Taking a Leap of Faith!
Faith takes a leap of Faith during her first semester at Harvard. In this post, she talks about the mentor who helped her fulfill her dream of attending Harvard and more.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines mentor as “someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person.” I could not agree more with this definition. Whether asking a former teacher to look over an application essay or a food-loving friend to help me chose a take-out order, I have continually lean on and benefit from the advice of others. While they may not all fit the prevailing image of a great sage, the eclectic people in my circles—from familial to professional—are all people I have looked to and consider to be mentors.
Subscribing to the “it takes a village” way of life, my family has been the greatest rock throughout my life. In particular, I look to my mother for much guidance and support, but also less unexpectedly, to my older brother. Coming from a single-parent household, I always benefited from having his second opinion to which to look after hearing from my mom. Being someone older than me but also in my generation, my brother served as everyone from the person who motivated me to go from being an average student in time to still dream of going to Harvard to he who taught me how to properly ease onto the gas when I was preparing to test for my motorcycle license. He truly embodies what the good old dictionary has to say about mentors.
It is then no surprise that I owe a great deal to these influential weights in my life, which have kept me balanced. While my mother is the greatest support system, my brother has served as an incomparable source of encouragement. My mother instilled in me a love of politics and public service at a very young age, shaping who I am today. Yet, it was my bother who drove us three hours to go see then-Senator Obama speak the day before the 2008 elections.
My brother is the one who showed me that a mentor could just as well be my sibling as it could be an associate at a law firm or a scholastic advisor. My brother is someone I look to as we begin work on Read Between the Minds---someone I aspire to be like as I serve as a mentor.
