AP Class Reflection

The proudest moment in my high school career is when I signed myself to take my first AP class. I was really nervous about going to the meeting to sign myself up to get the summer assignment because I felt that I was not ready for the work load, and I would not be able to pass the class. My excuse for not going to the meeting was that I was helping in the cafeteria and I was really late, but when I told my two best friends Jenny and Virginia that I wasn't going to take it anymore. They got so frustrated and annoyed with me because they said I was stupid if I didn’t take AP calculus because that was my favorite subject and I needed a challenge of class. They also made me remember when I would tell them that Math Analysis was easy and a lot of
people were having a hard time with that class. When they finally convince me to go, I had to talk to Mr. Ewart alone about the class and the workload because the meeting was over when I got there. One thing I remember the most about one on one talk with Mr. Ewart was he told me that take the class and not be afraid of taking challenges especially if they could help with my education in high school and college.
Taking this class has made me realize that I was that student that would never study for any of the classes because I thought that I can pass the test without refreshing on the material. Boy was I wrong when it came to taking a test in AP Calculus, studying and study groups is the best way to get a better score the first time. There was a derivative test, which was graded as the real AP Test, and I got a three out of five, which made me feel that I can actually pass the class and gave me confidence in myself again. I knew that if I try hard then I can actually solve the problems on my own, but all I had to work twice as hard as I did in any other class. AP Calculus is also teaching me to how to manage my time because calculus is a time consuming class, depending on the difficulty of the work. It can take more an hour to get the homework assignment to be completed. The workload for the class becomes a lot more time consuming when the date is getting closer to the real AP Calculus Exam. This has helped me have college and career readiness because I have learned that if I want to pass the class and the test, I have to do a lot on my own and take advantage of all the study opportunities. This is a good lesson because the teachers here baby us even though we don’t want to admit it and in college I know that the professors are not going to care if you did the work.
During all of my four years of high school, I was in the H.O.P.E.
Club, which has taught me a lot of different skills, but the biggest skill that I feel most affected me in learning is taking action. Every year in H.O.P.E. we would decide what to raise money and awareness for a cause. My freshman year we decided to buy life straws for people in need in different countries. We got to witness how the life straws work by putting a lot of dirty water in a container and the drinking it with the life straw. During my sophomore year we decide to get a hydration station for the elementary and middle school kids. I really loved this experience because I still remember how excited the kids were to get their turn on filling up their canteens. It felt really good being able to educate the kids about recycling and using canteens instead of water bottles, so they use less plastic bottles. During junior year we raised money to help give a jungle gym to G3. This year we decided that we wanted to give money to make a well for people that have to walk miles just to get fresh
water.
The LGBTQ Field Trip made me look at the whole thing in a new perspective because my family was against it and I have a cousin that is gay and I wanted to know more about it. So I can understand the situation a little bit better and support my cousin. In my family being LGBTQ was wrong and that we would not talk to “them”. This field trip taught me way more than just the basic straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or question. Before I went I just thought that these were only ways that people would identify themselves. To my surprise there is a lot more ways that you can identify yourself and there is a lot more that are still beginning to be known. This also opened my eyes in seeing that nothing is wrong with being LGBTQ and we all just need to be more understanding because in the end of the day they are still humans.
This field trip also made me think about how religion is against the LGBTQ community. So my group and I decided that we want to do this topic for the civil rights project for English and history. This project made me recognize the perspectives of not only my group, but also the priests in Catholic Churches around our community. One of the priests told our group that he supports the LGBTQ and hopes one day the Catholic Church can support the LGBTQ community too. After hearing what the priest had to say about the issue. I realized that I was wrong about all priest being against the LGBTQ community. There is priest out there in the world that believe being in the LGBTQ community is okay. The issue is that it's not as easy for the whole Catholic Church to be okay with it because this religion is not just in the United States, but in other countries too. This project has open my eyes and gave me a new perspective of not just only about what a LGBTQ person has to deal with, but also not all priest are against someone for being LGBTQ.
I have grown by skilled for success because in my biology class we did a project called Genetics Debate Project.
In the beginning no one had an idea on which side we were going to be for the debate on the topic, which I got was Stem Cell Research and after researching both sides and learning the pro and cons about Stem Cell Research. My group was given the pro side, which means that I was not against doing more research on stem cells and against learning how they work. This project showed me that I do not need to know anything about my topic at first. The more I did research on stem cells the more I would understand my topic and the project. This was the first time I had a project where I have learn the material on my own. Also, this was the one of the first real debates I had to do. I feel that this taught me that I have the potential to learn materials on my own. This project made learn skills for success because in college the professors do not babysit you or make sure you do your work. The professors have so many students to make sure that every student understands the
material.
One of the most challenging things during high school so far is the research paper, but this has also been the most surprising. I was very surprised that I was going to enjoy this essay as much as I did. The reason I enjoyed writing the paper is because I got to choose a policy that I was interested, which was should officers use body-mounted cameras. I choose to write about this policy because I wanted to show that law enforcement is not always the bad people as it is made seen on the news. They have made me feel safer in my own neighborhood and the more I learn about what officers do the more interest I get in the career field. By doing this research paper I have communicated ideas of both sides of the argument if officers should use body-mounted cameras or not. This paper has also let me communicate my ideas on why officers should use the body-mounted cameras without using first person and using quotes from experts on the topic to support my ideas and thesis.
The advice I have for the underclassmen is pass all of your classes, the first time because trust me, you don't want to waste more time on classes that you hate or is difficult for you. Retaking the class is annoying and very time consuming. Another advice, I have is that if you have retake the class, don’t wait until senior year to take the classes because as a senior, trust me you are going to be super busy and barely have anytime for yourself. The advice I have the facility and staff is to not make us line up in morning if we are tardy because it just makes us even more tardy to our advisory and adds more minutes. As a senior, I learned how important a couple minutes can be from getting truancy.