” with an answer was terrifying. As a sophomore, however, I mustered up the courage, with my EpiPen of confidence in hand, and joined the team. Even though I lead the club, it has become more of a communal effort, as I want everyone to be comfortable enough to “buzz in” whenever they feel the need to.
Now, I have shed that uncomfortable skin, not needing the injection anymore. I have found an inner voice that supersedes the need for my EpiPen.
I now use that voice to stand up politically. Whether canvassing or phone banking, I am no longer scared of getting rejected or hung up on. My experience overcoming self-doubt has given me a sensitivity to other people’s feelings that I cherish and use to help others with their unease. Whether it is reassuring a dissatisfied restaurant customer or brokering a political negotiation at a Model UN conference, I can now focus on others and the problem at hand, and not worry about how anyone else sees me.
After finding a purpose bigger than my fears, the keychain rattles as I easily turn on the ignition and confidently drive off into the next chapter of life.
“Just cut it.”
Severed locks of my hair, 7 or 8 inches of it, fluttered to the ground around me, littering the white-tiled bathroom floor. Years of growth, years of hiding behind the comfort and consistency of my long hair, swiftly scrapped with the help of my younger sister and some cheap Amazon hair shears. Little did I know those shears would be the helping hand pulling me up out of the turbulent waves of others’ opinions I didn’t even realize I was drowning in.
For years, my hair–long and naturally honey blonde, with a hint of strawberry, as my mom would say–had been an important demonstration of femininity, and my adamant refusal to cut it or switch it up reflected the value I placed in conformity at the time. My hair, as well as my entire image, had been carefully curated for approval until I reduced myself to a shallow reflection of the popular middle school girls I so desperately wanted to appease. Pressure from peers makes it difficult to answer the question of “Who am I?” and the fear of social rejection suffocated the little voice in me that was dying to pursue art rather than cheerleading or proudly listen to anything other than Taylor Swift for once.
I held onto my long golden hair as if it was as precious as the metal, but after years of clinging to an identity centered around the expectations of others, I realized how painful and anxiety-inducing it was to sacrifice myself for the sake of being accepted. So I bought those shears and instructed my sister to cut it all off. I didn’t decide to change because I thought people disliked me, I changed because the longer I clung to the approval of others, the more I disliked myself.
I was insatiable now; that blissful sense of freedom catapulted me into an era of self-discovery. I could be anyone, anything. I cut bangs; I dyed it red, then platinum, then brown, rapidly redeveloping and revising my image at the small cost of bleach damage and parental disapproval.
The question of “Who am I?” was no longer a nagging ache in the back of my mind that I tried to suppress; it was now at the forefront. I disregarded Taylor Swift and Top Hits playlists in exchange for My Chemical Romance and Led Zeppelin. I ditched the pom poms for the paintbrush. I discovered my interest in psychology, philosophy, and social activism, leading me into rabbit holes of reading and research.
Whether it be red as a representation of my fiery fascination in the comorbidity of ADHD and Bipolar Disorder, or rainbow colored to illustrate my passion in organizing school walkouts against anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, my hair is much more than just a medium of self expression; it is the catalyst that taught me to be resolute in my sense of self and outspoken against the confines of mob mentality.
Still, no matter how much color I pile on it, those honey-blonde roots will never fail to grow back in, a reminder of the undeniable influence of the past. When I excitedly dive into a new novel, I am still the little girl who spent hours each night tirelessly pouring over books about Greek Mythology. When I brainstorm a new idea for a drawing, I am still the little girl who doodled on the edges of her worksheets during class.
I do not wish to conceal my natural color, instead I wish to build upon it, recognizing that a layered experience is a richer experience. One day, I may go back to my honey-blonde color but that will not mean I will stop questioning the status-quo and and looking for answers. As I discover new interests and communities, I bring with me the lessons of the past and the recognition that diversity is the gift of learning.
My paternal grandfather and I were never close. We didn’t have quirky traditions or little secrets that were unique to us. To me, he was just another person that I occasionally met at family gatherings. However, my maternal grandfather and I shared a special bond. One particularly fond memory was when he handed the mouthwatering recipe of his Gulab Jamun to me, passed down to him by his mother, which earned me my nickname “Chhota Maharaja” (Little Chef).
I was always acutely aware of the different relationships I shared with my grandfathers. One was a stranger, the other my best friend.
23rd August 2017.
When I heard that my father’s father had passed away, I was conflicted about what I should be feeling. I assumed I would feel regretful, or at least confused, but all I could feel was guilt that I could not feel sorrow for his passing.
They covered the cherry coffin with a coronet of blooming flowers and crushed sandalwood. It was my turn to pay my respects, but I felt too angry to dutifully send my grandfather off. I refused to say goodbye when I didn’t have the chance to ask him why we never had that “picture-perfect” granddaughter-grandfather relationship.
3rd September 2018.
My father took me to my grandfather’s tea estate. I met a gardener who for 63 years had been my grandfather’s best friend. We spoke about my grandfather’s favorite hobbies (tree shaping was particularly strange) and his self-proclaimed title of “the grandmaster of chess.” But what dumbfounded me were the similarities I seemed to share with him. Strangely, these similarities and his childhood memories made me willing to repair our relationship even though he was gone. I realized that it was not the relationship I missed, rather the connection and memories we could have made.
To break free from the chains of resentment, I decided to study human interactions and psychology, convincing myself that this would give me the answer I had been yearning for. How can I fix a broken relationship? I vigorously researched any book I could find. Two of these resonated in a powerful way- Human Relationships by Steve Duck and Extraordinary Relationships: A New Way of Thinking About Human Interactions by Roberta M. Gilbert. I also took a Psychology and Neuroscience course at Oxford, where I delved into the complexity of the human mind. Slowly, rather than seeing research as a pathway to subdue my negative emotions, I started to enjoy it as its own journey of endless discoveries. Topics like the 24 Faces of Billy Milligan and Neurogenesis further piqued my interest. While I knew psychology was not what I wanted to pursue in the future (nanotechnology is too intriguing), I was back to my old self: discovering, researching, and learning. This time, however, I stumbled upon neuroscience because of my grandfather. He opened doorways to new experiences for me, even after he was gone.
Both my grandfathers, in their distinctive ways, taught me something. My mother’s father showed me how being there for someone and supporting them will go a long way. During our “storytimes,” he would tell me of his life experiences and the importance of compassion and love. Through him, I know the value of developing close relationships and the significance of respect for others.
My two grandfathers taught me lessons of affection and forgiveness and the realization that the legacy we leave behind is a work in progress. Not every interaction will follow the definition of an ideal relationship- and that’s okay. I now know that I can learn something from everyone and find things I love in the strangest of places.
My journey began in an orphanage in ….. when I was a baby, barely 2 months old, from where I was adopted. I realize now that the gratitude that I felt towards my parents manifested itself in the form of perfectionism. I had to prove that I was worthy. I overworked myself, studying obsessively to catch up with my classmates. I felt pressure from the school and myself which made it difficult for me to have meaningful interactions with my closest friends.
In fourth grade, I was the girl sitting in the corner of the room, holding a book with large font and pictures. I was far behind my classmates in reading and writing, and they progressed while I struggled to write a sentence. My inability to read and write like others was on display. I lost confidence and felt embarrassed, especially because I didn’t understand what was wrong with me; all I knew was that everyone else could do things that I couldn’t.
I perceived criticism as a critique of who I was. This disheartened feeling affected my performance in all my classes and social interactions. With the help of a speech and language pathologist, I learned how to organize my thought process, translate ideas into sentences, and read carefully instead of skipping phrases. By the time I reached high school, my grades were significantly better and increasing with an upward trajectory. I finally caught up with my classmates and surpassed them to take leadership positions in English.
However, in my effort to prove myself worthy, I failed to invest in doing things that I love: spending time with my friends, composing music on my guitar, writing, or simply having dinner with my parents. During lunch, I grabbed an apple and went directly to an empty classroom to work. At home I had my books out in seconds, working through dinner. Once again, I no longer looked forward to going to school. I was running into a similar problem as the one I had faced earlier, but this time, grades were not the problem. My expectations of myself were holding me back.
I decided to step back and reevaluate what staying on top of work meant to me. If I wanted to enjoy high school, I needed to be more patient with myself. I set aside time for my friends and family and used writing as a form of expression to control my attitude. Writing became both my superpower and my saving grace. My poems won awards, and I became a tutor to teach students lessons I learned along the way: oftentimes our expectations of ourselves hold us back, and a good attitude is necessary to building a healthy approach to life. I became a coxswain on the most competitive high school team in the area because “coxing is all about storytelling,” and we won races because of the stories I told to motivate my rowers. Gratitude took on a new meaning in my life. As a result, junior year was the easiest and most productive for me, despite the academic pressure and workload.
Eight years later, I am now elected co-editor of ……, the award-winning school magazine, have been nominated by the English department for the annual Creative Writing Fellowship, and have participated in the Sewanee Young Writers’ Conference. It has been 8 years of perseverance, disappointments and inconsistent patience.
I’m currently working on a website to raise money for books for ……, a home for underprivileged girls in……. I visited it two years ago. I met young women who looked just like me, and children who resembled my younger self. My dream is for them to have access to books and people who will inspire them, build their hope, and uncover their own stories.
Throughout middle school, I loved watching videos of people with extraordinary and sometimes odd skills. Whether they were juggling fire sticks, or spinning butterfly knives, I was all-in. I never considered trying anything in these videos, as they were simply a visual spectacle to behold. But that all changed when I saw cardistry. Cardistry is the art of playing card manipulation. Cardists, as they call themselves, spin, flip, separate, reconnect, and do anything imaginable to a deck of playing cards. Seeing people perform these amazing tricks with 52 paper rectangles was astounding.
I immediately started learning cardistry moves, which required more patience than expected. Most of my time was spent dropping and searching for cards under chairs and tables. I started with two-hand cuts and quickly graduated to one-hand Revolution and Scission cuts. But I kept observing the precision of the moves and tried different ways to replicate them. Most of my free time was dedicated to practicing spreads and aerials until I was able to accomplish all of the basic moves. The more I learned, the more I was confident in my ability to learn. Before I knew it, I had mastered the skill of manipulating cards.
But as time went on, I wanted to approach cardistry as an artist. All of the cardists who I admired created their own signature moves. Without much confidence, I attempted to do the same. My original moves were not very interesting or even original at first, but here and there, I would experiment and stumble upon an interesting move. Coming up with the flipping of single cards in a modified biddle grip gave me the sensation I imagine climbers get when they reach Everest. As I stylized my signature moves, I saw the light at the end of a tunnel, where dropped cards and creative roadblocks became fewer. Cardistry gave me the confidence that with enough time and a goal in mind, I can create something that nobody has done before.
My journey in cardistry unleashed curiosity about understanding brain processes and the nature of learning. About a quarter of the motor cortex is devoted to the muscles of the hands. I am constantly struck by the variety of routes that different cardists take to create new material. The creative process, as I have found out from research, requires the mixing and remixing of mental representations in new and unusual ways. While cardistry may seem to be centered in the motor cortex, the process of creating original moves is takesing place in different parts of the brain associated with various cognitive processes such as working memory, abstraction, and planning. I have come to realize that I can study and nurture creativity not just in cardistry but in the way I approach concepts in biology, history and English. This may have something to do with my ability to find the exact page where a quote or a reference appears in a book, a skill many of my classmates appreciate.
In the field of artificial intelligence, I am seeing machines constantly improving at imitating human creativity. Machine are creating art and blurring the lines defining what it means to be an artist. The question is increasingly shifting from “can machines be creative” to “how can humans and machines collaborate in the process of creation?’ Within my lifetime, I may see the interaction between artificial intelligence and cardistry play out.
My dive into science and cardistry requires the discipline of learning the basics and humility to learn from the experts. As I contnue to explore new – and possibly odd – skills and phenomena, I want to remember that creativity and perseverance are what leads me to mastery and innovation.
I have always felt a strong connection with the earth and the beautiful things that develop through nature. I marvel at the glistening ocean while the sun is peeking up over the horizon, the various organisms that roam the earth, and the dark sky that lights up when lighting strikes. But I feel a special connection to a small collection of stones that sits on the window sill in my room. Every time I look out my window, I see a row of pink, purple, blue, and white stones that remind me of experiences and memories in my life.
When the sun rays shine through the window, the rose quartz disperses light that reminds me of how I want to show up for family and friends. Its brightness reminds me of hot summers with my cousins solving puzzles and playing Scrabble. It brings back memories of my grandparents in Florida, the sweet kugel, and the first night of Passover. I hear grandpa reciting prayers and asking us to read a section of the siddur. I picture the brisket and potatoes and grandma worrying about food and wine on the table. After Seder, I eagerly search for the hidden afikomen, the piece of matzo covered in cloth.
One of my favorite stones is the dalmatian, which claims to break down barriers and strengthens connections. I think back to when my friend Natalie got a shoulder injury and had to miss many weeks of volleyball practice and team-building exercises. I didn’t want her to feel isolated from the team so I made sure to send her texts after practice to check on her and fill her in on all that she had missed that day. I also remember Emma, a year older than me, who played the same Libero position as me. It was her senior night, but instead of getting recognized, she was left on the bench. I was supposed to go on the court instead of her, but all I could picture was how upset I would be if I was in that situation. I built up the courage to ask my coach for Emma to go in instead. Emma ended up playing that evening, full of joy and gratitude. This is how I strive to match the powers of the earth and show stability and kindness to my friends and teammates.
Next to the dalmatian stone are my two amethysts, symbols of strength and grounding powers. These purple stones remind me of the fears I have overcome in my life. As much as I marvel at the ocean, I have fought my fear of it for years. The truth is that as a young kid, I almost drowned. It’s hard to think about something so beautiful and captivating right in front of me that I cannot fully experience. I was determined to overcome this fear of mine, so I dedicated my summers to working on my swimming, and then eventually became a lifeguard. For the past three years, I have watched over a pool filled with hundreds of little kids that run around and play games. It makes me proud that as a lifeguard, I am able to take that fear away from others. The confidence I have built as a result of overcoming my fear gives me the strength and confidence to help others overcome their fears.
As I prepare to start a new chapter in my life, I will not forget to take my collection of small rocks with me. Or maybe, I’ll leave them home and simply carry the memories of family debates, supporting friendships, and surmounted challenges. I will continue to look for the “rocks” in my life that give me the strength and determination to be my best and be myself a “rock” to others around me, both in times of calm and rocky waters.
Essays of personal struggles, metal health challenges and family dynamics are not very common among my students. Often, when a student wants to write such essays, we work through them, knowing they may not end up being their “personal statement.” Students oftentimes need to get the story out of their system, and the process of writing is itself therapeutic. At times though, these writings end up being the essay. This student ended up in Villanova with a scholarship.
I press the red button, marking the start of a new GoPro video for @hannahlisetravel, my travel account on Instagram. I am 3500 feet above the Luye Highlands in Taiwan, with thousands of palm trees and luscious green hills in view as I rock from side to side, mesmerized by my first experience on a paraglide.
My followers and friends may know me as the girl who loves to travel, but that is only one part of me. The one you would see on the surface.
Underneath this surface is a life most do not know about—a childhood spent as my mother’s marionette, where every action of mine was intended to serve her desires. I was raised to keep my emotions to myself, yet her piercing words could sometimes still manage to break down the walls I had built up. She would twist words I shared with her in confidence and use them against me, require access to all of the family’s email accounts, and secretly scroll through our texts and browser histories—always checking to see what I am doing, always criticizing my decisions, and always needing to be in control.
My one place of refuge from my mother’s overbearance is in the shower, where I am now writing this essay. It is the only room I can lock in the house, providing me with a small sense of privacy and control. It is a safe place, where I am able to truly express all of my thoughts and emotions without any judgment or consequences. A place where I dare to imagine a life outside of my role as a marionette.
Seeking solace and freedom beyond the shower, I began confiding in God for guidance and perseverance. Over time, my faith grew from a family upbringing of weekly church services into a personal journey, teaching me to forgive my mother and instead pray for a better relationship. Talking with my sister has also helped me let go of frustrating feelings and formed a bond between us built upon encouragement and strength. We can talk for hours about everything from our secret languages to my filmmaking dreams, grasping at chances to spend more time together. Pursuing passions on my own, such as volunteering at the hospital and creating montages, has further liberated me. The hospital has not only blossomed my interest in medicine, but also friendships with the staff, sharing movie recommendations and cultural traditions. Capturing treasured memories and carefully editing these to match the beats of the music have brought my visions to life, creating flowing videos that fill me with bliss. Cultivating music has given me a world of my own: a place where emotions and self-expression are not only allowed, but encouraged. Violin has brought me some of my closest friends, a performance with my childhood inspiration, cellist Nathan Chan, and the ability to explore portraying characters completely unlike me. In times of struggle, I play one of my one hundred playlists, each carefully curated for every mood and occasion, releasing the downs of the day and elevating my spirit.
Finding these different outlets of freedom, whether in the shower, in the arts, in volunteering, or with my sister and God, has granted me places of safety, hope, and expression. I have learned how to be strong, confident, and independent. Because of this, I am grateful for my mother. I can be the girl who finds comfort in a 32”x32” space but I am also the one who can fly 3500 feet above the ground, ready to leave behind a life bound by marionette strings and venture into a world of new beginnings.
