Finding Myself Through Writing by Isabela

Finding Myself Through Writing by Isabela - August 2026 Scholarship Essay

I’ve always thought of myself as someone who had strong writing skills. Often, I found myself enjoying writing essays for classes in high school and even well into my University experience. However, this all seemed to change during my fall semester of Sophomore year.
It was my first ever remote class at college, I was not expecting the class to be this way– and to be frank– part of me expected it to be easier since I did not have to face the professor in person. Well, safe to say I was quite wrong. The first ever essay assigned in that class was based on different prompts we could choose from. I keenly remember her telling us we had the option of re-writing the essay once we got feedback from her. Although it was quite a forgiving system, I remember thinking to myself: “I don’t need that”.
Before continuing on with this story, I think it’s important to address my sense of confidence in my writing abilities. Yes, a part of it is a feeling of cockiness, but honestly it’s more than just that. I moved to the United States when I was about 11 years old. Being from Brazil and moving to a completely different country, with a completely different culture was jarring to say the least. I remember wanting to fit in so badly, I didn’t want the other children around me to think I was different. This, though, came at a cost. ‘Americanizing’ myself, as my family puts it, forced me to sacrifice the only part of my identity I deeply knew. It ostracized me not only from my culture, but from my very family who felt confused and hurt when I began adopting a personality so foreign to my own. Throughout this tumultuous time, though, reading was always constant. Back when I lived in Brazil, my nose was always in a book. I’d try to find times during class when the teacher was not paying attention to sneak in a couple of pages; when I was supposed to be asleep, I’d turn on a small light to read until my dreams became about the book in my hand. This was how I made friends, this was what I loved doing. And so, moving to the US did not change that. I read and read and read. To this day, I believe the reason I became so ‘Americanized’ was because I was constantly reading in English and immersing myself in that culture. This also led me to tremendously improve in my ability to write, in my ability to discern what I wanted to say in a tongue that was foreign to my own. And that is why I am so prideful in my writing.
Now, going back to the story, I felt quite confident writing and even handing in the essay many days before the deadline. Yet, when I got back my grade I was completely taken aback. I had done pretty terrible, and to make matters worse, the professor gave me quite some harsh feedback. Even telling me that some of my ideology was bordering on transphobia. I was appalled. Immediately I contacted my professor and met up with her through zoom to discuss my essay. It was here that she told me I had chosen the hardest prompt and then we proceeded to have a good and productive discussion about my essay. Going into that meeting I was feeling quite defensive, but after talking to her for some time my mentality had completely changed. I felt motivated to not only prove her wrong about my claims, but to do so in a way that would shock her. I wanted to impress my professor. Thus, the research began, the rewriting over and over again until it felt perfect began. I turned this simple essay assignment into something bigger than the professor was probably expecting, simply because I had made up my mind. Not only did I want to impress my professor, I wanted to impress my 11 year old self. I wanted to make her proud.
When I submitted my paper I not only felt confident, but I felt like I had actually written what I wanted to say. The euphoric feeling felt so akin to the times I’d sit and read a good book for hours, it reminded me of Brazil and my childhood and how close I felt to all the fictional characters I once loved so much. And even my grade greatly improved and all the comments I got back were the complete opposite. Not only had I provided evidence to prove my professor’s claims wrong, but she actually finally understood where I was coming from.