Gates Essay 4

Discuss your short and long-term goals. Are some of them related? Which are priorities?

For my short goals, I will graduate high school. Right now, five months is a short time off. I have put in countless hours to graduating and now at the final stretch of my high school career, I fear that I will trip and not get to my goal. With my family, friends and teachers by my side, my fear lessens but does not disperse.
Since the day I learned there was an “after-high-school,” I decided I would do whatever necessary to go to college. Although my choice of college and career has changed rapidly and often, I never let it disintegrate my determination to go to college. I know now as much as I did then, maybe even more so, that I am going to college. It may be a community college the next town over or an Ivy League university.

Another one of my goals is to find a way to pay for college without being a burden on my family. They have done so much for me in way of my life and if I could give them this one little gift of reassurance that I will be okay as far as college goes, I know that will only reduce what I owe to them. With help of scholarships like the Gates Millennium Scholarship, I know that I can make my family proud.

I do know, however, that I want to travel the world. This has been my dream since I stumbled onto a travel guide loaded with pictures and watched Animal Planet with my grandparents when I was a child. The places at the top of my list to visit are: Japan because of the Navajo Code Talkers participation during World War II, Germany because I broke my mother’s coffee cup that she got from a friend who went Germany, England because of it’s rich traditions, and so many other places just because they are there for exploration. I have been told the best ways to travel are through the military, becoming a pilot or stewardess. I discard the military ideal because I know I could never do what they do. My nerves can tolerate flying for a period of time but not enough to become a pilot or stewardess. Then I heard of college Study Abroad programs and knew I finally found a suitable way for me to travel.

Forever thankful to my homeland, the Navajo Reservation, I will come home and settle down after spreading my wings across this world. I plan on returning a wise elder and just another member of my small community, just another helping hand in our small corner of the world. I have no delusions of being marked in history for some great deed or another. Fame and glory are not on my list of ‘necessities.’ I just want to help where I can and live my life to the fullest.

My goals are simple but attainable. As a child, I thought that merely asking to do these wonderful things would get me there. I learned quickly that I had to find my own way and that lead me to think of my strengths. Coming up blank except for my intelligence, I have now made it my life’s goal to see as much as the world as I can. I want to be the difference to one person and I know that will make my life complete. I have found a way to get what I want out of life and that is through my education.