The Feedback No One Wrote Down by Hilda

The Feedback No One Wrote Down by Hilda - August 2026 Scholarship Essay

Before traveling to Newark, New Jersey for Howard University's Alternative Spring Break, I thought community service meant showing up with answers. I believed that if I worked hard enough, spoke encouraging words, and shared my own educational journey, I could inspire someone else to dream bigger.
Within the first day at Newark Street Academy, I realized I was wrong.
The students we worked with, ages sixteen to twenty-four, attended an alternative high school where many had been given a choice between school and incarceration. I walked into the classroom believing we were there to teach. Instead, I spent the week listening.
One student asked me a question I still think about: "What makes you think college is even realistic for someone like me?"
He wasn't looking for a motivational speech. He wanted honesty.
Growing up in the suburbs of Massachusetts, my challenges looked different. My parents, Haitian immigrants, taught me that education was nonnegotiable. Today, I attend Howard University, surrounded by ambitious students who constantly encourage one another to succeed. I had never questioned whether college was possible because everyone around me expected it.
For many of the students sitting across from me, simply making it to adulthood felt like an accomplishment. Some had lost friends to gun violence. Others spoke about family members cycling through the justice system. Their reality was one I had only read about.
No professor handed me a graded paper. No supervisor filled out an evaluation form. Yet I received some of the most meaningful feedback of my life.
The students didn't tell me I was wrong. Their stories did.
They challenged my assumption that sharing my own experiences would automatically inspire others. They taught me that encouragement means very little if it ignores someone's reality. Before people are willing to hear your advice, they need to know you are willing to hear their story.
That realization changed the way I learn.
Now, whether I am mentoring younger students, leading campus organizations, or preparing for a future career in medicine, I begin with curiosity instead of conclusions. I ask more questions before offering solutions. I seek perspectives that are different from my own because I know that every person carries experiences I cannot see.
This lesson also inspired me to launch Project Cap & Gown, my education platform focused on supporting students attending Washington, D.C. high schools with graduation rates below twenty percent. Instead of assuming I know what students need, I want the initiative to be shaped by their voices. Programs are most effective when they are built with communities rather than simply for them.
When people think about feedback, they often imagine comments written in the margins of an essay or advice from a teacher. My most important feedback came from a classroom where no one graded me.
It came from students whose honesty challenged my perspective and whose resilience reshaped my purpose.
That week in Newark taught me that learning is not measured by how much information we absorb but by how willing we are to let new experiences transform us. Since then, I have carried one lesson into every classroom, volunteer opportunity, and leadership role: the best learners are often the best listeners.