Scholarship Review

Abigail Messner

Our Lady of the Sacred Heart
Senior? Yes
Elite top 100? Yes
Letters of recommendation: Letter of Recommendation 1, Letter of Recommendation 2

Essay

As a young girl who has a passion to teach others and a love for school is creating lesson plans for her dolls after school, she thinks to herself that life as she knew it was going well. The days were sunny and the “students” were always willing to listen and her perspective on life was simple yet so exciting.
Fast forward to the age of 14, she found her purpose and a revelation came upon her. She found the most fulfilling aspect of her life was babysitting. These hours she describes Abby Messner , who had a love for teaching describes that shaped me to revolve my career around children.
I have always loved children because of their innocence and expansive imagination. After school, I would return home to play, making lesson plans for my imaginary students. As I started to mature, volunteering became important, allowing me to bring my dreams to reality. I gravitated towards younger children, and I never grasped how much of a connection I made to them. Last summer while I was babysitting my cousin, he asked me if I was still going to watch him even when I get old. He wanted me to stay with him, and though I cherished the time we spent together, it did not occur to me that he really cherished this time, too.
There are times in our lives where we must work with diverse individuals who may be completely different from us, but this interaction can integrate and alter our lives. Consistently having this unruly love for children has affected me as I can learn the beauty of their wild imaginations and wonder at the innocent determination and confidence they hold within their tiny bodies that most adults struggle to attain today. I truly believe that there are many lessons we can take with us from children as they see life from a different perspective of living your life at the moment and focusing on the bigger picture. I found that to live as a child is vital to the human spirit.
My experience babysitting and volunteering has allowed me to pursue my passion for educating and rooting for them as they cross the finish line and dusting them off when they fall and through this experience, having my own learning opportunities for my personal life. This has given me the drive to devote my life to kids as they learn from my example and I learn from their simple and optimistic outlook. Perhaps it is not worth causing stress about simple things when I can focus on if it will affect my life. Children have the ability, by being themselves, to remind us that sometimes we don’t need to grow up and we should live in the moment. By surrounding myself with younger children I have learned to appreciate my talents and skills and use the ideals of a child and also that I want to advocate for children and learn from them as they would from me.