Essay On Areas Other Than School Where I Have Acquired Knowledge Or Skills

Apart from knowledge gained from academics, there are other non-academic activities that can equip one with important life skills and experience such as sports, hobbies and social interactions. While attending classes has helped me acquire valuable skills, I have equally acquired important skills both academic and non-academic. For instance, other than learning how to balance check boos and do taxes, I have also learnt many things like customer service, drawing and cooking.
I developed my customer service skills by volunteering at an animal shelter. As a result, I have moved from being a shy girl who was afraid of being left alone to being an assertive girl who is able to relate well with people. Today, I am able to speak articulately and convincingly. All this came as a result of the constant practice after which I found myself being able to handle people without freaking out. Despite taking me rather long to learn to be confident and not fear interacting with people, soon I found out that I was able to deal with customers at the animal shelter where I was a volunteer.
Moreover, I have acquired the skill of drawing. This began way back when I was 6 years old. My mother signed me up for a painting class after school though this lasted only a year. As a matter of fact, I actually learnt the art of drawing largely on my own. As a practice, I would recreate examples from the numerous books that I used to read during my free time, particularly during the summer holidays. This is the time I would spend most of my time drawing from my favorite anime shows such as Pokemon and Naruto or any other anime that I watched. With time, my drawings got better each day, even though I was still afraid of drawing real life pictures. However, this was not until my current teacher, Ms. Klien, encouraged me to try drawing real picture that I realized after many trials that drawing was what I was really skilled at.
As for cooking, my mother had taken it upon herself to teach me how to cook before I went to college. Though it took me long to master the concepts, I knew I had to continue practicing. At the moment, I can only cook breakfast, rice, ramen and mac. She started by showing me how to boil eggs in which am now an expert. After many attempts, I was finally able to successfully make good boiled eggs without undercooking them since I understood that “for those who keep trying, failure is only temporary”. After these “lessons” from my mother, it was kind of easy to cook other items since all I needed was to look at the box for instructions.
In addition, soccer is another skill that I learned to play as a skill outside school. I used to dedicate a lot of my time and effort when I first started. Despite being simple to others, to me these skills are so important since I acquired them out of a lot of hard work and determination and given the precision and passion required for one to acquire them. These skills have taught me to be more understanding to other people, to be patient and to overcome my communication problems and fears. Through the acquisition of these skills, I have earned that perfection and success in everything come at a cost of time and practice; every skill in life matters and as Robert F states, “only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly”.