a collection of english essays;

You Got to Talk More

This is my admissions essay that got me into one of the most prestigious schools in my country. (Ateneo De Manila University)

Prompt: Please choose one significant experience or achievement that has helped define you as a person.

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Question

In order for the Committee on Admission and Aid to get to know you better, please choose at least one significant experience or accomplishment that has helped define you as a person. Kindly expound on it in the form of an essay.

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"You got to talk more."

My calculus teacher incessantly drilled into our heads the importance of speaking up and communication skills, and he went on and on about the culture of Filipino students who don't speak up in class for fear of being wrong, or those who say yes when the teacher asks if they understood when they didn't.

It was annoying and repetitive, and I found myself rolling my eyes a couple of times because it was getting on my nerves. I didn't exactly like the fact that what he said also applied to me.

Meanwhile, in recitations, I stuttered and fumbled around my words, the minute I attempted to recite the answer to the question. I knew the answer, I knew how the formula works, and I knew how I solved it, and I even checked in photomath to see if I was correct. And I was.

Yet I stutter and fumble because I simply did not go over this scenario in my head one thousand times, before speaking up. But if I wasted time trying to mentally prepare myself to talk in front of the class, the opportunity to get my grades up even higher would pass–and I hated that more than I hated talking in class.

But even if I did spend the whole day leading up to that point obsessively rehearsing my lines to my boyfriend in our video call, rewriting my script once or twice, and asking for 2nd opinions on whether my explanation made any sense, I would still be sweating buckets.

Needless to say, I'm glossophobic–a crippling fear of public speaking. But I knew that I needed to do something about it–plus I really needed a good recommendation letter from a teacher for applying to The Ateneo. I may have a great fear of public speaking, but my drive to get into my dream schools is greater.

So when my calculus teacher said that there will be an additional grade for whoever explained the concept of limits and derivatives to the whole class, I immediately swiped the opportunity, and started my routine of obsessive script writing, overthinking, and planning. I didn't need the additional grade as my calculus grade was already pretty high, but I was in fact, "clout-chasing".

On the day of my glorified reporting about limits and derivatives in the name of a recommendation letter, I did pretty well, albeit I spoke a little too fast, and fumbled with technical issues, all the while hoping that my classmates understood what I was trying to say, but I otherwise did fantastically. The teacher noted that I was, in fact, aware that I knew that he already knew what Limits and Derivatives are and that I was just practicing speaking in front of the class.

But one experience of purposely putting myself on the spot and trying to explain something I overthought in a week isn't going to magically turn phobia into philia–even though I really enjoyed calculus. No, it was something I needed to consistently do. So I did.

A spark lit my complacency ablaze, and I became competitive. It was as if a crystal ball was struck by sunlight in the right place, focused the beam into a couch, and reduced a house into a pile of ashes. This situation may seem bonkers but a news outlet in the US reported that a mere crystal ball that was left unattended, caused more than 320,000 dollars worth of damage in a house fire.

That was exactly what happened to me, minus the house fire. I was inspired, in the right place, at the right time, and that enacted a change within me–to speak up more and share my thoughts without worrying about being wrong because it's okay to be wrong. And I realized that all this time, I was just afraid of being wrong.