Ride Alone by Rose

Ride Alone by Rose - May 2026 Scholarship Essay

“Go west,” Horace Greeley famously urged in 1865, and for generations, people did. They left all they knew and drove toward a horizon with no guarantee of what waited on the other side, but with a shared hope for a better future. I carried that same hope, but also the fear that came with it. This journey meant betting on my own potential and my ability to do it alone. Then I came across a phrase that confronted my hesitation. “The cowards never started, and the weak died along the way.” I intended to be neither.

So I rode alone, settling in Montana with nothing but ambition and a one-way drive. I had accepted an AmeriCorps position with a legal services program serving those who could not afford an attorney. It was a significant step toward my goal of becoming one myself. I knew this was the right move, but I had not anticipated how loud the isolation would get. My AmeriCorps cohort was scattered across the state, each of us placed in a different corner with geography doing most of the work of keeping us apart. My friends and family were states away. There was no one to challenge my doubts and remind me why I had come. The isolation forced me to sit with myself, often uncomfortably, and question what I was capable of.

As I got used to spending time alone, I started to trust myself, and with that trust came faith in my own potential. I showed up for clients and took on additional projects, including expanding our services to a neighboring county. I was proving, quietly and consistently, that my ambitions were grounded. The person I had bet on was showing up.

The first significant payoff came when I was admitted to a top master’s program in international affairs with a scholarship, a reflection of everything I had earned through my perseverance in Montana. I sat with that news for a long time, paralyzed with happiness. It was the first moment I could see my future clearly, and it happened because the girl who had ridden alone into the unknown had built something substantial. She had changed her future by showing up every single day with hope and refusing to fold.

One can only be brave when afraid. Choosing myself and doing it alone was the most intimidating thing I had ever done, but it was also the most authentic decision I had made. As I approach a new phase in my life, I ride forward with the same courage that brought me west, but also a newfound wisdom that self-assurance is the best fuel there is. No one wanted me to succeed more than I did. That truth carried me across state lines and into myself. I am no coward. I am not weak. I started. I am still going. And I do not intend to stop.