Sample College Essay #30

Prompt: Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?

I would not say that I am a very grateful person, but recently I experienced something that made me believe cultivating more gratitude in my life is a good thing. For a long time, I’ve believed that some people are talented and others are not, and that’s just the way things are. And when you have a talent for something, you should use it and deserve to be recognized for it.

As a talented dancer, I hold this mindset deeply ingrained, I think. Dance has always been natural to me. It comes easy and I know I excel at it. I’ve never failed to impress my teachers. Except for my latest dance teacher. Ms. Martins is a new addition to my dance club, and she is known for being strict and having high standards, like many dance teachers. As I have high standards myself, I expected we would get along just fine.

To my surprise, we did not. Every class, she would provide who I considered to be weaker students with plenty of encouragement. For me, she had only critiques. One of her favorite comments was that I wasn’t pushing myself far enough. Of course, this attitude aggravated me and created some resentment.

I finally confronted her when she passed me over for a lead spot in the club’s upcoming production. I asked her why she wouldn’t put her best student in the lead role. Her reply shocked me. She said that while I may be her best student, I wasn’t her strongest. When I asked what she meant, she remarked that I would never grow as a dancer if I kept coasting on my natural talent and stopped challenging myself.

Determined to prove her wrong, I promised to challenge myself. At the next internal club showcase, I performed a difficult dance in front of my classmates and the faculty, including Ms. Martins. She complimented me on my performance but remarked that I hadn’t truly challenged myself. She suggested I try a dance I wasn’t familiar with or try dancing in a new discipline to see if I could translate my skills across dance styles.

With renewed vigor, I did as she suggested, and attended a class on hip-hop, instead of my specialty of ballet. Ballet is considered extremely rigorous, despite its appearance, but I learned in a hip-hop class, it takes more than talent to succeed. I had never struggled so much in my life to perform a dance properly. Being the stubborn sort of person I am, I didn’t throw in the towel and instead went back for another class, then another.

The next time I had the chance to perform in front of Ms. Martins, I chose a hip-hop routine. It was far from my best dance performance, but it felt surprisingly satisfying to see her smile in the audience. I was even more surprised to hear her say that she was impressed after my performance.

What was even more baffling to me was that I felt a surge of gratitude for Ms. Martins for convincing me to push my boundaries and work outside my discipline. When I was able to learn a new style, it gave me a sense of satisfaction that I could still excel outside my preference. When I performed my next ballet routine and found I’d even incorporated some of the lessons I’d learned in hip-hop class into my ballet, I couldn’t believe it, but I wanted to thank Ms. Martins for what she did.

Without her, I might never have pushed my boundaries. I might never have discovered that I could go beyond my best performance. Her push for me to challenge myself has made me realize that its important to keep challenging myself and growing in my skill. That I had grown complacent, and it was in fact affecting my passion for dance. Somehow though, my gratitude to my teacher has reignited the spark of passion for dance and encouraged me to never grow complacent again.

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