How many times have you tried to do your best, and failed over and over again, but never gave up? This is me. I’ve always tried to do my best in everything. I’ve always done everything with passion, no matter how hard was that thing to achieve because it is more important to gain experience than to do everything in your power to stop others from overtaking you.
When I told my parents that I want to take part in this program, they asked me how I would ever be able to live in a foreign country, having nobody to support me, to stay near me, to give me advice, but I am strong enough to do this.
This is for a better future, and I am willing to do my best to change my future life here, in my home country, a country which is full of corruption and the truth is well hidden between all these lies. I want freedom and I want to be different. I want to change something for the better of the society and I want to be surrounded by people who think the same.
My relationship with my parents taught me to be strong in this crazy world and also helped me overcome many hardships of life. In a rainy day, when I felt weak, with no hope that I could achieve anything, my father sat near me and told me: ”You have to be strong. Don’t say you can’t do it. Think about this: Maybe the cure for cancer, the solution to end the pollution and the solution to end hunger are all in a 15-year-old teenager’s head who can’t go to school and all this valuable information is going to be lost forever”.
It is similar in my case: this scholarship gives me the opportunity to study abroad, in a school which has a good reputation and from where I can learn a lot of things that will help me in the future and this is my dream. In my school I am known as a well-behaved student and many teachers see me as a good example. I gained their trust by showing my strengths, such as responsibility, respect, trustworthiness and, maybe the most important of all, devotion.
Through these strengths, I matured much earlier than my parents would have liked. They would have liked the time to simply stop, but the time has come for me to take my life into my own hands and decide my own destiny and this is why I chose to apply for this scholarship. Since I am willing to do my best and work hard as long as it will take to be elected to this scholarship and to be able to do good for society later, it means that the school which would choose me to be part of it would only have to gain. I am not only devoted my time to learning, but also improving my social skills.
When I talk about social skills, I am referring to being able to communicate efficiently and being able to analyse the problem from all the perspectives and here comes into play the Schools Debate Club in which I am a member since last year. Here I learned not only that I don’t need to win every single time, but I do need to learn from my own and especially, from my teammate’s mistakes and this helped me a lot, but also how to react in a crisis, under massive stress and how to work with other people as a team.
There I also cured my shyness by demonstrating to myself that I can be listened by others if I have the courage to talk. I’ve always had good arguments about my statements, but something inside me kept me quiet and that was for sure the fear of making mistakes. Now nothing is keeping me away from showing my opinion is a formal way. And up to the present day I think that communication is the key because without it the humanity would collapse and it would be a total chaos. I am also passionate about other cultures.
Since for me it is very easy to learn other languages, I take advantage of it. For example, a couple of year ago I was qualified to the National Olympiad of the Latin Language, but, unfortunately, the pandemic has started before I got any chance to show what I was capable of. I am currently training for a possible Olympiad this year, but let’s pray that the pandemic is over until then.
English and Latin are not the only foreign languages that I study. I also study German in school and Russian at home, on my own. Since I love a fairy tale life one in which good always triumphs over evil and the justice is right and never corrupted, I would like a stable job, such as a teacher, but this doesn’t mean that I am not willing to take risks in doing what’s right.
I know that fairy tales are never going to happen in real life and there will always be a villain to tear down all that has been built, but I want to change that. Is it that hard for us to do the right thing or to help somebody who is begging for help? If we all have a good mentality, all the wars will stop, nature will no longer suffer because we work together for its benefit and we will be much more altruistic.
This scholarship gives me the chance to make me heard among people. I want to change mentalities and if I’m not doing it, who will?
ȘTEFANIA ALECU
Ștefania Alecu este elevă în clasa X-a A, secția Filologie – Engleză Intensiv, la Colegiul Național Onisifor Ghibu Oradea, grupa de Engleză a prof. Florica Pop, diriginte prof. Alexandru Popoviciu.
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