My TOEFL experience is just like a roller coaster journey. I started this journey in 2013 after I passed my FPGEE exam. Naturally, my confidence was high and I lived in the UK for ten years and also I am from India, where English is almost a second language. First, I thought TOEFL is an easy exam and people just exaggerated it . So the first time when I took this exam I prepared only for a week and I scored 22 in speaking. I thought if I can get 22 at my first attempt I will easily get 26 in my second attempt but that was my biggest mistake. I tried multiple time and worked hard, which had improved my scores in other areas like reading and listening but my speaking and writing hadn’t changed at all. I kept trying for a long time and worked very hard even though my scores hadn’t changed, finally I became a victim of frustration and disappointment. I started losing my confidence and by 2015 my confidence level was at the bottom and I quit. I wanted to become a pharmacist but TOEFL had almost shattered my dream and at one point I tried to join odd jobs at McDonalds and bakery shops. Also I enrolled in the medical transcript and pharmacy technician license course at La Guardia college. However, I wasn’t happy inside because I had a dream to work as a pharmacist in the US. So in 2016 December again I tried TOEFL and this time I found Jaime’s English classes and I contacted her. As a result she recommended me a teacher, whose name was Sierra.

Sierra was my 5th teacher, before her I tried four different teachers at Manhattan Elite prep class, Kaplan classes along with some private tutors. I had worked with different teachers even though the result was same and my speaking scores hadn’t gone beyond 23 or 24. So, when I met Sierra I thought she would do the same thing like my previous teachers did but I was wrong. Sierra was very strict about her homework policy and She never compromised with her homework. First I had a lot of problems and I made so many excuses to skip her homework but she was after me and made sure I do my homework within a time limit. She made a schedule for my daily study and homework and I started following that. The first few weeks were really terrible to follow the schedule but eventually I liked that and started following it. After some time my confidence level increased. Also I’ve noticed that Sierra has a unique quality sometimes she talks like a tough teacher, who doesn’t like a single mistake, sometimes she acts like a good friend, who knows your likes and dislikes and makes you happy and sometimes she acts like a mentor or a coach, who knows how to lift the confidence level in her students. She is the one who brought my confidence back and taught me to believe in myself. I wish I could have a teacher like Sierra for every test in my life.

Now that I finished the TOEFL I am going to India because my parents live there. I haven’t seen my parents for five years because I wanted to go back with success. When I came to the US I promised myself that I would become a pharmacist and get my certificate. Now I have passed this exam, I feel like a winner and I have fulfilled my promise. So I will go to my country and spend a couple of months with my family before I start my Pharmacy internship.