Essay Scholarships Contests
Posted on | April 9, 2009 | No Comments
When I was a kid, I loved writing essays. I know it makes me a total geek, but so be it ? I am a geek. I loved being able to put my thoughts into coherent, well written phrases. It was neat to see that my opinions could be organized into a persuasive essay. It made my opinion seem like more than just opinions. Suddenly, I was writing something important ? something that people would read and maybe listen to.
Naturally, I loved essay contests. I used to enter local contests in the papers all the time. Usually, I wouldn’t even be recognized, but once or twice I won small prizes for second or third place. Usually, the papers wanted inspirational essays about your favorite place in the Detroit area, or what democracy means to you. I wasn’t really very good at those kinds of essays. I loved to express myself, but I wasn’t interested in talking about democracy or local places in Detroit. I was interested in books.
That’s why I was so thrilled when I got old enough to enter essay scholarships contests. When they hand out college scholarships, they want to know that you already are someone who is passionate about learning. As a result, essay scholarships contests tend to be more literary than other sorts of essay contests. They want you to show that you can really appreciate the great books of Western civilization, and that you can learn important life lessons from the stories you read.
That is why no one was surprised when I got a prize in the second essay scholarship contest I entered. Granted, I didn’t win the grand prize, but I did come in at an impressive second place. A good friend of mine had already entered three or four essay scholarships contests and never won a scholarship in one, so he was naturally impressed when I did so well my very first time.
Of course my luck changed, and I didn’t win any of the essay scholarships contests for awhile after that. I think the next three or four contests that I entered did not even bother to respond to me. Still, I persevered and worked on writing the best essays I could write. It was only a matter of time before I struck it rich as they say. I won a $10,000 dollars scholarship to the state college of my choice. To say I was overjoyed would be putting it mildly. I had never felt so proud before.
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