Scholarship

A large part of my life has been centered around school and the success I had with it. For as long as I can remember, doing well and getting high grades is something I take great pride in and spend hard work on. It’s an accomplishment that I became associated with from family members, friends and programs, which is why my anxiety over academic standing increased when I reached college. I was so worried that my future was defined only by my grades and not the experience I gained from my courses. Since being at Longwood, I have learned there’s a lot more that goes into shaping ones future than just grades alone. Instead of focusing on grade that seems out of place, I try to acknowledge how I can prepare for the future and take what I’ve learned and apply it to other related courses. So many of the classes I took were intertwined with the same topics or issues and I was able to take what I had learned and redistribute it to fit what I needed. A main point stressed by many of my professors was that you can memorize facts, but that doesn’t mean you’ll know how to apply that knowledge in situations that make you think of a unique solution. That was definitely something I took away from my first semester and added to my definition of scholarship. The knowledge I posses and gain is only as good as my ability to make something out of it. While I still hold my academic success very high in prioritization, scholarship has expanded to include the application of knowledge in creating and solving in a way previously closed off to me.