1. Describe the world you come from — for example, your family, community or school — and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.
Growing up a first generation American, I grew up accustomed to American culture but I was also in a struggle to follow the Yemeni culture my parents brought forth with them from their arduous journey to America. My parents emigrated from the country of Yemen, one of the poorest countries of the Arab world. Chaos was arising in my parents native country as it struggled to become one nation. At the time, their beloved country was made up of two separate states: North Yemen and South Yemen. In a state of pandemonium, my parents wanted to get away from it all. America was key in their search for opportunity and getting there was not an easy task. Though Yemen is notorious for its lack of education, my parents put a strong emphasis on my daily learning activities mine. They were seeking for me to strive in getting my education to seek the opportunity that this country had to offer and reach the pinnacle of my abilities. The many sacrifices my parents took in and outside of America made me who I am today. Making these sacrifices were not easy and these actions by my parents drive me to go far and succeed and are the source to my motivation. Their sacrifices shaped me into the person I am today and without their sacrifices, my attempt at receiving an education would be very scarce.
Out of a family of seven, I have three older siblings: an older brother and two sisters. Currently, only one of my older siblings are currently on a path on getting an education in college and even she is not clear on what path to take in her educational goals. By choosing to attend Alameda Science and Technology Institute, I made a commitment to endure whatever was thrown at me and to keep my focus on my education. I chose to stand out from those around me in my community and attend a school a city away from home rather than the local high school no farther than ten blocks away. But this all came with the package I chose to accept, and I never regretted those sleepless nights because just like my parents, I had to take sacrifices to achieve the pinnacle I planned to reach. The sleepless nights became higher achievements in school. The stressful afternoons finishing up my studying benefited into increasing test scores. The lonely days I stayed home to finish up my projects while my family went out made me further determined to finish every assignment.
Outside of school, there was never any time leftover for free time. This limited my participation in extracurricular activities. My dad was always hard at work along with my oldest brother which left me in charge of a lot of work at home. There would be a lot of occasions in which I had to reach out and help my brother and dad at their workplaces because of the stress of working seven days a week was putting on them.
2. Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?
Out of a family of seven, I have three older siblings: an older brother and two sisters. Currently, only one of my older siblings are currently on a path on getting an education in college and even she is not clear on what path to take in her educational goals. By choosing to attend Alameda Science and Technology Institute, I made a commitment to endure whatever was thrown at me and to keep my focus on my education. I chose to stand out from those around me in my community and attend a school a city away from home rather than the local high school no farther than ten blocks away. But this all came with the package I chose to accept, and I never regretted those sleepless nights because just like my parents, I had to take sacrifices to achieve the pinnacle I planned to reach. The sleepless nights became higher achievements in school. The stressful afternoons finishing up my studying benefited into increasing test scores. The lonely days I stayed home to finish up my projects while my family went out made me further determined to finish every assignment.
Outside of school, there was never any time leftover for free time. This limited my participation in extracurricular activities. My dad was always hard at work along with my oldest brother which left me in charge of a lot of work at home. There would be a lot of occasions in which I had to reach out and help my brother and dad at their workplaces because of the stress of working seven days a week was putting on them.
2. Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?
There are many experiences that I have went through that shape and relate to the person I am today. Experiences of failure have come to help me mature and learn from my mistakes. Learning the steps that lead to these failures give me a reason to come back with an ever stronger rebound. Without failure in our lives, there isn’t much to learn from ourselves. If we ignore our failures, what will come out of that and how will it help us overcome our difficulties?
An important failure that I went through in my life that turned out to be a learning experience was one that occurred in the second semester of my tenth grade year in high school. We started off the second semester that year without our math teacher present. She was going to be out for a long period time grieving the death of her husband. In place of her, they put in a substitute teacher that was not familiar with our standards and our teacher’s teaching methods. I took advantage of this time by mistakenly slacking off by failing to do the homework assigned and also failing to take notes of the lesson being given. There were times in which I was ready to switch back on and start paying attention again but a lot of my classmates were in a similar situation and I took on the role of the follower.
After about a month, our original teacher came back and assigned the classroom a test based on the lessons taught by our substitute teacher. This was bad news since there was not much that came to thought when I tried remembering our lessons. Later in the week, I went to check on my grades and found out at was at a new low in my learning; my grade was at a astonishing twenty-seven percent, a very low F. This failure brought an enormous amount of stress upon me. Never have I received a failing grade and at a low twenty-seven percent, I thought a rebound was inevitable.
I knew had to retrace my steps and find out how I got to this point. This failure helped me learn a lot of the things I was doing were mistakes. My notes had to be precise and on point, my attentive listening needed to be towards the teacher and not my classmates, and homework needed to be done. Even if the homework was not a big part of the grade, it was key to doing well on the tests that were assigned. And from there, the rebound was enforced and I made my math class top priority. Even if the grade seemed hard to rebound from, just leaving that failure untouched would leave a big burden on my back. Surprisingly, all the hard work payed off as I brought my grade back up to a B, far above a failing grade. This was an important learning experience I went through in high school because it closed the door on my easing off in and out of education.
An important failure that I went through in my life that turned out to be a learning experience was one that occurred in the second semester of my tenth grade year in high school. We started off the second semester that year without our math teacher present. She was going to be out for a long period time grieving the death of her husband. In place of her, they put in a substitute teacher that was not familiar with our standards and our teacher’s teaching methods. I took advantage of this time by mistakenly slacking off by failing to do the homework assigned and also failing to take notes of the lesson being given. There were times in which I was ready to switch back on and start paying attention again but a lot of my classmates were in a similar situation and I took on the role of the follower.
After about a month, our original teacher came back and assigned the classroom a test based on the lessons taught by our substitute teacher. This was bad news since there was not much that came to thought when I tried remembering our lessons. Later in the week, I went to check on my grades and found out at was at a new low in my learning; my grade was at a astonishing twenty-seven percent, a very low F. This failure brought an enormous amount of stress upon me. Never have I received a failing grade and at a low twenty-seven percent, I thought a rebound was inevitable.
I knew had to retrace my steps and find out how I got to this point. This failure helped me learn a lot of the things I was doing were mistakes. My notes had to be precise and on point, my attentive listening needed to be towards the teacher and not my classmates, and homework needed to be done. Even if the homework was not a big part of the grade, it was key to doing well on the tests that were assigned. And from there, the rebound was enforced and I made my math class top priority. Even if the grade seemed hard to rebound from, just leaving that failure untouched would leave a big burden on my back. Surprisingly, all the hard work payed off as I brought my grade back up to a B, far above a failing grade. This was an important learning experience I went through in high school because it closed the door on my easing off in and out of education.
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