Natalie Lyon
Winner’s Home Town
Indian Land, South Carolina
College or University Attending
Furman University
Utopia Scholarship Essay
Working Towards Utopia
Getting an education is something I believe everyone should have access to. Being well informed and understanding how the world around us works is essential to even having the possibility of creating a utopian world in the future. I am not confident that the utopian world that we all dream of will come to fruition in the near future; however, I do believe that we can’t not try to strive towards it. If we never try to fix the world, then the possibility of a utopia will never come.
Just by receiving an education, I am learning how to become a better citizen in my community. I am learning social skills, public speaking skills, and about how to spot problems in my community and how to best fix them. Through the clubs that I am part of at my school, I am able to form connections with people and organizations that strive to make the community and world a better place. Without my education, I would have never had the opportunity to meet these people and experience the development of these skills. I would not have learned how to become the best person I could possibly be for my community.
As I graduate from high school, I plan on furthering my education at Furman University, located in Greenville, South Carolina. There, I plan on becoming a studio art major with a double major in Japanese. I want to use the skills I develop in these courses to become a photographer who travels the world. I very much love taking photos of the world around me and of things that many people would just walk past. I’m hoping that in the future, no matter what job I end up taking, I will be able to inspire or inform others more about the world around us. I could use my photography skills to show the harsh environments that people are living in and advocate for their support. I could take photos of animals, plants, and environments that are in danger and inform the public that these species need help. I could even just use my skills to take photos of people during important times in their lives to make them happy and preserve their happiness. While I’m not sure if this career that I want to pursue would contribute to a utopian world, I do believe that if I work hard enough, it could definitely help me to strive towards one.
This is only, of course, possible if I am able to gain access to a proper education. If I am not even given the opportunity to further my education or not get an education at all, none of my dreams or goals for this world would be possible. While there is always the choice to teach myself the necessary skills, I would be missing out on lessons from actual professionals in that field, as well as building connections with my peers and teachers. And that’s what life is all about, isn’t it? Building lasting connections with people whom you trust and share interests with. Without those connections, we’d be striving further away from a utopian world. One main part of my ideal utopian world is one where everyone gets along without any discrimination towards how they look, where they come from, what they believe in, or what they do. By reaching out and building these connections with others, we are slowly but surely eliminating more and more of that discrimination. Without that opportunity to achieve a higher education, I would not be
able to form those connections with my peers and teachers.
Education is a fundamental key in our society; without it, we wouldn’t be able to grow
and expand our knowledge. This is what I hope to achieve when I graduate high school and go to
college. I want to be able to learn more about the world and my environment, and I want to share
with others what I learn and experience through my photos. This is one of the main reasons why
I want to become a photographer who primarily deals with nature and plants. I want to share with
the world the animals, plants, and landscapes that I capture through my lens because not everyone can see what I see. We all live in different parts of the world with different environments, thus leading to different wildlife, plants, and landscapes. I hope that by sharing photos of different environments with people around the world, I can create a sense of community around the world. Once again, however, I cannot confidently achieve this goal without my education. I wouldn’t want to take a picture of a beautiful flower and mislabel it as something it’s not, as miscommunication is one of the leading reasons why I believe it is challenging to achieve utopia.
Miscommunication is one of the main reasons that causes conflict between friends, people, and even countries. If something is misinterpreted or a fact is not checked before becoming public, it could greatly sway the minds of whoever listens. By ensuring that one has a proper education and is able to fact-check what they have heard or read, it would lead to less conflict and less miscommunication. This is why I also want to take an environmental or botany course in college, so that I will not be at fault for any miscommunication.
While I know that in this day and age with the rising cost of college and other financial issues, not everyone will be granted the privilege of a good and honest education, I do hope that everyone who does receive an education will be able to work together to build a better world. A world that I know could someday become the utopia that we all wish for and dream of. But in order to do that, we must all start somewhere, and I plan on starting in Greenville, South Carolina.
