The silent assembly hall, which is actually full of people, dead silence in my head. I’m waiting for my long-awaited red certificate. To get it, I’ve worked for an entire year, I sacrificed my time, health and energy. And that’s it, I was called to the stage in the assembly hall, everyone was excited, they knew what I put in to get a red certificate. At that moment, I was seeing the world completely different. They gave me a blue certificate, which means, that I didn’t get what I worked for.
The importance of getting a red certificate for me, was higher than mountains. I craved it, it meant to me that I can make everything I want. The red certificate also meant to me my own intelligence and thinking skills. And once, I decided to work as hard as possible to get a red certificate. I still remember my first lesson after this decision, the teacher gave us a project, which needed to be solved. The students in my team were quite smart and intelligent, someone was good at math, simultaneously as someone was good at advanced reasoning. I took a responsibility, everyone had their own responsibility. I united the team. By their knowledge and intelligence, we solved the problem of the project. We were the first team which had solved it. We stood together, but they said, without me, they wouldn’t have worked together. Every single person including our teacher was applauding me, and this is the moment, in which I felt that I’ve changed. After that I had motivations to make steps towards my goal. And it included challenges. As an illustration, I was in the open lessons, in which I had to express myself in front of thousands of students and teachers. I felt nervous, not even being the center of the attention made me feel uncomfortable, I realized that getting a red certificate was much harder than simply saying words in front of people. Having understood that it’s not as simple, I wanted to give up. However my ambitions and dreams took up.
By the third quarter, my grades became the deciding factor. To qualify for the red certificate, my GPA had to be perfect. But at 4.8 out of 5.0 it wasn’t enough. The quarter’s GPA would determine my final standing. Instead of accepting defeat, I pushed myself even harder. I forgot what rest felt like. I worked through exhaustion, anxiety, frustration, and disappointment.
But then, I asked myself: Does red certificate determine my future success? How important is it to me? I realized that, in the grand scheme of things, it was just a small victory. It would never define my career and future. It would never reflect my ambitions, knowledge, and experience. Only thing that matters to me, is my willpower. One time, I also learned how to balance rest with the ability to work hard. It became my biggest lesson I learned from life, it taught me to work hard and find a time for myself. This realization made me stronger, more adaptable, and more self-aware. I came to understand that failure is not an end, but a straight point—a chance to build a new strategy and prepare for even greater battles. And now, I see failures as opportunities to grow.
This is exactly what I want to experience in the U.S.—to adapt, to study, and to build a new history.