Hi, College Confidential!
I’m taking the January SAT and I have 13 days left to prepare (and I still have mediocre scores)… I have little insight as to how my essays are… Is it okay if I can have my essay graded and give me tips? Thanks in advance!
(note that I ran out of time)
“To change is to risk something, making us feel insecure. Not to change is a bigger risk, though we seldom feel that way. There is no choice but to change. People, however, cannot be motivated to change from the outside. All of our motivation comes from within.”
Adapted from Ward Sybouts, Planning in School Administration: A Handbook
Assignment:
What motivates people to change?
We will never know if change will yield us a result that we desire or not until we actually try it. However, what makes people change in the first place? What provides the drive that provides the catalyst for one to realize they should change certain “improvable” aspects of their lives? Though the answer to this question may not be obvious, the way I see it, three dependent factors that motivate one to suddenly be willing to “change” are the community around them, their perception of their outcome and status in life, and their level of insecurity.
The community around us may cause one to want to change their life. One Chinese phrase I learned during my studies was “When in Rome, do what the Romans do.” It basically meant that we should perform actions and routines that the people around us would usually perform. When I moved to a new school during my secondary education, I was not the brightest man. At times, I would be very dumb at making scientific conclusions. At the time, because of my “paucity of intelligence” and because of my peers’ much maturer and more intelligent nature, I felt this need to be like them. That was when a sudden motivation persuaded me to change and adapt to be like one of “them.” And I did.
In addition to that, undesired and “universally generally bad” outcomes in one’s life may just be enough for one to be willing to change these “outcomes.” We live in a world where a significant portion of us may have, you know, “a large stomach.” My cousin, whose name was Axel, during his early years, was a large “relatively fat” man. Though no one had persuaded him to become thinner, Axel noticed that, because of his abnormal body weight yielding him nasty consequences such as him possessing low stamina and agility, he felt the need to live a healthier life to “change his outcome.” He started eating healthy non-genetically modified fruit and vegetables. After years, he can now be considered a “fit healthy” man, suffering no “nasty side effects coming from ‘his body weight’” at all. And he was satisfied he changed, even.
Some may also argue that forcing one to change may be a good way to change. Yes, this might make one change, but for certain, they won’t reach an optimal outcome. This actually happened to me. Forcing myself to memorize words for SAT was almost useless. It turned out, that letting one slowly grasp new words, along with their respective meanings, without any brute, was an effective way for me to learn for the SAT test. Change must not be forced; it must be due to motivation.
We should change now!
Thank you in advance! (and also thank you for being courageous enough to notice the atrocity that is my grammar in this essay)