Personal Statement
Everyone has their own story of hardships and difficulties, and I am no different from that. I moved to the USA when I was 15 years old and since then I have learned many things about life and the difficulties that come with it. I. have also learned how to overcome these obstacles. The first obstacle that I faced once I came here was the different teaching styles than in India. It took me several months to adapt but after that everything seemed easy. Since an early age, I was interested in computers and due to this interest, I picked computer security as my major. I want to protect as many individuals as I can. This is not going to be an easy task, but I am up for it.
One of the quotes that helped me a lot in my life and changed my outlook toward life is “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard”. I am a hardworking individual who never backs down from a challenge. I played soccer in high school, and I was not one of the most skilled players but the thing that kept me on the team and got me the starting spot was my work ethic. I became the captain of the team because of my strong voice on the field and my relationship with my teammates. I listened to everyone’s problems and tried to figure out a way to work around them. This quote communicates a strong message to my life because since entering the university I faced many difficulties one of which was supporting myself financially to pay the tuition. To overcome this, I started working two jobs while being a full-time student. Initially, I started seeing a drop in my grades, but I decided to make a plan or outline each day and started studying in between my classes to improve my grades.
Many people get inspired by a certain person in their life, they can be someone they know or an athlete, or a celebrity. I also have a role model who I look up to and get inspired to work hard and never give up. This person is a well-known soccer player Lionel Messi. I look up to him because, at an early age, he was diagnosed with growth hormone disease which limited his growth. Despite this disease, he never gave up but worked harder and now he is one of the best soccer players in history. Similarly to that, I also want to never give up and always work hard towards achieving my goals and making myself a better person each day.
“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard”, this quote will help me in my future because computer security is an ever-growing industry and new types of malware and attacks originate every day. In order to combat this malware and attacks cybersecurity professionals need to stay up to date with new techniques and new languages and this is not an easy task. This quote will motivate me to stay up to date and learn new techniques as I grow my career in the cybersecurity field.
I never thought of being a leader or knew anything about leadership. But the teams class taught me many things about leadership. Leadership is not only about you being in the front but rather the whole team is in the front. A leader should not only give orders but opposite to that collaborate with their team and achieve the goal together. I learned many things in the teams class by being a team member and at last, being a leader. I learned what to do and what not to do by working under other leaders and finally when I became a leader, I tried my best to work with my team and be communicative with them. A leader should be transparent and try to distribute the work among the teammates according to their strengths and work out their weaknesses together.
In the end, I would like to say that any person can get inspired or motivated to work towards their goals through a quote, person, or life experience. In my case, this quote by Tim Notke changed my outlook toward my goals and careers and motivated me to face the obstacles in my life head-on and never back down from a challenge. Talent comes naturally to some people but one can work hard and make themselves prove better than talented people because of the lessons they learn during the journey to achieve their goals.