It is the middle of January during my second semester of senior year of high school. School is out for the day and I am sitting in my Honda CRV waiting for my brother to be let out from school. It is the middle of winter, and even though I know it’s cold outside I put my hand to my window to feel the temperature. My heater is slowly starting to work. I can hear it blowing through my dusty vents, but I can’t feel its heat. Ever since I got my driver’s license at the beginning of my senior year, I have been picking up my younger brothers after school, and it has always been one of the highlights of my day. 

My younger brother gets out of school ten minutes after me. While I wait in the parking lot, I am on my phone, and on this particular day in January, I get a notification from one of my high school teachers. I click on the notification. One of my JROTC teachers sends me a message that reads, “Ashia, you were selected for the J-100 ROTC Scholarship. Congratulations! Now to wait and see if you were selected to one of the Academies. You definitely deserve it!” 

I look up from my phone. I simply cannot believe the words I just read. This changes everything. Everything seemed the same outside my window. There is my school across the street. Parents driving to pick up their kids from school. The brightness from the few hours of sunlight that we actually receive in Alaska reflects off the mounds of snow that is everywhere. The smell of exhaust of all the heaters running in the cars. But everything is not the same. 

Bang! My younger brother, Aidan, who is twelve years old, bangs on my window to scare me. He gets in the backseat. As soon as he opens the door, I tell him the news. At first, he does not understand how much this means to not only me but our family as well. “Ok…and?” was all my brother could muster. 

“How many people in our family do you know who have gone to college?” I ask him as I reverse out of the parking spot, mindful not to hit any of the little kids in snowsuits.  

My brother does not come up with an answer, which proves my point. On the two-minute drive to pick up my baby brother, Alijah, who is in kindergarten, I loudly repeat the news to myself. I have an issue with processing information like this, and repeatedly saying it aloud helps it become more real to me. All my younger brother could hear on the way to pick up our baby brother was the news I told him when he got into the car, just a lot louder.  

As soon as Alijah got buckled in right next to Aidan, I started to tell him the news. By the time I got onto the highway on our way home, both of my younger brothers were tired of my repeatedly yelling that I got a scholarship. Alijah fell asleep to tune me out. Aidan tried to fall asleep, but failed as I was too loud for him.  

I like to think that getting my scholarship is similar to winning the lottery, not that I have ever won the lottery to know what that is like. The J-100 scholarship I was awarded is a fairly new ROTC scholarship, and only one hundred students out of those that apply are selected to receive this scholarship. Four hundred and seventy-two students were nominated to apply with me. Out of that number, only two hundred were selected to be interviewed, and out of that two hundred, one hundred students were chosen. I am one of that one hundred. This is like a lottery in the sense that a large amount of people enter when they buy tickets. Out of an entire pool, only one person is chosen to win the lottery. In my situation, one hundred students won. 

Wanting to win is the motive behind purchasing a lottery ticket. This holds true when applying for scholarships. The possibility of earning a certain amount of money to cover educational expenses drives students into completing applications. Without this incentive, no energy or motivation would be spent on applying.  

I was completely oblivious to the scholarship I was awarded with. I was not aware of it in the first place because it was still considered to be a recent addition to the list of ROTC scholarships. My JROTC instructor asked to speak to me after class one day. My first thought was that I had done something wrong and was in trouble but it turns out that I wasn’t. “It’s good to have a backup plan. Have you considered doing ROTC?” he asked me after class. 

“Not really,” I said. 

If I am being completely honest I did not give any serious thought to what I would do after high school if what I was originally planning on doing did not work out as planned. That is the funny thing with chance. If my JROTC instructor had not informed me about the scholarship, there was no way that I would have gotten it. Like lotteries, there is that chance of winning it. That uncertainty is also there, and you never will know for sure if you got it or not until the period of application closes. The scholarship I am on covers full tuition and fees along with a monthly stipend.  

At first, I wasn’t going to go through with the application process for the scholarship because I didn’t think I had any chance of actually getting it. Most people doubt themselves and don’t see what they’re capable of. The answer to whether or not you are awarded with something such as a scholarship is always going to be no if you let your doubts dictate your actions and if you do not give yourself the chance to apply. When you give yourself the benefit of the doubt, you increase your chances of  whatever it is you are trying to do. There is a lot of uncertainty in life, but one thing that you can be certain about is yourself. There is certainty in being in control of your actions.