College Admissions Essay: Think Like A Proton

From the beginning of the ninth grade until now, I have maintained highest honors. To do so, I made a routine of studying regularly, completing assignments in a timely manner and making sure they are submitted by the deadline, and putting effort into everything I do in school. I do so to develop the habits that will make me successful in college and when I reach my goal and become a physician’s assistant. By continuing to put great effort into school, I display my ability to persevere and show my continuing endurance even when a class is difficult. The most difficult class that I recall having throughout high school was chemistry. It was a rigorous course and the branches of chemistry we had studied were often intricate. We would have to complete lengthy lab reports after every

Being a freshman in college, I set impractical and unrealistic goals for myself. Throughout the year, I had to overcome various obstacles to strive in meeting the goals I had set out for myself. One of my goals during the first year of college was to earn a 4.0 GPA. I thought this would be an easy feat as I was able to academically grow throughout my academic career—excelling from being roughly a 2.6 GPA student to roughly a 4.0 GPA student. One of the biggest obstacles I had to face was taking exams. In high school, I did not need to prepare for exams as much as I do in college. I underestimated my midterms and finals as I did not know that I had to study at least a week ahead of time in order to obtain suitable grades. In high school, I was able to study one or two nights beforehand and still manage to achieve high grades.

Education is extremely important to me and I am a student who is very serious about my future and the upcoming semester will prove so. Regardless of my previous poor work ethic, I am a mature person and if given a chance, I will display that what I had done in the past academically

I was raised in Nacogdoches, Texas, which is known for its small-town atmosphere and Stephen F. Austin State University. Due to being a small town, Nacogdoches lacked advanced placement courses; therefore, most my time was spent in non-challenging course work. When I attended SFA as a dual-credit student I experienced a minor shock, SFA was a step up from Nacogdoches High School; however, I quickly adapted and worked harder to maintain the pace of my peers. When I finally got accepted to Texas A&M University I again faced the same academic obstacle, and experienced major setbacks and failures. After my first semester of college I received a 2.7 gpa and received my first C in a class. Feelings of defeat and confusion overcame me—my goals of attending medical school appeared to diminish before my eyes. I questioned my work ethic and intelligence. Despite the feelings of failure, I never let myself fall into despair, and I moved forward. Every semester following my first semester at A&M I improved over time; however, the in the Spring 2016 I finally overcame my academic hurdle and made my best grades to date. It has taken time to develop qualitative techniques to retain information for difficult science

Major changes in my life have affected my high school career, but a large impact came from the death of my father in eighth grade. Before his passing, I was an average A/B student in middle school and even elementary school, which quickly changed in 8th grade when my classes became too hard for me to handle. I decided the best thing for my mental health was to drop out of my higher level classes. This lead to being in standard classes throughout my first year of high school with minimal effort from my part. After constantly missing school, I failed my second quarter. Instead of bouncing back from this, it pushed me down, making me believe I would never be able to recover. Without any motivation, I ended my ninth grade year with a grade point average of 1.4.

A special attribute that sets me apart is my tendency to work hard. I constantly try to do my best in everything that I do. Throughout high school, I’ve always set a high standard for myself by taking rigorous classes, joining sports and clubs, and maintaining a high GPA. Even if certain classes didn’t have any relation to nursing, club meetings were the day before a large exam, or tennis practice was especially grueling, I still worked hard and put in as much effort as I could. With this type of attitude, I was able to maintain Distinguished Honor Roll and a cumulative 4.08 GPA throughout my high school career. I chose to maintain this attitude during senior year instead of taking it easy, as I was able to gain knowledge and experience that

I admit, I had a very challenging time last semester, and as a result my grades suffered. I don’t mean to make excuses for my poor performance in school but I would like to explain my circumstance. During my second semester of college I treated my classes like I did in high school thinking I could coast by and pass my classes, but when I noticed how poorly I was doing in class everything was already headed downhill. I started the second

With that being said, I now realize I ended up caring about my grades as well as striving for higher ones thus far in my academic career. To this very day, I still care about my grades and since those lecture days, one of my top priorities everyday is my grades because now I understand how important they are in school and my life in general at this point. This in turn has brought me to where I am today: a relatively high GPA as well as a dual enrollment student. I also plan to graduate high school with the Scholar's Merritt on my diploma and, if all goes well, my AA

For the past few years I have aced all my classes and dutifully earned myself all A’s consecutively. I plan on continuing this accomplishment as a freshman and throughout my four years of high school. I’m not just getting straight A’s to give myself a pat on the back and free ice cream, but to reward myself the satisfaction of being able to go to college and reach a goal that would give me a deeper purpose in life and a clearer view of my path for the future. I have also engaged myself in community service, extra credit, and I am preparing

In the beginning of my junior year, I had signed up for one of the most intimidating classes in my high school, AP chemistry. While I took chemistry honors, I heard rumors about the AP course and seen homework packets that overwhelmed me to the point of removing the class from next year’s schedule. However, out of impulsiveness, I decided it was time for a challenge and put the course back on my schedule. When I received my summer assignment for the course, I felt confused and regretful about the decision I had made. My commitment to not fail the class the first week back from break forced me to focus on the time-consuming homework. From my struggle, I managed to finish the packet on time. The school year began, and one of the first lessons

I learned from my various courses that you cannot get discouraged when you know that you have a lot on your plate those are the times to rise above and to focus. Making sure everything was completed in a timely manner and to an above average standard was very important especially in my college courses. When you do not put the amount of effort needed it shows in the final product, I always want my product to look like I did my best no matter what it might be. Coming in from middle school it was easy to skate by and do everything at the last minute and still get perfect scores but now that I am being academically challenged those methods no longer work. I am very grateful for being able to have the opportunity to attend the STEM Early College at NC A&T because it is preparing me for my future

My Freshman year of college, I was a mechanical engineering student at the George Washington University. It was there that I learned how difficult school could really be. My past schooling experience had not prepared me for this extremely rigorous program. As one of my requirements for the program was a social science, I had registered for a history course my first semester. Unknowingly, I had registered for a third-year history class, clearly not the correct class for a freshman engineering student. I went on to struggle with the amount of work that was assigned for the course including an 18 page research paper. This course, on top of the difficult engineering curricula was extremely challenging. At this point, I also realized that although

My junior year, I decided to take my first Advanced Placement class, AP Chemistry. In the beginning, it required no effort since it only reviewed the material of the general chemistry class I had taken the previous year. Then, it started to become complicated. Through all of high school, I had drifted by and I never needed to study before. Suddenly, I needed to study for hours every night. The stress began to take a toll on me and my will to try diminished during the third quarter. During fourth quarter, the teacher gave us class time to review and ask him questions. On top of refreshing myself on what I learned first semester, I needed to learn all the material I had missed out on during the third quarter.

I used to get a C occasionally, but I was never a D student. D’s used to be out of character. I suddenly remembered not studying properly for the test, and I cannot recall why I did it. There is always a reason when you don’t study and perform badly in a test. I did the same and got a beat up after taking a test I was not prepared for. Now, I was left with two options- I could either embrace the fact that I was a student who always deserved nothing better than a D or, I could try to study hard for the next series of tests and use the force of average to improve my grade. I realized that while I couldn’t recall the reason for not studying, I was never able to get the grade out of my mind. The grade was more important to me than what I was doing to make it

Only the beginning of junior year, I was afraid to continue the class. I was afraid I was going to flunk out. The class carried on as I sat there day after day with the thought of failing on my mind. However, that only made me even more determined to get a higher grade on the next test. I could not let a bad grade eat me up and demolish my desire to succeed. Later when the second test was passed back, I looked at it, flashed a smile, and flipped through it, noticing only a few minor mistakes. Returning to the front page, I stared at that 92% until the end of class.