Moby

John Beckett
Professor Daniel Simpson
Freshman Seminar
30 August 2013 My name is John Beckett and I am from Lawrenceville, Georgia. Lawrenceville is fast growing Atlanta suburb that was full of opportunities. My county school system was awarded the broad prize for excellence a few years back. This meant that the work load since the beginning was very advanced and hands on, which allowed me to get one of the best educations in my mind. I am very excited to be starting my new chapter here at Georgia College and I feel that my time in Gwinnett County schools prepared me very well for the college experience. One interesting fact about me is that I have been dealing with epilepsy since age eight. There I was in 3rd grade writing a short story when suddenly I had a seizure. This was a lot to take in at the time because you feel so helpless when your body is trembling and you can’t stop it. I was a strong kid though and soon after my diagnosis I was using it to my advantage. I shouldn’t be proud of this but whenever I didn’t want to be in class I would go tell my teacher that I felt weird and needed to go to the clinic. I mean didn’t every elementary school kid love going to the clinic and even better was that I had some type of VIP status in there. The true importance of this story is that through all the long tests and MRI’s having this disability has made me stronger as a person and at a young age forced me to be aware of specific details and warning signs. I would say another interesting fact about me is that I’m color blind. You want to talk about stress? Imagine being in elementary school and middle school where everything is COLOR CODED, but I adapted and shockingly made me stronger as a person too. Even though being color blind isn’t a serious disability but adding that on with my epilepsy I had a pretty stressful childhood. It was these medical issues that caused me to mature faster and grow up because with epilepsy especially doctor’s evaluations consisted of asking me how I felt and any symptoms. My mom isn’t able to tell them how I’m feeling so I had to be able to distinguish any abnormal activity at a young age. One last fact about me is that I’ve always been very active and into sports. This trait allowed me to be in a lot of group settings growing up and allowed me to bond with a lot of people. My favorite sport was hockey and my position was goalie. Being a goalie you really are the captain on the ice and this allowed me to gain leadership skills very young. Success to me is achieving at a task that is rewarding. Academically my parents always pushed me to do well in school. I was in gifted classes throughout school and in high school I took a heavy AP schedule. My sophomore year in high school I slacked off and I failed my first and only class. Now instead of allowing this class to destroy my GPA I took it as a learning experience and over the last two years of school I made the grades I needed to make and still finished school with a HOPE GPA. I feel like I succeeded because I could have just gave up after that bad year but instead I strived to do better. Going back to my medical history I feel like a succeeded in not allowing my seizures to control my life. They come and go at random times but through learning how my mind works I was able to teach myself my warning signs. Now I know before any seizure I have which allows me to put myself in safer situations. So I feel as a kid growing up with this disability that I succeeded at adapting my life around this. Georgia College is a great opportunity for success because the liberal arts experience allows me to broaden my mind on vast amounts of educational ideas. Some people might feel that the somewhat “random” classes we are taking are a waste of time for their major. I disagree because do we really know at 18 years old what we truly want to do with the rest of our lives? The liberal arts experience allows me to broaden my horizons and search for things I may not have experienced at another school. Georgia College gives a big school opportunity in a small town atmosphere. The intramural sports here are incredible because there are so many choices. These sports allow you to meet new people and in a way escape from the stresses of class. The Greek life here at Georgia College is a great opportunity to meet people who can be friends for life because I feel like success in college is not only in the classroom but in helping set up social skills for the real world. For my future here at Georgia College I’m still undecided. I know very well that Georgia College’s business program is excellent but I have also thrown up the idea of transferring to the University of Georgia because it allows me to be in a big school environment and be closer to home. If I make any moves to another school it will most likely be after my sophomore year here at GCSU so I have plenty of time to make this decision. As of now Georgia College is my home and I’m very excited to be here. Getting to college was a fairly easy process, because I was successful in school for the most part. However I do have some issues that I need to fix in my first semester here. I have had issues with procrastination and not taking enough time to study successfully. I know the importance of the college workload and managing my time wisely. I know once I graduate that finding a job today might be a hard task but I know that Georgia College will prepare me for the real world and I’m excited to expand my education and become a successful businessman. If I’m able to learn how to manage my work successfully then I know my future will be very bright.