College Essay
Education is a lot like skiing.
Start at the bottom, trudge through the snowy muck of the stagnant lift line. There’s only one way through, over and out, up and back again. The first few times the lift doesn’t mean anything: It’s a means to an end—a pleasure to waste time—but eventually it becomes more than that. Every run, year after year, I graduate from the time before and the time before that. I do it not because I have to, but because I want to. Not the destination, but the journey; not the award, but the challenge itself.
A few chilly chairlift rides later, snow in my lap, my tongue recently detached from a frozen pole, a hop- skip-jump later and I’m finally at the top, a senior in high school. What now? Now, with the chairlift crowd behind me and the epic vista in front of me, I alone have to decide how to get down. And so begins my athletic (and in this case my academic) journey.
The difficulty of any given ski run and academic career is driven, at its core, by two things: the skill of the skier, and the actual difficulty of the run. To be honest, I don’t consider myself to be a great skier or academic; yet that doesn’t faze me. Double-black diamond runs, experts only? Pssh, I can do that! Slowly… The same applies to academics: I may not be the most talented student, but I never cease to challenge the limits of what I know I can do, and what I think I can do.
…
In May 2013, I moved to Durango CO. Before, I had been raised from age 4 in a suburb of Atlanta GA.
In Atlanta, every day was a bore: Go to school, sit through a lecture, then regurgitate the facts for an arbitrarily standardized multiple choice test. That was all it was, year after year. It was like the entire school was some giant bunny hill and I was caught in its limbo. It was too easy, and what we were learning never seemed to mean anything. I was ready for a change. On the recommendation of a family member, I decided to pursue a different type of education at Animas High School in Durango.
Animas changed me as a person. I stopped doing things simply because they were easy; instead, I focused more on the work than its completion.
It became not the destination, but the journey.
I stopped rushing to complete assignments. Suddenly education became relevant—and applicable to my life. I adapted this mindset to skiing: I stopped racing down the mountain just for the sake of it and instead chose to work on my technique.
It became not the award but the challenge itself.
In this way, working on my technique made me better. Skiing/schoolwork became easier. I may not be getting the high grades I got in Atlanta, but the work is no longer busywork. It’s far more challenging— not because there are more questions to answer, but because the questions provoke thought, and usually have more than one right answer. By seeing and understanding this, I’ve grown as a person. I’ve stopped rushing to my destination and started focusing on what I can learn along the way.
That’s why, for me, education is a lot like skiing. It’s why I want to go to college.
Start at the bottom, trudge through the snowy muck of the stagnant lift line. There’s only one way through, over and out, up and back again. The first few times the lift doesn’t mean anything: It’s a means to an end—a pleasure to waste time—but eventually it becomes more than that. Every run, year after year, I graduate from the time before and the time before that. I do it not because I have to, but because I want to. Not the destination, but the journey; not the award, but the challenge itself.
A few chilly chairlift rides later, snow in my lap, my tongue recently detached from a frozen pole, a hop- skip-jump later and I’m finally at the top, a senior in high school. What now? Now, with the chairlift crowd behind me and the epic vista in front of me, I alone have to decide how to get down. And so begins my athletic (and in this case my academic) journey.
The difficulty of any given ski run and academic career is driven, at its core, by two things: the skill of the skier, and the actual difficulty of the run. To be honest, I don’t consider myself to be a great skier or academic; yet that doesn’t faze me. Double-black diamond runs, experts only? Pssh, I can do that! Slowly… The same applies to academics: I may not be the most talented student, but I never cease to challenge the limits of what I know I can do, and what I think I can do.
…
In May 2013, I moved to Durango CO. Before, I had been raised from age 4 in a suburb of Atlanta GA.
In Atlanta, every day was a bore: Go to school, sit through a lecture, then regurgitate the facts for an arbitrarily standardized multiple choice test. That was all it was, year after year. It was like the entire school was some giant bunny hill and I was caught in its limbo. It was too easy, and what we were learning never seemed to mean anything. I was ready for a change. On the recommendation of a family member, I decided to pursue a different type of education at Animas High School in Durango.
Animas changed me as a person. I stopped doing things simply because they were easy; instead, I focused more on the work than its completion.
It became not the destination, but the journey.
I stopped rushing to complete assignments. Suddenly education became relevant—and applicable to my life. I adapted this mindset to skiing: I stopped racing down the mountain just for the sake of it and instead chose to work on my technique.
It became not the award but the challenge itself.
In this way, working on my technique made me better. Skiing/schoolwork became easier. I may not be getting the high grades I got in Atlanta, but the work is no longer busywork. It’s far more challenging— not because there are more questions to answer, but because the questions provoke thought, and usually have more than one right answer. By seeing and understanding this, I’ve grown as a person. I’ve stopped rushing to my destination and started focusing on what I can learn along the way.
That’s why, for me, education is a lot like skiing. It’s why I want to go to college.