When I was a teacher, I loved learning about my students’ goals and seeing how they worked to achieve them over the course of the school year. This year, the eScholar contest provided us with that insight, except instead of learning about student goals over the course of a year, we learned about the goals of 315 students over the course of just a few weeks! We want to thank every student who submitted an essay or video to this contest. We hope this was a good learning experience for you. For us at eScholar, it provided a fascinating insight into what’s important to you as students. Additionally, we want thank every teacher, coach, parent, family member and friend who helped and encouraged these students, not just in their submissions, but also in their pursuits of their goals. While reviewing the essays and videos, we noticed a few themes among all of the different submissions:
- Personal experiences play a key role in the development of a goal. Whether it’s going to school with people from different cultures or going on a vacation in a new place, a personal experience can shape and influence a goal dramatically.
- Reaching a goal requires work, dedication and sacrifice. Sometimes that means practicing a skill for hours after school or missing social events to study for exams.
- Goals are often related to a person’s passion, and that passion is usually what keeps that person motivated to achieve that goal.
Choosing only four out of the 315 submissions was an incredibly difficult challenge. For each of the categories, we also recognized additional students as finalists. The winner of each category will receive a new iPad Mini. All of our finalists and winners will receive a personalized award plaque. Without further ado, here are the winners and finalists of Goals Matter, eScholar’s 2nd Annual Student Contest!
Winner of the Teen Video Category: Mikayla M. from New York
Finalists: Christian S. from Illinois; Jack G. from Maine; Jaclyn N.
Winner of the Teen Essay Category: Zakiyyah M. from North Carolina
Finalists: Alissa W. from New York; Faith M. from New York
Winner of the Youth Video Category: Isaac W. from Utah
Finalist: Chloé M. from New York
Winner of the Youth Essay Category: Anna V. from New York
Finalist: Kelsey X. from New York.
Over the course of the next few days, we will be posting excerpts from these students’ videos and essays here on our blog and on our Twitter. Congratulations again to our winners and finalists and thank you again to every student who participated!
