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Is Experience the Best Teacher?

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Is Experience the Best Teacher?
COMMON APP ESSAY

TOPIC OF CHOICE: "EXPERIENCE IS THE BEST TEACHER"

Daniel Guerrero

My whole life I've been told practice makes perfect. Whether it's in the tennis court or in math class, the more you practice something, the better you become at it. In the last few years I've found out that practicing and doing is not the same thing. Harry Callahan once said, _"experience is the best teacher"_ and without a doubt it is. You can sit five hours taking a business class or 10 hours in a tennis practice but until you go out to the real world and start doing business with other people or play a real tennis tournament you wont _really_ LEARN. When experiencing things we all make mistakes and making mistakes, in the broad scheme of things, is good as long as we learn from them. Through the different experiences I've had through tennis, my musical adventures and my business deals, I've learned from my errors, picked myself up from the ground, and ultimately grown as a human being.

On August 10, 2000 I stepped on to the tennis court for my first tennis lessons. I had previously tried to play the sport but this day I was determined to start a journey in which I could master it. After my first real tennis year, I improved at an incredible pace, and went a summer to the world-renowned Nick Bolletierri Tennis Academy in Bradenton, Florida. At merely 11 years old, I found myself without my family and in an unknown place, but that didn't stop me from doing what I most loved, playing tennis. After that summer I fell in love with that sport and went the next two summers to Saddlebrook Tennis Academy in Tampa Bay Florida, where I polished my skills and started to play a few serious tournaments. The first tournaments that I played made me realize that no matter how much I had practiced in the tennis court, this was not practice, and at the beginning, my lack of tournament experience, hindered my ability to perform at my utmost level. In the few tournaments that I played in Florida

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