The Impact of Childhood Education on Their Adult Lives - Essay Example

Essay They say that a child is born with a blank slate for his parents to write upon. Whatever the parents write upon this slate will have a strong influence on the dreams, ambitions, and aspirations of the child later on in his life. Since a child is born under the direct influence of his parents, it is not uncommon for a child to grow up wishing to emulate either one or both of his parents. I am not an exception to this rule. I remember that when I was a child, I looked up tremendously to my businessman father. I would often play by his desk at his home office during weekends and listen to him take business phone calls and watch him read company related documents. While other children grew up sitting on their fathers laps while he read them a fairy tale, my father would pop me on top of his knees as he sat with business correspondence in his hands. Reading the content of the letters soothingly to me as if it was the most natural thing in the world. I believe that I understood the meaning of cost adjustment even before I learned how to count or read. I remember one of the earliest toys that my father gave me as a child. This was after I had started school and I had just begun my addition lessons in class. It was a mini storefront complete with fake items and a working cash register. He would often pretend to be a customer of mine at the grocery and have me add up his purchases. Little did I know that I considered play-time with him was actually his way of helping me to learn the rudiments of math in relation to business. When I got older, the mini-storefront play set turned into a beverage stand in front of our home during the scorching hot summer months. My father used the money that I made from these summer ventures to teach me all about investment, capital, interest, and earnings. I am still wondering how my father found a way to explain what I realize now are such complex business concept foundations to a child as young as I. Even more more amazing, was the fact that I actually understood what he was explaining to me. As I got older and my classes in math began to get more complex, so did the lessons that my father taught me. Needless to say, I grew up with not only fathers influence as a constant presence in my life, but also a deep interest in Economics and its relation to the common folk and their financial needs. My father instilled that in me. He planted the seed of interest in Economics within me. He nurtured it by helping me to grow up unafraid of numbers and increasingly complex mathematical computations. Then he reaped the rewards by discovering that he had positively influenced me into a line of work that he perhaps hoped I would be interested in but did not expect me to follow suit. I do not feel like I am being pressured to enter the world of Economics because my father is in it. I truly have a personal interest in the world of banking and finance and how it affects the finances of the world. It is an interest that started when I first began to earn real money from my simple beverage stand as a child and having my father explain to me how I could best benefit from the money that I earned. Essay 2 Moving to the United States from Pakistan was not an easy decision for my parents to make. It meant having to leave the life that we already knew and adjusting to a new life and language that was totally alien to us. But my parents chose to gamble on a new life in a new country because they knew that the benefits of the move far outweighed the reasons we had to stay in Pakistan. Coming here without being able to speak a word of English proved to be highly challenging for my family at the beginning. We could only speak Urdu, Hindi and Guajarati -- all languages that would not help us assimilate into the American society. So you can imagine how I struggled just to keep up in class and with my lessons. My only exposure to English in the past had been the few English movies and cartoons that I watched in Pakistan where I began my education. But I guess it is true that exposure and immersion is the best teacher because my parents and I somehow managed to pick up the English language with our neighbors help in learning the most important sentences in the language that would help us get by as we adjusted to the American life. I will admit that I struggled in my classes when I first entered school here but through sheer perseverance, I managed to get by until such a time when I began to thrive under the American educational system. Language barriers aside, it was my desire to perform as best as I could academically that helped me overcome any limitations that I may have had for some time. Dont get me wrong though. Being able to speak Urdu fluently had its benefits for my family that runs a dry-cleaning business. My fathers clients were also Pakistani and they quite enjoyed being able to go a dry-cleaner whose family spoke the same language as they did. It meant giving them a sense of home away from home. It meant that for a few minutes as they picked-up or dropped-off their laundry, they would be able to relax their jaws and tongue from speaking English, opting instead to speak a language that came more naturally to their tongues. My fathers business therefore provided more than just a public service, it also provided a refuge to those who missed the land from where they came from. It helped ease the homesickness that we, our friends, and clients were experiencing at the time. As an immigrant student in the United States, I know that I will be able to help enrich the learning environment of any school that I become a part of because I know how to successfully integrate into a given society. I know how to use my cultural difference as an advantage instead of a liability. Since I am sure that I will not be the only Pakistani student on campus, I will make myself available to the foreign students as a mentor and guide as they adjust to the American lifestyle. I know how difficult it is to blend in when the other students are not very accepting of you. Having been bullied for a time in school because of my cultural difference, I know what it is like to be alone in a sea of students who do not share your culture and beliefs. I do not want to see that happen to other students be they Pakistani or not. So I will make sure that I successfully help the foreign students find their footing on American academic soil. Essay 3 When my family was living in Pakistan, we were considered one of the well to do families whose finances were quite solid and reliable. We lived a comfortable life and did not find ourselves wanting. We had a disposable income that allowed us to enjoy life at a decent level and had savings in the bank to rely on in times of need. But all of that changed when we moved to the United States. Coming here meant that my family had to give up the comfortable life that we were familiar with. It meant that my father now had a blue collar job as a dry-cleaning services operator. We no longer enjoyed the financial security that we took for granted in Pakistan. A life in the United States meant that our family was now at the bottom of the financial totem pole and we would have to work very hard as a family unit to get out of the financial rut that we were in if we were to survive in this new country. My father set up his business using a bank loan. Taking out a loan was the only way that he could see to earn money for our family since he could not get hired at a regular office. My father was prideful man but not when it came to his family. He would do anything for his family, including taking on a bank loan and opening a dry-cleaning shop instead of working at an office where he belonged. Taking out the bank loan was one of the trickiest things my father had ever done in his life. Times were not good financially in the United States when my father took out his business loan. He had to agree to terms that he would not normally have agreed to because he was being gouged on interest rates. It pained me to see my father having to go through what he did financially to keep us afloat. So I felt even worse when, due to some bad business decisions, and some people who fooled my father in business when he had openly trusted them, our dry-cleaning business verged on bankruptcy. But rather than folding under the pressure, my father came back from the edge by asking our family to help him figure out what could be done to save our business and pay off the increasing amount of debt. By my fathers simple action, he influenced me to change my way of thinking and open my mind to the real world and its requirements. Seemingly endless discussions with my family members and planning our financial movements helped me to view finances with a more critical eye and think of economics in a more delicate manner. This was the point in time when I came to an eye-opening realization. Without proper financial planning and economic understanding, a family, a business, can fall to its knees. It can ruin a family and leave them on the verge of hunger and without a roof over their heads. After what my family experienced, I vowed that I would never allow that to happen again to my family, myself, and our friends. These are the reasons that I have an unwavering interest in the study of Economics. While others study Economics to learn how to pull the wool over their investors eyes, I am learning Economics because I want to protect investors and their capital. The only way I can do that is by further honing my already critical thinking and solutions oriented mindset. Essay 4 Having grown up in Pakistan, I would not say that I grew up in a country known for global wealth. In fact, it is a country where the poor people need more help from the government and financial assistance from the NGOs so that they can establish themselves in small to medium scale enterprises that can help support their families. I know that the lowest income bracket of society scenario in Pakistan also exists in other places in the world. I consider myself very lucky to have been able to get out of Pakistan and come to the United States where my family continues to thrive even though we have to work harder here in order to survive. Even though we were not impoverished in Pakistan, we lived the financially-strapped life when we first arrived in the United States. That is why the cause of poverty alleviation in relation to economic uplifting is a cause that is very near and dear to my heart. As a participant in the World Partnership Walk program, I feel that I am best doing my part in order to help alleviate world poverty. Ours is an organization that helps poor communities in Asia and Africa by helping provide their basic needs in order to empower the citizens to take charge of their lives. Under the banner of the Aga Khan Foundation Canada, World Partnership Walk has continued to finance programs developed by the AKFC. With over 40,000 people benefiting from the program, World Partnership Walk has helped raise more than $7 million to help finance the needs of the participants. I know what it is like to grow up in a family faced with financial hardship. It is not a life that I would wish upon any family. But I also know that unless these impoverished families get the kind of help that they need in order to start anew by starting a small business, they will never have a chance to succeed. What I learned from my personal experience is that no father or mother will sit still and allow their family to continue down an impoverished path. They normally have good ideas about how to alleviate their financial situation but there are very few banks willing to take a risk on them. Not all of them will be lucky to find a financier willing to gamble on them. But the AKFC is willing to help them through the World Partnership Walk. I am very pleased to say that I am part of that sector of society that is willing to help these families find their way towards a more stable financial path. Some of the older generations say that my generation considers itself privileged and above the problems of the world. We think life is a reality show and that we need to act nastily and uncaring in order to get ahead in the world. I am here to tell you that not all members of my generation are that way. There are those of us, myself included, who feel that our experiences in life teach us lessons. Learning from these lessons means that we are not afraid to give back to the community on a global scale. Which is why I never think twice about helping out my fellowman through the AKFC - World Partnership Walk organizations. Read More