From Zoom Calls to Mint Tosses: How My Guidance Counselor Spun My Life Like a DJ by Alana

From Zoom Calls to Mint Tosses: How My Guidance Counselor Spun My Life Like a DJ by Alana - January 2025 Scholarship Essay

When I think about someone who has significantly impacted my educational journey, my high school guidance counselor immediately comes to mind. Since 9th grade, he’s been my go-to person, my unofficial life coach, and honestly, one of the reasons I didn’t give up during my roughest moments.

Back in 9th grade, I wasn’t exactly thriving. To put it bluntly, I was in a pretty dark place. I felt unmotivated and impulsive, thanks to a mix of COVID isolation and a severe lack of inspiration. My grades were doing their best impression of a nosedive, and my mindset wasn’t any better. That’s when my guidance counselor stepped in, hosting his Google Zoom meetings like some kind of motivational DJ. His office (or, at the time, his Zoom square) became my safe space. He’d listen to me vent and somehow sneak in bits of life advice without making it feel like a lecture.

What made him different was how real he was. He didn’t just nod and throw out generic advice. He’d share pieces of his own life and struggles, which made me feel so much more comfortable opening up to him. During my second semester, I managed to do *a little* better—not a dramatic transformation, but progress. He didn’t sugarcoat anything though. He told me to let my failures propel me toward something greater. It was classic him, mixing inspiration with tough love in a way that actually made me believe in myself.

By 11th grade, I was finally starting to figure things out. He helped me search for colleges and gave me great advice on how to make my applications stand out. At the same time, I was focusing on my grades, which made us both pretty proud. It felt like I was finally stepping into the version of myself that he had seen all along.

One of the coolest things about him was his side business as a DJ. He wasn’t just my guidance counselor; he was also someone who knew how to bring a room to life. One day, he gave my close friend and me an incredible opportunity. He invited us to learn how to DJ and even let us co-host an event at the school. It wasn’t just about having fun, although we definitely did, we were also able to gain community service hours while picking up a unique skill. I’ll never forget how patient he was, showing us the basics of mixing and encouraging us to just have fun with it. Watching him do his thing was inspiring, and having the chance to be a part of it was one of the most memorable experiences of my high school years.

By senior year, I was on a roll. My grades were looking good, my mindset was better, and I had made the academic comeback I had been working toward. College application season, though, was an entirely different beast. It was stressful, emotional, and overwhelming. He was my anchor through it all, always reassuring me when I started to doubt myself. On his desk, he kept my favorite mints, which sadly weren’t just for me, but we made it our thing. At the end of every meeting, he’d toss me one, and I’d practice my catching skills. Let’s just say my success rate wasn’t perfect, but it always put me in a better mood.

Once the chaos of college applications was over, the stress finally started to ease up. By then, we’d built such a strong bond that he became my favorite person in the entire school. I even started bringing him home-baked treats as a way to say thank you. In between bites of cookies or banana bread, he’d remind me to focus on myself, to let failure be the beginning of something new, and to stop stressing over the things I couldn’t control.

Now that I’m in college, I don’t have someone like him to toss me mints or drop life-changing advice in the middle of a conversation, but his lessons are still with me. College has been a big adjustment, but I carry his words and habits with me every day. I focus on what matters, remind myself that failure isn’t the end, and accept that growth doesn’t always happen in a straight line. I’ll always be grateful for his guidance, his belief in me, and all those moments when he showed me I was capable of so much more than I thought. Also, I’ll never forget the mint-throwing game or my short-lived DJ career, both of which taught me that growth can be fun if you let it.