Ethan Trott

Mrs. Cramer
Comp I Pd. 4
3 Sept. 2015
The Impact of Moving
A significant experience that I have faced that has had a large impact on my life would be
moving away from my hometown, Coudersport, to Bradford with my mother in 2008. In this
year, my mother had recently been divorced and had downsized due to the deterioration of the
company where she was employed. Because of this, she and I moved to Bradford so she could
live with her future husband and regain a stable income. This experience had a large impact on
my life for many reasons. It made me change my views on many things whether it be political or
simple things like someone's home, and it showed me that not everyone thinks the same all over
the world.
Firstly, moving to a new town greatly changed my views on many things. This is mainly
because the town I had moved away from was much smaller than Bradford which allowed room
for more opinions. For example, in my old town, people did not seem to care about which part of
town you lived in because everyone had similar incomes and their houses looked relatively the
same- giving a nice sense of community. When I came to Bradford, it seemed like people were
judged on where they lived. People who lived in low-income houses were only classified by that
rather than who they were as a person. This not only made me feel bad for the people who lived
there, but it taught me not to judge people based on their income because it's discriminating and
hurtful. Moving here also made me realize a difference in political views. When I first

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moved here, I didn't understand politics at all and didn't care much. I really started to
understand when I arrived in middle school. Where I used to live, people seemed very liberal and
not seeming to care about what people did or their views on certain subjects because they seemed
the same to me even though I didn't pay much attention. With the people I have interacted with
here, they seem to lean towards the right. I noticed this mainly because of their views on certain
issues like gay-marriage or abortion. For example, in sixth grade, many people were bashing me
because they had thought I was a homosexual. Though I had never revealed anything about my
sexual orientation, I was still a target. During this time I didn't know why being a homosexual
was a bad thing to most students. This made me realize the difference between where I used to
live and here.
Lastly, moving here taught me something important. I learned that not everyone thinks
the same in the world. Though this is apparent to many people, I did not realize this until I had
left my hometown. I realized this mainly because of the political viewpoints of people, and just
how people treated each other overall. This made me notice that not everyone thinks the same
because people dont have the same political views. It surprised me that a town a mere sixty
miles away from where I was born could treat people so differently than I was used to. I noticed
then that the world is much bigger than I had envisioned. I now know that no one sees eye-to-eye
on everything just from moving towns.
For me, I realized many things that taught me many life lessons from this move. Since I
have moved, I have learned that there is a large difference on how people see things which made
me see the world differently. So moving to Bradford has substantially changed my life.