I cannot remember a person in my life that had a more significant influence on me than my father. My father has been the driving force behind my academic achievement. Everything I have been able to accomplish with regards to school, I have him to thank for. Throughout my life, my father has been responsible, caring, strict in his guidelines, and yet understanding of the difficulty of being a teen. This behavior has, throughout my academic history, allowed me to grow and expand my future possibilities.

There are times when I speak to my father, and he simply dazzles me with his knowledge, not merely of certain specific subjects like mathematics or social studies, but of a broad range of small topics that cover every aspect of our lives, such as automobiles or mutual funds. I sometimes ask him "Where do you learn all these things?  His usual response is one of these two, "It comes with age,  or "It comes from reading.  These two phrases have taught me valuable lessons. They have taught me that reading is a doorway to an infinite realm of knowledge, and that the best kind of knowledge also comes, not from reading, but from experience. I attribute these valuable lessons to my father, and I am sure that they will stay with me for my entire life.

My father has told me that his form of parenting stems from a dislike of the way his parents raised him. When he was a student, his father hardly ever spoke to him. He was basically on his own. He felt that this hindered his academic and social abilities, because he did not have his father to guide him through the difficulties of being a teenager. When he dropped out of school to father me, he decided he would be different, and would communicate with me and try to prevent me from making his mistakes. This valiant effort on his part has imprinted itself onto me, and there is no way to thank him for it, for it is far too significant.