Academic Carrier Challenges

My difficult courses has taught me to always give my best effort no matter how hard the task at hand is. I have taken three advanced placement classes and four honors classes. Taking on these courses I sacrifice leisure time to study. I study between two to three hours a night for these classes so I can do my best. This is exemplified with me getting all A’s in my classes last semester. The monumental lesson I learned from my course load is to

Throughout middle and high school, I have always taken accelerated courses in math, reading, science, etc. Although honors courses are challenging, they help me develop as a person. They taught me how to manage my time, work independently and with others, and ask for help. Before high school, the curriculum was not academically challenging, so I never asked teachers for help. When high school rolled around and I had to juggle four to five honors classes a semester, it was difficult to ask for help. Nevertheless, for the benefit of my education, I overcame this challenge. Asking for help is necessary for growth and success. This was particularly prevalent when I took AP Calculus BC. I visited my calculus teacher for help. We got to know each other in a way that couldn't be achieved in class. He even nominated me for student of the term. I learned that when given additional resources, such as teachers

After all, math was one of my best subjects. I had never really had an experience where I just couldn't understand the concept of a math problem, of how it was solved and why. Our teachers has warned us back in elementary school, that one day we would hit an invisible wall and not ease through classes. That one day we would struggle with understanding a problem, a concept or even a subject. I had never believed them, thinking this would never happen to me, that I could somehow avoid this wall of confusion and just walk right through. But there I was, utterly confused and frustrated at a simple problem that everyone else could solve. Why was I not seeing it? Why couldn't I understand the solution? I asked myself. For the first time in my life I really struggled to get an A in a class. I had my sister tutor me almost every day, preparing for a quiz and then the next, and the next. I came in to my teacher for lunch and he helped me step by step. I studied for tests, and worked hard. And my work payed off. I got a high A in the course, and a lot of experience from it. It taught me how to work hard for something, to earn a good grade when you deserve it, and it gave me the skills I needed to get As in the high school classes I am taking this

In my last two years of highschool I duel enrolled St. Petersburg Community College, my local community college. In my senior year I decided to take online classes due to the very long drive to the nearest campus. I ended up taking Calculus with Analytic Geometry and two other classes online. My Calculus proffessor did not teach or provide any materiel to learn from other than the text book and homework questions. For the first quarter of the class I did well and completed all the assignments easily; however, the class got harder and the textbook no longer provided me with enough information to complete the assignments. I struggled through this part of the class and had a hard time mainting my grade which I wanted to keep as high as possible. After several trips to the campus for tutoring and spending hours trying to find other external resources I began to learn how to solve the problems and brought my grade back up and finally passed the class with an A.

Not only are you investing your money, but also your time and work. You want to pass your classes and get the credits to move on to continue seeking your desired degree. I have never had a natural ability with math so when it was time to take a math class, I was terrified of the outcome. Statistics was the class I would be devoting all my time and energy in. When completing assignments and participating in class discussions, everyone seemed to know what to do and how to do it while I was struggling in getting an understanding of what they were speaking about. I chose to stay quiet and pretend like I knew what I was doing just like everyone else instead of admitting that I was failing the course. I was embarrassed to ask for help because that meant that I had been failing when all this time I had pretended to be successful. By me not seeking help when I needed it, it portrayed an image that I didn't care but also that I was okay with failing; something I feared in the first place. At the end of the semester I realized I had failed the course because I was too stubborn to acknowledge my own mistakes and learn from them. My blunders could have been avoided if I would have worried less about what my classmates would think of my failures rather than focusing on actually learning. I took the same class with the same professor the next semester and I was determined to make a change. I accepted the fact that this was a new topic for me and that it was okay to make mistakes but it was not okay to hide a mistake with another mistake. I learned to learn from my mistakes and take each problem one step at a

Throughout my education I excelled in every subject, until I entered high school. I began to take more rigorous courses and my grades began to drop. The coursework was a dozen times harder than any other courses I’ve ever taken and I struggled greatly. Instead of taking one AP course my junior year, I took three: English Literature, Physics 1, and Psychology.

when I was a high school student I had help with time management from my supportive study class when I got to college I thought would be able to do things on my own it was hard for me switching from assistant to being on my own for the first time own I look back at the classes I choose for my first semester I wish I had chosen classes that would have ease me into college because it was hard for me to get to college life right away when I signed up for my second semester classes I step back and take a look at what I was doing as well as I hope during the second semester I dropped the class due to the fact that I was not doing well I believe that if I drop a class I could focus on another my grades were very good at the end but one was still

At first I felt overwhelmed by my teachers because I understood my parents were angry that my teachers were able to say that to them, however, as time went on, I improved in a plethora of subjects such as math and science. It left my teachers shocked because she never would have guessed that in the end I would be ahead of the class as I was mainly the only one that participated during the lessons, got high scores on test and did the homework every day. By being in the Honors College, I have the motivation and capability to mentor other students in the future with the same past, students who faced adversity because of their background and give them tips on how to improve their comprehensive skills. Which is why when I moved back to Cicero, I tutored a lot of my friends that were struggling. Living in Cicero, many of my friends come from low income backgrounds, because of this I’m able to tutor and interact with many kinds of people. Even though I had a rough start in my education, it was mainly due to my perseverance, motivation, stubbornness and the support of my parents that I was able to succeed, prove my teachers wrong and get to where I am

I believe in fighting for your goals and aspirations, and not waiting for things to be given to you. Beginning from day one, the expectations for me have always been straight A’s. This expectation had been fulfilled all throughout elementary school, and junior high without a problem, but as high school rolled around, I noticed I began to struggle with a certain subject. Math had always been my favorite subject, and usually came easy to me. My eighth grade math teacher was very organized and provided us with thorough and descriptive notes daily. I seldom struggled, and if I did, I simply reread the notes and raised my hand. However, my new algebra teacher had a different method of teaching that I wasn’t accustomed to. We rarely took notes, our ‘notes’ were primarily examples, and she was very disorganized. Realizing that math was going to be slightly more difficult this

Students are often told that the path to success tends to be a lonely one because only they can get themselves there. For the most part that is true, they must be self-motivated and passionate about their future, but along the way they get to meet special people that want to see them to accomplish their goals. From an early age the relationship built between students and teachers has molded and impacted the student’s life. The relationship they have with a teacher can define the attitude that student has with the subject being taught. A lot of emphasis is put on students when they fail a course and they question their effort. Although, the root of the problem is not always the student, but the method the instructor is using to teach the student.

During my second semester at Southwest Mississippi Community College, I had finally gotten comfortable at the school: I had made friends, and I was doing well in all of my classes. Well, all except for college algebra. I have never been good at algebra; this class was no exception. I tried my very best to understand the material, but my mind just could not comprehend much of the material that we covered in class. Because of my own inability to understand the material, I never finished any of my homework, and I did not do well on any of the tests that I had taken. I had later come to realize that my inability to understand the material was not the fault of anyone but myself.

My course load is jammed pack full of rigorous classes that will help me better and further understand complex topics. When I enjoyed my biology and chemistry, I was pulled towards the AP Environmental Science course, despite never taking an environmental class before. I also enjoy math and liked my physics class freshman year, wishing me to continue in honors multivariable calculus and AP physics. I want to push myself further; I work hard and study harder. This is especially apparent in my AP exam scores, where I spent months preparing for my best score. I frequently stayed after school or went into class during lunch to make sure I fully understood concepts before tests, striving to be my best. Furthermore, I continue to want to expand my knowledge by engaging in scientific extracurricular activities. I give up my free time (a rare and valuable treasure in high school) to expand on my interests in, most specifically, math. I tutor others to help them understand the complexities of this great art. I also wish to expand my ideas in math club, where we tackle more complex problems and even discuss how math manifests itself in certain activities, like solving a Rubik’s cube. All of these classes, activities, and growing interests culminate into an ever-changing body that represents me, someone who constantly wants to learn more and grow, not only as a mathematician or scientist, but a person as

I have always been excellent at solving math problems, but doing seventy-five questions on graphing can take a few hours and can be exhausting. The professor didn’t speak English fluently and her accent was a little bit difficult to understand so I had to pay a little bit more attention to what she was saying. I also noticed that she didn’t really go into much detail when lecturing, but she would rather just storm through those lectures. There was a student named Jacob, who took calculus in high school so he had the advantage over all the other students. He maintained the highest grade in the class and he would ask the most questions. Then it got to the point to where the teacher seemed annoyed at him for asking questions so Jacob stopped asking less and less questions. Eventually he stopped asking questions near the end of the semester because he didn’t like the negative feedback he was receiving. This made it difficult to understand new material like learning about new formulas. For example, I was having trouble with learning how to solve logarithms. First she put up a problem on the

My calculus teacher, Ray Chayo, was keen on ensuring his students that the knowledge we learned in his class will help us excel and dominate in our calculus courses in college. I remember the dark blotches underneath my eyes that were evident of all-nighters I pulled through in order to tackle and survive his vicious yet uncomplicated exams. On his first exam, I received a D+ because I did not comprehend the concepts. It was as though my grain of rice had fallen, like the ant, I did not capitulate to my negative thoughts of dropping this class. Instead, I chose to ask for help, so I can change my studying habit. I went to his class one hour early before the school started. From 7:00 AM to 7:45 AM, I would spend all my time asking questions and doing the problems on the whiteboard. Through this, not only did I get A’s and B’s on the other exams, but I had also learned a valuable lesson. I had begun to grow out of my personality. I am very shy when I have to interact with my teachers because I feel as though I should not be asking for help. Through interacting with my calculus teacher in high school, I had also learned to interact with my professors at CRC. Even though AP Calculus AB was difficult, but by working diligently, I had also earned myself a reward. I achieved a score of 5 on the AP Calculus AB Exam. This allowed me to skip Calculus I at CRC during my first semester of college. If I

With optional homework and weekly quizzes, it is very easy to fall behind. Calculus as a course has left me to be very independent in my studies. My work throughout the week is seldom monitored by the instructor, but it is imperative that I am ready for the weekly quiz or test. Calculus as a subject tends to lack an aspect of creativity. I have to follow a method that is taught to me in order to solve the problem, leaving a very diminutive margin of error.