The Importance of Diversity by Nazyrah

The Importance of Diversity by Nazyrah - July 2026 Scholarship Essay

All my life, I felt that I struggled heavily with English. While I loved to read on my own time, it was hard for me to find connections to the books I read for school. What truly inspired me and helped me overcome my distaste for the subject was my English teacher, Ms. Ruiz. Going into her class, I didn’t have much of a passion for English and I didn’t care much for writing, but she completely changed that with only one book. We read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, and it all began to click for me. In many of the novels I read in high school, my African-American culture was severely misrepresented and shown in a negative light. This negative representation has repercussions in the real world, as many people would obviously see these portrayals and assume that they’re true to life, which can lead to people making prejudiced and uneducated decisions. Back then, reading a book like this was completely revolutionary to me. It inspired me to dive deeper into the culture–my culture it was speaking about and other forms of literature like it. I became participatory, far more better of a writer, and ended her class, and every other English class from then on with an A+. This small moment completely dictated my career path as well, leading me to major in English with the goals of being an educator, hopefully to be someone else’s Ms. Ruiz.