I had to dig deep for this! Dig deep to figure out what big problems I faced throughout these past years. It wasn't easy for me because I faced many difficulties throughout my life. Then I remember a time in my first 2 years of high school. I was oblivious. Confuse about my future. Whether I wanted to do something after high school. I have to admit school wasn't my priority in freshman year. I wouldn't get the best grade, but they weren't the worst either. All I cared about is having friends. Then something hit me. Seeing all these seniors not graduate on time. Seeing many kids struggle financially after high school. I eventually notice that those who go to college succeed more. Especially being a minority it's extremely difficult to succeed…
The reason my academics aren’t going well as you or I would like is because of the several family issues I’ve had to face during my high school career. It began my Sophomore year, I found out my mom needed surgery in her arm so the chances of her cancer spreading would be reduced. I was under a great deal of stress worrying about my mother, taking care of my four siblings making sure they knew everything was going to be okay, even though I wasn’t sure myself. It was all up to me; while my other brother worked to help with bills, my mom being in the hospital, and my dad working. Taking care of my siblings consisted of cooking, homework, cleaning, nightly routine, and putting them to bed. When the work was done it would be around 10 o'clock. It was already tough to buckle down and focus on homework without all the stress. With all this my first semester grade was less than great.…
The day of the eighth grade promotion was filled with mixed emotions. I was very nervous but also excited to be leaving middle school. I was mostly nervous because I would have to walk up onto the stage in front of over a hundred people. I didn’t want to go because of how nervous I was. The school day was uneventful. We went over what we were supposed to do in the gym multiple times. Even though the day was boring and uneventful, I was nervous the entire school day. In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, Sean Covey states, “Putting first things first also deals with learning to overcome your fears and being strong during hard moments” (Covey 106). In order to overcome my fear and stay strong I had to put first things first. I was worrying…
I learned a lesson all the way back in first grade, and that lesson has stuck with me ever since. I was coming in from recess, and I was talking to a friend of mine off to my left. Unfortunately, I was not watching where I was going. I kept barely taking glances of what was in front of me, and that was a huge mistake. Someone was running behind me, and wasn’t watching where they were going either. As I approached the building I heard yelling, but thought nothing of it. After all, recess had just finished, so obviously kids would be yelling, right? It turns out some kids had been playing tag, and decided to play until they got inside. One that was still running away, because God forbid he’d be “it,” was Nick.…
One decision that I made with my family was to move to New Jersey from California. This was a huge decision in my life, I came to New Jersey when I was 8. We made the decision as a family. We had to move because my dad got a job offer from a good company in New Jersey. This was the one moment in my life that I had to think about everything and not just myself. This was the real first mature decision that I made in my life with my family. This decision changed my life for the good. This created a transformation because after I made that initial decision I started to make all my decisions with some maturity. This move has influenced my growth and maturity in many ways. This had influenced my growth because I developed a new set of characteristics…
Have you ever wondered what's the biggest challenge facing students today and how it can be addressed? College can be a egregious chapter of a young scholars life. I believe a college student financial situation is what's faced today. One's finances can be the cause of stress, and loan debt. Numerous students with low-income face financial deficiency.…
In high school, I always considered myself a good student. I payed attention in class, took notes, and genuinely took interest in my education. As a college student, I have tried to do the same thing. Of course, college is not quite the same as high school, and I have not always gotten the near-perfect results I used to expect. While I am working on my perfectionism as a separate issue, I am glad to take this opportunity to learn more about how to succeed in college. Three strategies I learned in this chapter include how to better prepare before class, how to review after class, and how to improve my note-taking strategies.…
I’ve always had lofty, perhaps unrealistic. In middle school, I naively assumed that I would be in top 12% of my class, by simply making A’s. I tried my hardest in every classes, but still wasn’t enough. I never reached my goal of being in top 12%, as a result my self-esteem plummeted. I started high school with high hopes once again. Perhaps even more naively, I pursued the goal of being ranked number one. I was too young to realize the concept of “realistic” goals. My biggest obstacle was my state of mind. I brought my self-down. I told myself the only way to be the best is to be better than everyone else. Setting such a high goal did help me in the end. After the second semester of freshman year, I received my rank. I was ranked number 10;…
My educational goals can be said to be broken down into three parts that are really the means to my ends which is the fourth and most important goal. First, Im working on getting good grades in every class, I want to work on having and maintaining a high competitive GPA. My second goal is to get my Bachelors in Political Science in an ideal time frame of two more years. My third goal and one that is out of my hands, one may say, is getting a scholarship. I know there is a large amount of competitive students in the school, who are well deserving of scholarships but I need this scholarship to alleviate my parents from their stress and hard work to keep up with my payments. The last and really my main goal, where my eyes are set and where I,…
Christianity has always been apart of my life. My grandparents, parents and siblings are strong christians and always encouraged me to become one. When I was about four I was at a Christian camp that my family had always gone to and I decided then that I would give my life to Christ. But honestly at four years old I had only given my life to Christ because that's what everyone else did. Through my early teenage years I had lost my connection with Christ. There were so many difficult situations I was going through that Christ seemed so distant from me and what I needed. But turns out what I really needed was Christ. At the beginning of my sophomore year I began to go to Young Life, and what a difference Young Life made on my life. Young Life…
It was my first day of practice for high school swimming. There I was- a scrawny freshman, idolizing these upperclassmen who towered above me. Being the only freshman in my class, my coach had me train alongside these giants. I remember the countless morning practices, which always involved grueling endurance sets, where my teammates lapped me constantly while I struggled to make the intervals; feeling disappointed in myself, but determined to continue working hard in order to catch up to my teammates. However, even those grueling workouts could not compare to Christmas break that year. A whole week of practices that were near impossible for my teammates, and absolute torture for me. I will never forget one set from that week. It was a set of 32x150s with a descending interval every four. By the last eight, I was no longer making the interval and struggling to keep up with my teammates, who ended up lapping me, as usual. But I still put every ounce of effort I had into that set, and swam every lap long after everyone else had finished. I challenged myself with a fierce determination to…
My high school graduating class consisted of 66 students, so obviously everyone knew everyone and unfortunately everyone’s business. When I was a junior, a well-known and liked senior boy had a very public breakup with his girlfriend of 3 years. They had met as freshmen and were expected to marry after finishing school. The next day he drove his car at what police estimated in excess of 100 miles per hour into a concrete railroad bridge that crossed the main road out of town. After that, the bridge became known as Burkett’s bridge and I was never able to drive through it without getting a chill and goosebumps on my arms. It’s been over 40 years since high school, and it is amazing how often I still think of Bobby and his…
Later on I realized it wasn’t right for me to throw away what my parents worked so hard to give me: an education. I told myself to keep trying hard, so that I wouldn't fail a grade. I was determined to have the better life my parents wanted me to have.…
During my current four years of high school, I have come to a conclusion that life is hard and the decisions you make are very important. This is my last year of high school and I’m the first one to graduate from my family. My grandmother tends to tell me that I don’t need college just a simple 7 month course of medical assistant or dentist assistant and not waste any more money. I’m lost, I wish people could help me out and tried to guide me in the direction of the right decision but is my life and choices. There has been times that my grandmother has told me that I am not going to be somebody in the future.…
I’ve never been good at very many things. In fact, I quit or failed almost everything I’ve been involved in pertaining to school or extracurricular activities. I wanted to accomplish something that my parents would be proud of but I didn’t have much motivation. It wasn’t until my freshman year that I decided to work harder to achieve something to be proud of; I was just waiting around for the success to come to me. I quickly learned that I wasn’t going to get anywhere that way.…