I am a Success Story: Personal Statement for a college application

I am a success story. As far as teachers go, their influence in the way my life has played out in the last three decades is one of the main reasons I am so incredibly passionate about education. I could sum it up simply and say it’s all about paying it forward, but I supposed a personal statement is all about digging into the personal details.

I grew up in an oil field town called Vernal, Utah, where kids were taught at an early age that girls should learn homemaking skills to prepare for motherhood and boys were groomed to take over the family farm or business. And if either sex had other ideas, well… the oil field was always looming in the background, ready to consume any hopes and dreams that managed to escape expectation.

As in any seemingly impossible odds story, there’s always the X factor, and I’m not talking about the TV show. In my story, that X factor was my father. Of the many hats he wore in order to provide for our family, high school history teacher was his obvious favorite. It didn’t matter how many hours in a day he had to work to make ends meet, because his great escape was standing in front of a classroom every day and inspiring an entire community’s children to dream beyond the limitations of our small town.

Seeing the effect my father’s passion and dedication had on my classmates and even his fellow teachers was my first great epiphany. They believed him. They believed IN him and they became empowered in a way that changed lives forever. It didn’t matter that they had almost nothing. It didn’t matter that not much was expected of them. What mattered was their teacher believed that each of them was capable of greatness.

I didn’t know it back then, but while my father was teaching high school history and working as the sports editor for the local newspaper, he was also equipping me with all the tools I would need to be capable of greatness.

I could be cute and say those tools included Huckleberry Finn and Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, but what I really mean is that my dad gave me examples of adversity and an old leather-bound journal to compare my own adventures and missteps. He gave me a way to sort through the chaos of being an American teenager.

As it would turn out, I needed every tool in the book, and then some. 

Attending a predominantly Mormon school as one of just a handful of non-Mormons was challenging enough. Being the only gay kid in school was downright torture… in every sense of the word. It didn’t take long to become an expert at survival and evasion techniques. 

But you can’t escape destiny. And for me, destiny came in the form of my high school math teacher. Fresh off the boat from college, she came to my high school with a fiery determination to reach every troubled kid in her path. There’s no escaping that kind of fire… there’s only minimizing its potential to burn. 

And boy, did it burn. At the time, I was pretty proud of my ability to fly under the radar with a solid C average, minus the occasional F in math. But a C wasn’t going to cut it for my math teacher and an F was just scandalous. So she requested me as her student assistant for one hour a day… for three years. 

For three years during the hour she was supposed to have to prep and grade papers, she grilled me on addition, subtraction, multiplication and other forms and figures I couldn’t pronounce if I tried. 

A funny thing started to happen after that first year. My solid Cs turned into solid Bs… and the occasional F in math turned into the occasional C. Even odder… I was starting to believe I might actually get accepted into college. Talk about scandalous. 

I could go on for 1,000 more words about how that math teacher changed my life. But I’ll just sum it up by saying she was responsible for the beginning of me believing in myself… and my continued life-long loathing of numbers. 

I did go on to attend college, where my professors nurtured my intense passion for reading and writing and developed it into hopes of a career. During that time, I never forgot that math teacher, or my father, who both put a tremendous amount of time into cultivating my capability to be great. 

I know I started this whole story by stating I could sum all of this up with saying I have a deep desire to pay it forward. That started in college, where I tutored my fellow classmates in English and writing, and spent my spare time volunteering as a counselor and tutor for my community’s gay youth.

That passion for service turned into a six year stint in the United States Army, the majority of which I spent as a combat journalist. The opportunity to serve as a squad leader and supervisor for young Soldiers just starting out their career as journalists is one of the main reasons I have now decided to become a high school English teacher.

There’s no greater responsibility than being in charge of 17 and 18 year old young men in the middle of a war zone. But there is no greater reward, than watching those young men come home safe and develop into highly successful and absolutely delightful human beings.

Each of the people I’ve had the pleasure to work with over the years, from the teachers who inspired me, to the Soldiers who’ve looked up to me, really deserve their own essays. Each of them have given me the tools I need to reach the next generation of youth who are capable of greatness. Each of them gave me a reason to always strive to pay it forward.

            For now, they’ll all have to share this essay, where hopefully, they will help me begin my next exciting chapter, as a student of education, at the University of Colorado at Boulder.