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Kayli Buchli
English 110
Olivia Stoltman
Those Boring, Required Essays…

Sometimes when you are forced to do something that you don’t enjoy and that feels like a

burden, you can receive life-changing and rewarding results. I’ve always loved writing, don’t get

me wrong. My parents have told me that ever since I could hold a pencil, whenever they walked

past my room, I was writing something, whether it’s listing my top favorite animals or writing a

letter to my brother so we could play ‘mailman.’ But when my junior and senior years of high

school came, I absolutely did not have the tolerance or patience to do any form of writing

assignment. So many scholarships and applications were going on during the same time, and I

just wanted everything to be over with and happen already. All my classes and sports practices

were much more important to me than the millions of 250-word essays where I had to write

about ‘the greatest aspects of my hometown’ or ‘my strongest trait that no one knows about.’ It

seemed like every day that I had to stay up until midnight going back and forth from studying for

AP Calculus to writing random essays.

I needed motivation. And I knew I had that motivation. Coming into college, I wanted to

be in the best position I could be in, financially and academically. A big way I could accomplish

this would be to get these scholarships and applications done, and with great quality. I found this

new level of literacy in me that I never knew I had, and this new kind of literacy that I developed

will be engrained inside of my brain for the rest of my life. This new type of literacy I found

allowed me to really think deep and critically to express myself and understand life in more

complex ways. I started out just writing to get things done, fill the requirements, turn it in, get a

good grade, make the teacher happy. But all these scholarships and applications made me realize
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that I should not be writing all my literacy pieces primarily just to please others and move

through life in a robotic manner. I should be writing for the purpose of moving up in life and

going to higher places. These required essays, I could have just sloppily put together 250 words

in three even paragraphs in 10 minutes if I wanted to only please my parents and tell them, “I just

finished 6 scholarships in an hour!” They would be proud of me because of the quantity. But I

realized scholarships and applications are not about quantity, they are about quality. I found a

sort of competitive drive in me to get out of my comfort zone and think more deeply about the

essay prompts.

I applied for as many scholarships as I could find through my school (and there were a

lot, not going to lie). While I was writing these essays, I could tell that I was improving. Every

essay got done faster and faster because I finally found the type of writer that I am: a writer who

thinks and writes for the purpose of learning more about herself and her surroundings. “Wasting”

all my time writing these required essays was just another unenjoyable task, but looking back, I

am more than happy with what I accomplished. I learned how to write for myself and for a

different purpose than just going through the motions. And I learned that all of the hard work that

goes into writing a good, quality essay is absolutely worth it.

The WIAA Scholar Athlete essay stands out as the piece of writing that was the turning

point in my writing style and my drive to complete a quality piece. I remember being so excited

when my school’s athletic director came up to me with a big smile and said, “Kayli, could I talk

to you in my office for a second?” I went home and told my mom and she seemed even more

excited than I was. I was the female representative for my school, and since only a couple dozen

people in the entire state receive this honor, I knew I had to channel my competitiveness and
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passion for writing. Achieving this was one of my top goals. So, even though the essay was just

250 words, I spent a lot of time on it. I could have written something like “oh, sports were good

to me and they mean the world to me and have shaped me so much” and I could have been proud

to be nominated, put “nominee” on my resume, and be done with it and continue with school.

But I wanted to make it to the next level. To achieve this, I spent a lot of time thinking about

myself and what is important to me.

Going through this process, I learned so many new things about myself, and that

translated over to my writing. I spent hours going from thesaurus to paper to sample essays to

deep thought to paper then finally to bed at midnight. I ultimately finished it, I had my mom

check it, I had my dad check it, I fixed some things, they checked it again, I finalized it, took a

deep breath, and submitted it. After all this, I unfortunately didn’t receive the top honor, but I did

become a finalist. But that feeling that I gave it my best effort was there, so I have no regrets

whatsoever. This experience has really influenced my writing style today.

Doing all these essays allowed me to really step up my writing game, however I am not

saying I didn’t succeed at past writing assignments. The junior term paper was great, I got a good

grade, but that’s all I cared about. I didn’t learn anything about myself as a writer and I wrote my

essay on a subject that my teacher was interested in. But these scholarships and applications have

caused me to evolve out of this fixed position, like a horse finally busting out of its fence to

discover new and brighter things.

When you are doing something for yourself, you produce more quality work than doing

something that doesn’t seem meaningful to you. Furthermore, when you are forced to do

something for yourself, you become inclined to become better at the task at hand and you are
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given more incentive to produce the best product that you can. This literary experience makes me

excited about the future, that I can become better at anything if I really want. This experience has

not only made me a better writer, but it has also opened up my eyes to the kind of potential that I

have. I can become a better athlete. I can do everything I can do be accepted into the radiation

therapy program. I can become a better friend, daughter, and sister. I can achieve these things by

going out of my comfort zone, exploring the unknown, and simply just learning more about

myself. And I thank literacy for this.