Making a Difference by Caleb

Making a Difference by Caleb - January 2017 Scholarship Essay

Through my years of being in public schools, I was always told that I was a very good leader and should think about going into the field of teaching. During my senior year, I actually had an opportunity to do this. I was the president of my high school choir, which means when the teacher wasn’t there, it was my job to teach the kids their music. I did this for an entire year before I realized that I didn’t have the patience to do it. Though this leadership position was not the right one for me, I was in another leadership position at the time.
I was a part of the National Honors Society from my junior year on. During my senior year, they needed people to step up and take leadership positions within the club, so I put my application in to be the treasurer. When I heard that I got the position, I was very excited and nervous at the same time. I knew that it would be a lot of work, but I also knew from my experiences in the club the previous year, it would all be worth it. I think the most rewarding thing about being in the club was when we got to go to the nursing home. All of my life, I have been around elderly people, so they are the ones that I know how to deal with the best. We would go and play bingo with them once a month, and nothing was more rewarding than seeing the looks on the elderly’s faces when they would win a prize or one of us would take time out of running bingo to have a conversation with them. Most of these older people never had visitors. This brought tears to my ears knowing that these elderly people were someone’s grandma. Someone’s mother. At some point, they just became a problem so people would drop them off here in this nursing home so they wouldn’t have to deal with them anymore. My experiences playing bingo with these older people are something that I will never forget. To know that I was one of the few people in their lives that they could actually look forward to seeing is something that I will always hold close to my heart. This experience is without a doubt, the most life changing thing I have been through so far, but I hope to have many more experiences like this in the veterinary field.