Personal Statement

1. (Prompt 2) I was born 17 years ago and since then it has been effortless showing my
creative side. I remember being a child and asking only for art supplies for Christmas. I
didn’t bother playing with Bratz Dolls or doll houses. Although creativity and imagination
is shown through playing with these toys, personally I remember expressing my
creativity through drawing. Looking back now, I’ve realized I enjoyed creating art
including God in it in some shape or form. I have been raised by a religious family who
are Christians: church on Sundays and bible studies on Wednesdays. I don’t recall an
exact age where I stopped expressing myself through art, but I will say it most likely
happened when I was in junior high school. I believe I got distracted from what genuinely
made me happy. Some examples are social media, drama and relationships; all things
that are temporary and not good for your mind at such a young age. Recently I went
through a dark time in my life, and it had a negative impact on me. I soon gave social
media a break and decided to learn how to use oil pastels. I took inspiration from my
childhood and began to create pictures involving God. I believe this helped me through
my dark moments and built me to be more wise about realizing that you are in charge of
how great your day will be or how terrible it will be. Although I wasn’t very good at using
oil pastels, that didn’t matter, what did matter was I found my therapy which pushed me
out of depression. One thing I learned about creativity is that it is everywhere: music,
makeup, interior design, fashion design, film and photography, graphic design, cooking,
and so much more. However, the most important thing I learned is that there are no rules
to your own expression, nothing could be wrong if it's made with the best intentions.

2. (Prompt 3) I believe my greatest skill is my confidence because just like any other skill it
takes time for improvement. Throughout the last couple of years it has been very difficult
for me to be confident and content by myself, but it has progressed quite a lot recently. I
don’t believe that being confident is seeking approval from others, but from yourself and
that is a hard thing to do. Confidence can affect everyone’s life because it changes your
determination and motive on certain things you do. About two years ago, my sophomore
year of high school I had joined the varsity cheerleading team for the first time and I had
zero cheerleading experience in the sport. I was so excited that I made the team, but I
was also very nervous that I wouldn’t fit in. The varsity cheer team at my high school, El
Capitan was known to have a very good reputation by competing and winning several
national titles. I think anyone would be just as nervous as me because being on a team
with such advanced skill comes with confidence and hard work. I was willing to put in a
ton of work to become a great cheerleader my coach saw me as, but the one thing I
struggled with was being confident. As a great cheerleader you don’t need to be skillful
at every stunt, but what you do need is the one thing I lacked. As time went on I taught
myself to not compare myself to any other people because I had no idea what their
journey was like, all I could focus on was improving myself. I noticed once I changed my
train of thought, my performance in cheerleading improved as well as my social life. Here
 on I learned to live for myself and not for others and I appreciate that I have that
mentality now.

3. (Prompt 4) An educational barrier I have faced during high school was no one's fault,
but my own. It is easy to get distracted from things that aren’t good for you such as
irrelevant teen drama, social media, impressing others or even stuck being in a gloomy
state of mind. These are experiences and life lessons one has to realize how to grow
from on their own, it’s up to them to decide what and who are the best for them. Life can
get hard because certain things aren’t as great as you expected them to be, it is just a
matter of being content with yourself and not depending on validation or happiness from
others. That is one of the greatest lessons I have learned during my highschool years
and I am grateful I have realized it so soon. My greatest educational barrier was not
being my biggest fan, I have put myself down too many times that it has taken a negative
toll on me educationally and mentally. I now understand that things will not get done
unless you try to fix them yourself, surely family was there for me but your mentality is
something only you can work on. Dark moments are hard to get out of when you don’t
love yourself because being stuck in the moment is most comfortable, but life needs to
move forward and the only thing stopping that from happening was myself. I could never
express my weakness to anyone a year ago, especially on something so serious as a
personal statement, but now I understand that it is acceptable to fail and feel weak.
Seeing that I did go through a serious change in my life I can say that I don’t regret any
of it at all because it has shaped me into the person I am today.

4. (Prompt 6) The future is always a mystery, we never know what will happen tomorrow or
even in 5 minutes. Well, thinking about the future can be scary or exciting or both, I feel
both of these emotions when I think about what will happen after I graduate. I have taken
great thought about what career best suits me and my financial goals. Since junior high
school I have noticed that math has come easy for me, I didn’t have to try my hardest to
figure out what f(x) is or what is the distance between A and B. Personally when I think
about my dream career I think of a high salary and flexibility. My future does mean a lot
to me because I come from a family who isn’t wealthy, but tries their hardest to provide
for me. Thinking about my family inspires me to be financially stable, so I can repay all
the hard work that they sacrificed for me. My interest and quick learning skills in math,
along with my personal preferences influenced me to look into the business industry,
which resulted in leading me to pursue a profession in Real Estate. The position I am
striving for is becoming a real estate agent. A second job I am in the midst of pursuing is
trading stocks, both day trading and swing trading. Since I am a minor I cannot trade
live, but I can practice with fake money which is called paper trading. On a final note I
am confident to share that I believe my career choices will attribute my ideal financial
goals and personal likings as a lifelong profession.