William Yan

College Essay

December 20, 2018

“Did you complete all your homework and chores yet?” asked my mom. I always

replied with a “Yes” because I was always worried about getting in trouble. One day on

a rainy afternoon, my mom wanted to talk to me and we had a long discussion. I felt a

lot of pressure and tension, and I thought I was going to get into trouble again, but this

time it was different. She gave me this face of worry after seeing my grades. My mom

told me about her past and her struggles due to the fact that she wanted me to succeed

and fulfill my goals of what she couldn’t achieve. She said, “Back in China, when I went

to school my mom always gave me a dollar, and that was only enough for a bowl of rice

and a bit of sides for lunch. School was really hard since it was quite hard to get a

proper education. You should be grateful that you have things that I didn’t when I was

younger.”

I’ve been reflecting and thinking back to that quote of what my mom said. I found

this to be really valuable because I’m literally taking things that my mom never had for

granted, and I should really be taking my education seriously due to the fact that I was

born in America and I never experienced the challenges that she had faced. When I got

my first report card I saw that I did very poorly, and it made me remember my mother’s

words, and that was a wake up call to do better. Taking her words into consideration, I
decided to not take things for granted and work harder. One of the things I decided not

to take for granted was technology.

As I was growing up, I was introduced to technology. I have always found

technology to be really interesting, and an important factor to my growth in education.

Technology has always been an interest to me since it allowed me to find new paths of

what I want to pursue in the future. Technology caught my attention when I first found

out about the computer. Once I found out about computers I was hooked. I started to do

research about computers at a really young age, which was during middle school, and

then from what I learned, I was able to build my own computer. Building the computer

was a good experience for me because learning how to build a computer was

something I wanted to do just to know and be able to help others. I wanted to use what I

learned to impact others in a positive way. I was able to do this when I heard that my

friends wanted to build their new computer but were in need of help. They asked me for

help and I gladly accepted since I didn’t mind helping others. Doing this showed me that

I enjoyed seeking the rewards of generosity, and opened up a new light to me.

Appreciating things is really important, but generosity is just as important and I

believe that it is the step in the right direction for my future. Even today I still use this

trait because I like to stick around and offer help whenever I can and with this trait, I

found out what I wanted to do in the future which is in the computer or business

industry. I think generosity will help me in the future with what I want to do in life

because I don’t mind helping others, and I don’t mind going further beyond just to make
sure things will result in a greater outcome and that could help me think of something to

benefit others in the future.