college essay

Submitted By pturner17
Words: 603
Pages: 3

Some say that maturity comes with age. However, I have to disagree with this statement, I am convinced that maturity comes with experiences and one’s first life changing experience can launch you from childhood into maturity. I believe this as it takes maturity to encounter, understand, and adjust to a life changing experience. There are a few key moments in my life that I consider to have enhanced and expedited my maturing process. For me, the first experience that set me on the road to maturity occurred when I was just 12 years old. This was the age that I moved to Bangkok, Thailand. Until that time, I had lived in the same location in Virginia associating with the same friends. This move was a life changing experience for me, as I had never been to a foreign country, except for briefly crossing over the border to Canada. I remember the sense of trepidation and uneasiness that gripped me when I first arrived in Thailand, but I realized after just two weeks of living in Bangkok, that the Thais were wonderful people and my concerns were unjustified. The first day of school in Thailand was one that I will remember forever, as Bangkok Patana was almost four times the size of any school that I had previously attended. However, after two and a half weeks at the new school, I realized that my fears were again misplaced. This experience made me realize that although a new experience may seem frightening, the best way to deal with it is to simply just jump right in with an open mind. This was what I believe to be my first stepping stone on the road to maturity. The second major milestone for me personally didn’t occur until four years later when 16 while living and attending school in England. During this year I had the extraordinary opportunity of going on a humanitarian aid project with my school to Tanzania. I believe that this was a major milestone for me, experiencing first-hand the terrible conditions in Africa while people are always telling you to give back and be thankful for what you have. That doesn’t become truly real until you go and personally see and experience what it is like for these people. While in Tanzania, we helped to build a primary school for in a very poor village. This allowed all of us to do something