College Admissions Essay: Positivity In High School

I remember waking up that day and that feeling in my stomach, knowing what was about to happen. Growing up I knew about my father's sickness. My family, I recall, was always supportive. No one ever thinks about how one day, everyone you’re around for years, can just vanish. I cherished my friends as I was growing up. I lived there for a majority of my life, up until fourth grade. I remember sitting at a neighbor's house and having the mother come into the room and inform me that I need to be home swiftly. As I ran home, my head was crowded with thoughts to the point where I could not even think about why I was supposed to be home quickly. That day marked the transition of what would be the biggest change in my life. As by dad became sicker,

My educational past has had its good and bad days. In early grades school was easy and school was enjoyable. Somewhere along the line I lost my talent and things went south quickly. For some reason I kept telling myself studying wasn’t necessary because of how well I did in the past. In the sixth grade we had our first math test. I figured why study, I’m smart, all the answers will come right to me. I start the test and immediately start struggling. I couldn’t remember anything and of course when I got it back, it was an F. After receiving that F, I realized things have changed and I must put forth much more effort. Math for me was never the same after that moment. I started struggling with memorizing the equations and my grade suffered. One thing I needed to realize was I didn’t have all the knowledge. In the past, my education has been a little rocky.

Growing up, I was quite reserved. I kept to myself and did not talk a lot in school. Actually, I dreaded school. Initially, I would sneak my way into the school’s nurse’s office and complain of a stomach ache or my throat being sore which worked…most of the time. Soon after, my mom caught on to my plan and told me to suck it up. Then I became just desperate by crying and begging my mom to stay home but she still would not give in. Now, don’t get me wrong; I lust for learning. However, I did not like the whole idea of the school get up. I was in classes with more boys than girls that were distracting and constantly acting up. I felt intimidated therefore I did not speak a lot to anyone in my classes. I learned to block out in the distractions with reading. My books were my friends and I spent an awful lot of time with them.

Looking back at the years that I have completed in high school is a funny but a true life changer. If I was to go back to one year of high school I would want to go back to freshman year. One reason why I would want to go back to freshman year is to talk to myself. Another reason I would want to go back it tell myself to listen more. The last reason would to see if I could improve myself in any way.

I am a southern bred leader, pursuer, and helper whos mission is to spread peace, love, unity, and respect among many to create a world of cheerfulness and brotherhood. I am Austin William Carricoand this is my story. All my life I have lived in the small town of Crestview and grew up among the wilderness along with its inhabitants. As the town grew exponentially into a vast city, my heart, my mind, and my soul grew with it, learning the ways to help others and slowly turning from a boy to the young man I am today. I now attend Collegiate High School continuing my journey at the ripe age of fifteen, still promoting peace as a mission for others even when I left my former school, Niceville High.

The first morning I walk into my job I actually went to the wrong floor but I got there eventually. I felt very nervous, as any other freshmen intern would feel. Everyone at accounting said I was cute and tiny, which I thought was good. They didn’t have me work on anything major as it was my first day so I don’t think they want to overwhelm me with work on my first day. I could instantly tell that I would like it here, everyone was so nice and it was like they were family and I wanted to be a part of that family. Now that I’m at the end of my first year I can proudly say that I have fulfilled my goal of getting to know many of my co-workers and forming a bond with most of them. I’ve learned many things from my co-workers. They’ve given me advice about school and how I should carry myself through the future. For that, I can’t thank them enough on how much of an impact they have made in my high school experience.

We start off thinking about our futures very early on as children we are taught since day one of kindergarten to graduate high school, go to college, get an education, and then work for the next 50 years until you retire. We start to develop our thoughts on what our career is going to be , our dream schools, who we are as individuals, we grow up watching our parents, relatives and neighbors living the path they chose. Watching the adults around us helped developed our minds and gave us an idea of what we can do. My father is a sheet metal worker for a big company and my mother was a travel agent both never got a college education, my neighbor graduated from the University of Santa Barbra, my kindergarten teacher got her associates degree

Across the generations of my family, I see a trend towards both a higher education and a higher salary as generations are born. The oldest generation I was able to find information on was just two poor uneducated farmers. The next generation was a majority of farmers and other low salary jobs. They also had a majority of grade school educations. But on my Mother’s side some of my relatives began to get high school educations. With this education they became a store owner, tool and die maker, and a railroad engineer. All representing that a higher education can lead to a more successful life. The third generation of my family tree was a majority of average working class individuals who the majority of had a high school education at best. The

My high school days have been spent at a STEM focused school, where I have worked to get my associate's degree alongside my high school diploma. I've worked my hardest to succeed, often resulting in a loss of sleep, and having to give up many extra curricular activities. Through these years I've learned that my passions are encompassed mainly in fine arts. Music is a big part of my life and is a passion of mine. I have been learning the piano since I was little and later added violin to the mix. I found my passion for musical theater a couple years later, and began to immerse myself in the various aspects of it. Art,

It feels as if it was yesterday. I had asked my mom if I could drive my sister’s car, which was at the time an eclipse. I was so excited that I didn’t hear my mom say that I could only go from point A to B and back to A. This was feeling like a dream, because I wanted to drive her car for such a long time and here I was getting to get behind the wheel and drive by myself.

Mediocrity is unacceptable - I am a fifteen year old boy and I’m seen by society as the lowest of the low maturity wise. I try to compensate by being polite, showing respect to the properly constituted authority, and showing that I am trustworthy. I am in the AFJROTC program in my highschool, and when you first walk in, you are instantly hit with the reality of the program being something to not take seriously. Just, sit down, shut up, and don’t bother anyone, because in a class where youth are put in charge of youth, there will be squabble. When you enter the class, you enter an atmosphere of annoyance. When you try to stand out, you’ll be called out for it and be put to shame by your peers for trying to be a kiss up. For example, if you were to yell a bit louder when leadership is calling role, you’ll hear a giggle or two and someone express discontent with you. I’m no exception to that. I have ridiculed and put down those who have tried to stand out, but to me, it wasn’t about them trying to one up me, it was about them not following a principle of high school that every student realizes, sit down, shut up, don’t

I broke the chains that once held my true self captive. I accepted my flaws and failure, as did the people who truly cared about me. I couldn’t fix every friendship that I had ruined, but I had to take my lumps and learn from my past. The people that resided in my shadow the past three years have now become the most important people of my life. Helping me to become confident with myself and not the masses. Forgiveness isn’t just a simple “sorry”, but a process that takes time, effort, and perseverance. I had to fight to make my way back into the hearts of the people that I had treated so

“Just chill out.” My heart thunders violently against my chest. My palms fill with sweat. “Just chill out.” Whispers rasp against my ears as my thoughts spin out of control. “Just chill out.” A dreadful state of panic sends a tidal wave of grief upon my frail body. “Just chill out,” everyone said. But I couldn’t. Anxiety lingered in my life since childhood, an inner demon I fought for years.

Everyone may face a bad things in life, and suddenly for some reasons it turn to be good things. At some point it may forces us to things we weren’t thinking about, change our lives. One of the bad things that happened to me is not attended to law school which it was my dream. My story begins when I graduated from high school, and continued until I obtained college degree, and having a job in one of the largest companies in Saudi Arabia.

American high schools have over a million dropouts in a school year. School reform in America has been needed for a long time. America is falling behind in college education because schools are being run as businesses and the government is hemorrhaging money for them.