Lucky Mistakes by Kasey

Lucky Mistakes by Kasey - July 2025 Scholarship Essay

As a first-generation, non-traditional adult student, I’ve learned that life rarely goes according to plan.

Like most young people, I spent my teens and twenties stumbling forward, trying to follow a roadmap I didn’t have. I enrolled in classes I later lost interest in. I tried jobs that didn’t fit, pursued paths that didn’t lead where I thought they would, and made decisions that sometimes ended in regret. But looking back, I can also see the quiet brilliance in those so-called mistakes. I had a knack for noticing weak points in broken systems. I learned how to ask the right questions, even when I didn’t yet have the language to answer them.

Now, as a stay-at-home parent returning to school and focusing—maybe for the first time—on my own goals, I see how every detour added something valuable. No education has been wasted. No curiosity was useless. Everything I once viewed as misadventure has turned out to be a series of lucky mistakes that laid the foundation for my future.

If I could give one piece of advice to my teenage self, it would be this: make more mistakes. Try everything. Be loud. Look silly. Change your mind. Ask better questions. Say yes when something stirs your spirit, even if no one else understands why. Especially then.

I would tell her that success isn’t always neat or linear—it’s often messy, winding, and full of restarts. We grow more from our missteps than from the things that came easily. I would remind her that fear of failure is often more limiting than failure itself.

The truth is, I’m not sure I would be where I am today without those early detours. My winding path helped me understand people better, built my resilience, and gave me a clear sense of what kind of change I want to be part of. I return to school not in spite of my past, but because of it.

So, to the younger version of myself who was trying so hard to get everything right: stop waiting for perfect conditions. They don’t exist. Instead, start. Try. Fail. Begin again. Because every “wrong” turn might just be pointing you in the direction of something beautiful you haven’t imagined yet.