college essay

University of Washington

“Tell us a story from your life, describing an experience that either demonstrates your character or helped to shape it.”

         Respect, dedication and pushing farther where you think you can go. We live in a era where the society is about “me, me, me.” We have gone from breaking our own limits to saying “well that’s good enough.” Sad to say even someone like me has been forced to conformed to this tragic truth. After a while things may seem normal until joined the Moanalua High school Marching Band and color guard I’ve realized that having this type of attitude is not okay.

            PRIDE is the motto of our department and is also an acronym. Perseverance respect integrity discipline and excellence is what we stand for. Being in Marching band we should be grateful for all the time that has been sacrificed for us, we have parents making us food at 12am, people making routines for us, taking the time to go all of our practices and making sure that when we performance is amazing, the least we can do is show them respect. That is our number 1 rule. We should always say “Thank you” and we always stop what we are doing to help someone in need. Being disrespectful is a non tolerable thing during practice and they make sure we know that.           

2014 was probably my toughest year, my rookie year. I couldn’t get the routines down and I would all say it’s way to hard, on top of that I was the only freshman that got in to color guard, It was such a different environment. All the upper class men knew each other and had their own clicks, I felt so alone. I didn’t understand why I’m still going to each practice. I was lonely, I didn’t get the routine and etc. dragging myself through each practice there was one specific practice that just made me realize that I needed to clean up my act “Come on you got this show all this upper classmen out, don’t be the weak freshman prove me wrong!” Those words saved my butt from almost quitting an amazing program. After that talk I started to get myself out there and was able to meet an amazing group of girls who enjoy the same thing as I did. Not saying that all the practice were easy, But I finally understood that dedication will take you places higher then anywhere you can think of.

Marching Band has 3 day practices a week, we are put into the scorching hot sun where we practice set after set till our legs turn into noodles, My first day all I would do is complain and complain on how hot it was and that is too much things being shoved into my brain. One practice our director talked to the band “don’t be like your parents.” I knew exactly where he was coming from. He wasn’t saying that our parents are bad people he was trying to point out not to give up so easily, see as we grow up we are shaped to be just like our parents, after all we did grow up with them. Thinking that listening to them and going the exact same path as they did is the best way to go. What we don’t see is that we have been shield from the real world. If it gets too hot they will take you out of the heat, If something gets too hard they will tell you “it’s okay you don’t need to do it,” our parents set our push level so low that we won’t survive a day in the real world. I used to be those kids who would through a tantrum if I couldn’t get something right, but I didn’t realized that if I push myself harder and go over my limits I am capable of doing more then what I think. We are taught to do what we can do but we don’t realized what we could do.

To conclude Marching band and color guard has made a big impact on my life it taught me to respect, stay dedicated and keep pushing forward. It shaped me to be a better person and made me be a better person. I’m truly grateful for all that marching band has taught me.