PERSONAL STATEMENT

Since I was young, I have always wanted to be a doctor. There were 2 reasons for this. The first one was that Doctors got to help people, and the second one was that Doctors earned a lot of money. Even from a young age, being a child raised in an Indian household, I knew that whatever profession I chose needed to be a profession that impressed my parents and grandparents and make them proud. What I didn’t realise is that my parents were not typical Indian parents. I grew up in a very open-minded household. They were quite happy that I wanted to be a doctor and that I had already started planning for my future. Whenever I got pocket money or even birthday money, I would save it in my piggy bank for college. My parents were very proud that I had already started learning how to save at such a young age. As a child, I was a very hard-working and happy child, but I was quite clueless about how the real world was.

As I started to grow up, I started to become more aware of everything happening around me. I have lived in Singapore for my whole life. In Singapore, the government tries not to expose us to many of the real problems occurring out there in the world by banning them in Singapore. An example of this is Poverty. I never knew what poverty was until I was 8. I just noticed it in India. That’s when I realised that I have been quite oblivious. I was in a local school until I was 11. When I reached Primary 3, I started to see how many people got stressed during exam time. The syllabus got harder but I still managed to stay at the top. I didn’t give up and I always aimed for the highest of marks, especially in Math. I was always strong in math because since I was young my dad got me into math. We would sit and do math together. This helped me stay slightly ahead of my peers as I did my own practice at home.

When I came to UWC, I came in G5. I was extremely confused and the transition was very difficult for me. I didn’t know what was going on. Everything from the syllabus to the school’s break times confused me. In local school the teaching style was very different. We just had to cram everything in as we had to do everything so fast. In UWC, I didn’t even know what was going on. I remember in math, we were learning about grids and multiplication and I didn’t even know what the grid was. I never had learned the visual way of doing math and UWC was all about that. I managed to pick it up pretty quickly but I was still surprised that people didn’t know their multiplication tables yet. I was also surprised that we didn’t have any exams. I decided to relax and just enjoy this stress-free life.

Once I got to Middle school, I started to enjoy it way more. I actually started to learn things in Science and other subjects, but never in math. Whatever I knew was all my prior knowledge. I really enjoyed doing math as a kid and that habit just grew. This meant that whatever we did in class, I had already taught myself. I still started to enjoy the different subjects we were now exposed to like art, food tech, drama, etc. As Middle School started coming to an end, I realised that all my goals for my future are still pretty similar to what I wanted to be as a child. I had started to open my mind a bit more and think about architecture as I really enjoyed doing art, sketching in particular.

The transition to high school was quite rough. I began to realise that I needed to get used to the idea of exams and tests. We had so much more homework and the deadlines just seemed to be at the same time. As soon as we finished one assignment, another one always just seemed to pop up. I really had to become a better self-manager to finish my tasks on time. Even though it was a challenge, I still overcame it. I seem to enjoy the challenges now and I realised that I work best under a bit of pressure. This is has developed and become a strong skill of mine over time.

In Conclusion, all these experiences I have experienced has really helped me in school and in life. Although I need to improve on many points, I have continued to face challenges with a resilient attitude. When I’m faced with a challenge, I do not give up easily, I just overcome and adapt.

Thank you,

Anya Prasad