Below is a sample student response to the theme of 'personal journey'.
Responses are graded against the following criteria:
Sample piece: to reflect / express
Prompt: The Path Less Taken
I was at a family dinner over Easter earlier in the year, and one of my aunts asked me a seemingly-innocuous question that made me quite uncomfortable. Usually, I am an upbeat, bubbly person, and most would tell you that I have high confidence. Unfortunately, the opposite is true: every day I question the choices I have made and the impact they have had on my relationships.
When I entered high school, I was faced with a rather uncomfortable choice: I would have to pick a school sport to play during winter, or join a band. The extracurricular lady peered at me over her bifocals, frowning, eyebrows drawn together and raised like little anthills. The only band that had any space was the orchestra, and they needed a piccolo player.
Now, anyone who is acquainted with woodwind instruments would know that the piccolo is a tiny, shrieking version of the flute, and that it should be played only by an experienced flautist with excellent tone. But for a reason unknown both to my parents and myself, I, standing in my oversized blazer with my dress almost at my ankles, boldly offered my services to the school band. The lady in charge of extracurriculars frowned a little harder, and I could almost imagine the tiny ants running in and out of those hills. Then she sat back, sighed, and put my name down, one eyebrow still raised.
Obviously, I was terrible. However, I started practising more and more. I took a certain tormented delight in knowing that while other students were tucking into dinner, or doing a little homework, I was running up and down the same five notes with deliberate focus. As painful as my practice was for all within earshot, the improvement it allowed me in the orchestra gave me surging motivation.
Sometimes in life, you are captured by an idea which is inexplicable to those who haven’t felt it. The sense of mastery I felt playing the piccolo made all other subjects at school pale in comparison. What was maths, with all its useless formulae repeated over and over, when music was a space with infinite room for improvement? Where every day’s practice contributed to notable growth, however small? Music was not just a hobby for me, but a pursuit which gave me the deepest sense of meaning. Over time, I came to love the piccolo more than anything else.
Unfortunately, as the years went by, my parents, who had initially been in favour of my playing an instrument, slowly started to prioritise other things. I should have been studying more maths, more science, writing more essays. I knew that they expected me to study like my friends, and to aim for medicine so I could become a doctor. As much as I tried, my enthusiasm for those subjects never matched what I felt for music. I practised more, and my grades fell further. I tried to hide reports from my parents (with little success). Finally, when I entered year 12, I committed a cardinal sin: I listed a music degree as my first university preference.
The decision had a negative impact on my parents. Our relationship turned to more fighting, and then stony, awkward dinners. Parents often have high expectations for their children. Life is short. You only buy books for a new highschool year six times with your child, and they only get the ages of 18-22 to do undergrad with people their own age. For parents, not only does time with children fly by, but in many cases the having of children cut their own professional lives short. I remember my mother constantly reminding me that perhaps she would have been so much further ahead in her workplace if not for the family, as much as she loved us. I think for her in particular, the lives of my siblings and myself were vicarious extensions of her own, through which she could live out different “maybe” paths.
You can understand, then, why I would have been so perturbed by my aunt's question: “And what will you be doing at the end of the year?”
For my part, I could never see why my parents were so upset. My three older siblings all left secondary education and diligently commenced medical school. I, on the other hand, could only see one thing: I had one life to live, and I’d rather do anything than spend it dissecting bodies and examining skin conditions. Once you realise that life is short, you come to terms with the fact that you may as well spend it doing things you enjoy. How sad it would be to die doing something you hated out of a feeling of social obligation.
And yet, this is what so many of us do. Many of us end up trapped in degrees, then internships, then grad roles, then middle-management jobs chosen for us by our high-schooler selves, with extremely little experience to guide the decision. Most people enter this life because it is the socially acceptable thing to do, and also because it is extremely difficult to find direction. Artists, inventors, and scientists have to bet against conventional wisdom to pursue their innate dreams. However, conventional wisdom is usually right (which is why we call it wisdom), and so if you don’t have a good reason to ignore it, you probably shouldn’t. Perhaps, given how much I know my parents care about me, I do understand their worry after all.
So when my aunt asked me this question, the mood in the room dropped somewhat. I thought carefully about my response. Should I lie, tell her that I’ll be doing medicine too? Should I say I was prevented by my poor grades? It was almost true. But then I felt the weight of the truth settle upon me, and it was heavy and liberating all at once. I was different. Who cared? This was my life. “So, then? Will you be following your good older siblings?”
“You know, aunty,” I twirled some spaghetti around my fork. “I’ve decided to walk the path less taken.”
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