Failing With Straight A's Essay

I was done. I did it. I was all smiles as I walked back through the double doors. Several people mouthed to me, “Did you mess up? Did you do good? Did you do this? Did you do that?” All I could do was smile and nod my head yes. Later that night me and my friends ran up to the front doors of East to find out who made the team. Before I could even get out of the car I took a deep breath and hoped for the best. I slowly stepped out of the car and waited there for a moment. Two point five seconds later I was running like a cheetah towards the front door of the school. I looked crazily for my number on the sheet of paper. It was there. I couldn’t believe it. So many thoughts were going through my head. I literally couldn’t think right. Me and my friends started hugging each other. To my surprise all my friends made it, and I was so proud of them. I layed in bed that night thinking about how fortunate I was to be in such a good place. Good grades, good friends, and fun times. I couldn’t be any happier with my

When you think of college, you think of all the classes you will be taking, the amount of homework the professors butcher you with and how you might not have time for any outside activities. What people do not think about, is that a college degree will provide them with a job that will provide money for their bills and needs. Robert T. Perry wrote, On “Real Education” and he says that “His pessimistic view of people’s ability to learn ignores not just good evidence to the contrary but the real pressures the American economy is facing. Removing some 80-90 percent of our students in my state or just about any state would interrupt the pipeline of skilled working, making it nearly impossible to meet

I closed my eyes in disbelief. I refreshed the page. I thought Ms. Platt had attached another student’s rubric to my essay. I wanted the nightmare to end. Not only did I not receive an “A” or a “B,” but a “C-.” I earned a seventy percent. My eyes watered, and I began to feel nauseous. I felt as if I failed myself and my family. This grade was not supposed to be possible. In the words of Grendel, it was an accident. But unfortunately, it was not. At that moment, I had to accept, even if I did not want to, that I, for once, did not reach my high goals or had to surrender my unrealistic view of myself. I had erred, like all humans do, and learned that I was not perfect and that I could fail to reach my standards. At that moment, I realized that I wasn’t superhuman but human, and this was something challenging for me to cope with at the time. However, in discovering my ability to fail, my perception of myself had been revolutionized.

“In the United States today, there is no more certain investment than a college education”(Carnevale and Melton). Education has always been a major component of American society. One can only go so far without an education, and the more education and knowledge someone has, the better their chances of being successful. Some people believe a high school education is enough, and it is, enough to land a job at a fast food restaurant. I speculate they feel this way because they feel school is not for them, or maybe they just do not want to go far in life. To get far in life people must go above and beyond, and learn things that others do not know to make them

For me, and probably many of my fellow students, higher education always seemed like a foregone conclusion: I never questioned if I was going to college, just where. No other options ever occurred to me. After working 12-hour shifts in a factory, the other options have become brutally clear. When I'm back at the university, skipping classes and turning in lazy re-writes seems like a cop-out after seeing what I would be doing without school. All the advice and public-service announcements about the value of an education that used to sound trite now ring true."(Braaksma,

I failed AP English. I had missed the second quarter of the school year, almost completely, due to… technical difficulties. I got discharged from the hospital mid-February, and for the remainder of junior year, the majority of my waking thoughts revolved around passing 11th grade. With motivational speeches coming at me from my parents, friends, and teachers, I began to believe I had a chance of passing the year. I did my best, which apparently was not enough. My teacher had picked up on my tremendous amount of effort, and on the last day of school, bumped my grade up to a low D — just enough to pass. I was not exactly about to put my grade on display or anything, but I passed! Technically. This is not one of the underdog-who-succeeded stories. The real success for me was (look away, it’s cliché) realizing my best was enough. I sound disgusting.

Failure is a part of everyone's daily lives; however, depending on the person you are you

In Sator Sanchez Elementary School I flunked 3rd grade and the event changed my life and how I see my education. The most vivid image was when I was in the gym crying after getting the news. First, I believed I learned that I was going to repeat the grade by reading the envelope they gave us, which had our last report cards in them. It didn’t hit me till I entered the gym, which also acted like a waiting area for the busses. On my way there I was thinking about what it would mean. That my childhood friend Melisa, my “cousin” Jerry and the few friends I had would proceed to the next grade while I get left behind, I ended up not seeing almost all of them ever again. While the prospect of not seeing the people I grew up with terrified me, the reason made my confidence took a great blow, I also thought that I was pretty stupid for flunking.

“I went to a community college, then I went to work, then I went back to school and I got my degree. But my real education took place… mostly in a sewer,” states Mike Rowe, TV host of Dirty Jobs. (Gillespie). While in high school in the 1980s, college was for the most academic students. The majority of my high school classmates proceeded on to a vocational school training to be mechanics, beauticians, plumbers, carpenters, electricians or to join the military. As an academic student, I went on to college. When beginning college, I did not know what I wanted to study, nor had the means to pay for it. Already working full-time while taking classes in the evening, life began to feel like I was a hamster in a wheel. School was frustrating to me, and it seemed like I was merely regurgitating information for a test of which I saw no benefit. Since I was already working in the field that I wanted a degree and was getting more fulfillment out of my job than school, I chose to take a break from school,

It is not some huge shocker that making an F on a test is seriously terrible. It not only affects a persons overall grade, but also affects ones perception of their own intelligence. Making an F on a test can make people feel depressive and furious, considering how badly it will affect their grade. However since there is nothing that can done about it, eventually we just accept our fate and move on with our lives. The same could be said about having to wake up in the morning.

I remember going into my freshman year of high school nervous but excited because I thought I’d learn so many new things. Next thing you know I found myself dreading school. Was I being lazy? Was it my lack of motivation? I still can’t grasp why exactly I lost that excitement or that yearning to go to school. I was raised to have the idea that school was a place to learn not socialize. But at the age of 14, what teenagers don’t want to socialize and that’s what got a hold of me. I spent too much time worrying about other things that didn’t involve my education.

Knowing I didn’t study, I held in my breath and closed my eyes as he handed me the three sheets of scribbles and sloppily circled answers. Slowly I opened my eyes and looked down at my grade, and there it was, 49%. My first failing grade. My cheeks turned as red as the sharpie the teacher used to mark my paper. Embarrassment and shame crashed over me. Page flip after page flip, I scanned my mistakes and then immediately shoved the papers into my folder. Other classmates were gawking at their success and I didn’t want them to see my failure. That grade haunted my mind for forever, it seemed.

The first year, the time to prove myself had arrived. Classes, rooms, teachers, and some students were unfamiliar. Eventually, minutes melted into hours, hours to days, and days to weeks. It didn’t take long before my schedule was routine, something of second nature. Humor and happiness were found in the form of my advisory family, where school was transformed into something more than going through the same motions of day to day activity. By the closing point of sixth grade, I was having a hard time letting go of what I’d adapted to. “What’s wrong?” my dad asked when I was getting into the car after being picked up early on the last day. I explained how distressed I was that my first year of middle school exceeded my expectations, and that it had to come to an end. Although his outlook viewed my reason for sorrow as trivial, I didn’t.

I was like a bird learning to fly. I didn’t really know what I was doing but I tried my best. I presented to the best of my abilities and hoped for the best. The day came to an end and that award ceremony was about to start. I decided that I wouldn’t be disappointed if I didn’t place, and reasoned that I had three years left in high school and would have a better chance of winning as a more experienced upper classmen. Once again, I was using being a freshman as an excuse. Unexpectedly, I placed first in both of my competitions and qualified for state. During this pivotal moment my eyes were opened to what I could accomplish. I suddenly started to expect more out of myself. I was going to state and wouldn’t be knocked out without a fight.

Throughout the history of civilization, education has been an important tool in shaping an individual as well as the society that the individual is a part of. In the older civilizations, only the elite upper class had access to education. This kept these people at the top of the social ladder, and suppressed the common people who did not have access to the same education as the nobles. We have come a long way since then, with every child having access to a free high school degree. However, there is still some inequality in this modern education system that has similarities to the old injustices. In this day and age, a college degree is a great start for a young adult starting to enter the work force. According to a study conducted by Pew