While many people associate dreams and ambitions to be the same thing, words that can be interchanged with one another, the two could not be more different. Dreams are something people think about from time to time, an end result they hope for, but never act upon, while ambitions are something a person pushes themselves to achieve, an end goal that keeps them motivated to keep moving forward. While dreams are important to have, ambition is what builds a person’s character and keep themselves strong during hard times.
For many students, their ambition is one of the most important parts of their identity, as it is what keeps them to continuously try harder no matter how tough or stressful school gets. One of these many students is Gabrielle Gallimore, a determined and driven 11th grader, who tries her very best to push herself to achieve her goals and ambitions while maintaining a life outside of school.
Gallimore is a very active member of the Benjamin N. Cardozo High School community. Like many of the students at this school, she is currently taking multiple Advance Placement (AP) classes, along with having a position as a Communities Service officer in the NJROTC program.
When asked how she is able maintain her classes and NJROTC at the same time, she replied, “All I can say is that I just maintain it, I have a proper balance between ROTC and my other classes.
“Everyday after school, I stay behind and I do either community service work or training work. While I’m doing community service work and training work, I make sure to complete some of my homework so I don’t need to rush all of it once I get home,” she explained.
While Gallimore tries to maintain a good balance between school and her personal life, she still experiences a lot of negative impacts from school. “School has impacted me negatively because my health is not great. Both my physical and mental health were negatively impacted by school, I think that’s because of stress from school and anxiety,” Gallimore stated.
The impacts she face from school are likely very related for many students as the stress from school can eventually build up and impact one’s health greatly. However, Gallimore has also experienced many positive impacts from school. “School has impacted me positively because I have found out my passion in life through school.”
“I found my passion for chemistry and I plan to pursue it after collage. I have also met my closet and dearest friends here, who have lead me to be more open about my feelings and open to others,” she gushed.
“What motivates me is my own sense of achievement. I seek academic validation from myself and I’m really hard on myself. I always want to push myself to have the best grades. Also, I want to make my mom proud,” she continued.
What motivates Gallimore is most likely the motivation for many students, especially the motive to make their parents proud. Gallimore has shown to care for her mom deeply as not only is making her mom proud one of her biggest motives, she also stated that one of her many ambitions was to be able to purchase a house for her mom in the future, a touching and heartwarming ambition that shows how close the mother and daughter are.
As mentioned early, Gallimore has many ambitions that help drive her to work harder, and when asked about them she divulged, “Some of my ambitions are to become a certified doctor, to be financially stable, to be able to purchase a house for my mom when I’m older, to help as many people as I can in whatever way I can and possibly not sure yet but to help soldiers in battle.”
She then adds on, “I try to work towards my ambitions by orienting myself with things science/medical related so that I can learn as much as I can about the field I am interested in. I also have a savings account which I put money in every week to go towards my savings later on.”
Lastly, when asked to give her peers and fellow students a piece of advice, Gallimore admirably shared, “One piece of advice I would like to say to my fellow peers is that life is unfair and life won’t be easy but always have integrity and be truthful to whatever you believe in. Be better for you and you only, not anyone else”
