Scholarship Essay 2025 by Paige

Scholarship Essay 2025 by Paige - April 2025 Scholarship Essay

I have always been the type of person to make up their mind. Throughout my school journey things were always making me realize what was and wasn't meant for me. I remember telling my mom in elementary school I wanted to be a teacher or veterinarian. This stuck with me almost all of elementary school and some years after that.

Middle school came around and I narrowed it down to I just wanted to be a veterinarian. I thought teaching wasn't for me considering I didn't think it would be a good fit for me. My 8th grade year finally came but ended very soon because Covid-19 came into the picture. That time we were stuck in lockdowns was very difficult for me. Next thing I knew I was starting high school while lockdowns were still active.

When Covid-19 finally ended, I was allowed to go back to in person schooling. I still very much wanted to be a veterinarian so I took as many classes as I could to try and get me to that point. My sophomore year I decided I wanted to be more of an exotic veterinarian because of how much I love animals and want to help them. My junior year came around and my mind started changing a little. I started taking childcare classes because I needed some extra classes. This very quickly turned into one of my favorite things as I realized I loved working with kids.

Throughout junior year I started thinking of becoming a teacher instead of a veterinarian. The only problem I had was I really wanted to do both until March came around. My cat got really sick very quickly the last week of March. It led to him having to go to the vet because of how bad he got. On April 1st, we got the worst news we couldn't even imagine. We got the news he had cancer. The vet said it was moving too fast so even if we did treatment there was a very high chance it wouldn't work. We put him down on April 2nd. Since then, I have realized that I don't have the mental state to be able to do that to animals even in the act of putting them out of their suffering.

Senior year finally came around, I was in the mindset of not sure of what I wanted to do. My school started a thing called dual credit which is where I was allowed to take classes in school for college credit. I retook all the childcare classes because they were dual credit, and I knew I enjoyed them. I got to do my internship which is where I got to go over to the elementary school for half of the school year for an entire class period and work with an elementary class. I got to work with kindergarten, and I absolutely loved it and loved hanging out with the kids and helping them with their work.

Graduation came around and I still had no idea what I wanted to do. Today I changed my mind from cosmetology and education. I leaned towards education but not any education, elementary education. I wanted to apply for school as soon as I could, but money has been a really big issue recently. Fast forward a few months I applied for University of Phoenix and got accepted for elementary education. I’m very much excited for it and can’t wait to one day have a classroom of students that I get to teach.