Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Tib I Believe in Listening To My Mom 1 3
Tib I Believe in Listening To My Mom 1 3
Grace Hwang
Professor Babcock
English 138T
2 February 2024
https://psu.voicethread.com/share/26411795/
I have been asked this many times before, and while it may seem like a simple answer....
for the opportunities, the prestige, the shiny medal.... my reason was a bit different.
The leaves had just started to turn red in 2022 when I got a surprise in the mail: an early
acceptance letter from Penn State, complete with a shiny banner. But I wasn’t exactly the
But that didn’t stop my mom from researching everything and anything about Penn State,
as if I had already decided. That’s when she came across the Schreyer Honors College and boy
For the next week and a half, she kept mentioning the looming application deadline
whenever possible. During Dinner, driving home from work, before bed, no time was sacred,
Fueled with spite, I planned to write the sloppiest, most rushed essay responses that the
world had ever seen. After all, she only wanted me to apply, she didn’t say it had to be good.
Hwang2
But as I began to type, her words echoed in my head, and I began to consider the benefits
that could come from being in an honors college. Priority registration, the internal support to do
research, a hefty scholarship that would’ve made college affordable, something almost unheard
of.
With this new motivation, I began to write for the next two days, only stopping to eat and
sleep. And it ended up paying off when March 1st rolled around: the day I received my
Looking back at this experience and other similar instances, I’ve realized how important
my mom is in my life. Whether I like to admit it or not, being lazy is one of my biggest vices
because of how easy it is to fall into. School projects, scholarship deadlines, applications.
Everything is so easy to put off when there is no one there to hover over my shoulder, especially
as I grow up more independent and more stressed. I suppose that’s one of the follies of growing
However, having constant encouragement coming from someone who genuinely cares for
me helps fend off that apathy. In my case, trusting my mom’s intuition opened me to thinking
about a different path than the one I had originally wanted. And it’s one decision that’s led me to
so many great things at Penn State, including a Food Science program where I’ve met the closest
To this day, my mom sends me information about things I could do. And while not
everything is my cup of tea, some of it (especially getting physics tutoring) has been life
changing.