Life as an English-Second Language Student (Personal Essay Example)

Being the youngest person in my family, all of my sisters and friends live in Jordan, where I am originally from. I traveled with my parents to New Jersey in 2015 when I was 16 years of age. Traveling for the first time in my life and starting a new life, was an extremely terrifying experience.

When I first landed in New Jersey, I was enrolled in Clifton High School. I was a senior high school student. However, due to New Jersey’s state requirements, I was enrolled as a junior student. It was extremely frustrating. I needed to take additional courses to strengthen my English communication skills, which was utterly understandable. I faced numerous difficulties choosing the correct words and communicating with teachers and advisors. Nevertheless, a year went by, my family and I decided to move to Houston, Texas.

I assumed moving to a new state would brighten my world. Nonetheless, it all started to collapse. After countless ill-fated attempts of getting into other schools; liberty high school was the only school that would allow me to enroll. Liberty high school was a night school. Students would start classes at 4:30PM, finish classes at 11:30PM. Later when I was enrolled, I was informed by the school’s principle, that I must enroll as a junior student due to Texas’s state requirements. At that instant, I was in disbelief, and I wanted to relinquish. Yet, I did not give up and I graduated in 2018 with a grade average point of 3.3. Post-graduation I applied at University of Houston, University of Houston Downtown and Victoria. Withal, I chose Houston Community College. During my early years, I was vastly bewildered by the whole college life aspect. It was nothing like I had anticipated. I have been struggling with classes and professors for approximately four years. It was last semester that I concluded that I have been struggling in school due to my unsatisfaction with my major and what I wanted to peruse. After that conclusion, with the help of my advisor, I was able to change my major from Pre-med to Liberal Arts and Humanities.

To conclude, I have encountered innumerable obstacles during my education journey. Some of those obstacles that I mentioned could have been a significant major reason to give up. However, I fought and suffered mentally and financially to become where I am today. Thus, I decided to aid students and guide them when they feel disoriented like I did in my previous years of education.