Meet Emile Mormile, our 2015 scholarship winner!
Video Topic: Who is your Superhero?
Essay Topic: If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be?
If I could change one thing about this world it would be education and the amount of stress mentally, physically, and financially that it puts on students. Education in America has become more focused on the profit and not on the well-being of the students, while in other parts of the world, education is not a priority at all. Mentally, the stress of school has taken over many young people’s lives and has caused them much turmoil. The pressure has caused many young people to have breakdowns, not learn how to balance their time, and become withdrawn from friends and family. Physically, many students put themselves under a lot of pressure and cause themselves a lot of physical pain. Some students are under so much stress that they self-harm and cause themselves anxiety to the point where they lose hair and have chest pains. Financially, the cost of education, whether it be for private school or college, has caused much stress in many households and discouraged many kids from continuing their education past high school. With the rising costs of education, kids feel the need to drop out with the intent of returning to school after they get a job but never return. By changing the way education is utilized, there would be a plethora of educated people, as well as more advances in all areas of life.
First, to change the amount of stress on education in the developed countries, I would lower the amount of money needed to pursue a degree in college. By doing so, more people would have the opportunities to attend the college of their dreams and become more successful in life. With citizens in the well-developed countries having more access to education, I would form a program at the colleges that would let students earn their teaching degrees and give them the training to go to underdeveloped countries to bring education to the children there. With this program, citizens of underdeveloped countries would be able to have more possibilities as to what they do with their lives and how they impact the society they live in. That would allow those people to feel more confident in their abilities to help their countries, and would form positive partnerships between countries.
Second, in the more advanced countries, to decrease the amount of physical and mental strain on the students there, I would set up programs to teach the teachers how to get their students to learn in the most efficient way, which would not include multiple tests on one day or six hours of homework after a rigorous day of classwork. With these programs, teachers would be able to connect with their students more and work on the most productive way for the students to learn and succeed. Also, I would change how colleges view grades and test scores. For college, a lot of pressure is put on the student to get the 4.0 grade point average and 34 ACT score. By eliminating this unnecessary pressure, students would be more likely to focus on actually understanding what they are learning instead of worrying about getting what they need to get into their dream schools. Colleges should make themselves challenging to get into, but not to the point that it causes the students to have mental breakdowns.
Out of all things in the world to change, I chose education because it is something that is very close to my heart. I have personally been a victim of the stress that education can cause on a student in multiple ways, and I hope that one day students won’t have to go through what I did. I hope that one day students will be able to go through school and be happy that they are getting an education rather than upset because of the lack of sleep the night before in an attempt to finish all of their homework and study for tests.
