Graduation Speech : School Is Tedious And Insignificant

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.

About four years ago, I was just starting my first year of high school. During my previous tenure in middle school, I was basically an average student with multiple C’s and barely passing classes. So when I entered high school, I was not that enthusiastic about it and I continued the trend of not really caring about my grades in the 9th grade. As I became more aware of the opportunities I could get by receiving good grades, I began to actually care more about school and tried to get good grades. I began to do something that I never did before,

Several times I went to math class with my work incomplete and being unprepared for my academics, at that point I didn't even care. I was not busy the night before studying test or doing extra school activities I was sitting on the couch watching tv not doing my homework. I had the time for school, and I just wasted it. It got to the point where I was always failing at least one class, and all my grades were terrible. Everyone tried to help me get back on my feet and turn my education around, but I just didn't listen or put in the effort. I honestly didn't know what to do, and I was just lost. My laziness and fear of being a failure consumed

Throughout middle school and the beginning of high school I faced many challenges with my grades. These challenges made me grow and help shape who I am today. In my early teenage years I would view my school work not important. My perspective on priorities were all wrong. As I became older and matured I realized that. I realized school is the most important thing because my future depends on how I do. I realized if I want to go to a good college and have a successful career I have to work hard in school to get there. As high school went by my grades got better and I saw a better version of myself. My grades went from C’s and D’s to A’s and B’s in all my classes. I began to be attentive in class, and be productive and take notes. I did my school

When I was in middle school, I truly didn’t care for school. I just thought it was a mandatory part of the everyday adolescent child. I came to school each day dreading the fact that I have to sit for hours and listen to lectures that I thought to myself that I don’t need in the future. It was the beginning of the second semester in eighth grade, I was called in by my advisor. She told me that if I don’t improve my grades, I would have to repeat a grade, and I would have to wait two years until I enter high school. This unnerving fact stopped me in my tracks, and I remember the cold feeling that suddenly surged through my body. There was a possibility that I could fail and repeat a grade. And so I thought to myself, is this really how I want to continue my life? Is

By the mid-term point of Fall semester, I was depressed and ready to give up. I was disappointed in myself because I was still failing despite dropping out of football. My parents refused to let me succumb to the “poor me” syndrome. This was the time to show my strength of character. I needed to prove to myself that I could overcome this obstacle. I prayed to God to give me guidance on how to get back on track. I started staying up later to do the reading. I paid more attention in class. I joined a study group. As I put forth more of an effort, my grade slowly began to improve. By the end of the fall semester, I had raised my “F” to a “D”. I kept my focus during the spring semester. I ended the year with a 77% in the class. Although I didn’t receive an A or a B, I received something more valuable: self-respect and self-esteem. I learned that I must always do what is in my best interest even if there are others who tell me that I am making wrong decisions.

As a child, I always loved school. Sometimes I struggled with the work but I managed to pull through. As I got older and attended middle school I struggled the most with my classwork, I didn’t think I was going to make it because of my grades, I didn’t think any high school would take me. Whenever I step foot into the classroom I always thought to myself, I’m never going to understand the work I’m never going to learn this, but then I realized grades don’t define who I am. I’m more than a letter grade. 8th grade graduation arrived, I was the only one who didn’t receive an award. During the ceremony I felt ashamed, I felt like I could’ve done better and I know I could have. I felt like I let my parents down. But that ceremony opened my eyes, I knew I was smart and I knew I had the potential to learn and expand my education. Freshman year of high school came. I was nervous, I thought I was going to fall back into the same place I was in. I proved myself wrong. All year I studied hard, up long nights, I received tutoring my freshmen year, and I maintained a 3.5 GPA throughout my high school career.

The transition from middle school to high school was difficult for me. I’d gone to very a progressive middle school where the students basically got to choose their own curriculum. I’d never had grades or a standard structure of any kind to measure my academic performance. Saint Mary’s, my high school, is college prep so the teachers move quickly, I am graded on everything, and expectations in general are much higher. For all of ninth grade I felt like I had been tossed into the deep end without knowing how to swim, and my grades reflected that mentality. Summer before tenth grade, I knew I couldn’t continue performing so poorly, so I began to study and to try and get a jump start on the next year’s curriculum. When school started I put much

I really started to go and develop in the 7th grade. I started to take school seriously. Before the 7th grade, I did care about school but I wasn’t serious about it. I used to mess around with friends in class, do my work sloppy, and not taking time to study outside of school. When 7th grade started, I told myself that i gotta focus on my education because it will prep me for the following school years and develop good habits. During the year, I put school as a higher priority than other things like video games and sports. My grades were good except the one C grade I had in English class. Overall the next two years my grades were great, I had only A’s and B’s in my classes. Once I entered my sophomore year at Puyallup High School, my focus

The academic pressures my teachers in middle school were not present at this school. I was a part of the Scholars program, which allowed us to take AP Human Geography freshman year, and I thought it would be more of a challenge. Unfortunately, it was not. Still, the school’s environment is great. The teachers are very supportive and caring, and the community is social and tolerant. The only flaw is academics. I am a lazy person at heart, and since I was not forced to work hard, I ended up procrastinating my work. I knew it was bad to procrastinate, but I did it so well I decided to improve it. I was then able to do work that would take a regular student a day, finished in an hour with the same resulting grade. Since academics were already taken care of, and I had no desire to do much, I ended up not doing many extracurricular activities. During freshman year, life at home became harder. Since my sister was on her way to college, we had to start finding out how we would scrounge up the money to pay. Luckily, my dad has military benefits that helped my sister with tuition, but not the dorming. We were still piled up with bills from the house and insurance from our vehicles, it felt like everything was piling up. In the end, we slowly decreased the bills and costs of school by spreading them out. Everything became steady again and my sister went off to college. This event had helped me see that piling things up

I knew that junior year would be the hardest year of high school. I also knew that being in the top 10% junior year would bring various benefits with it. Thus, I knew that working harder would be essential to achieve this goal. I walked into junior year thinking that I had been fully prepared for anything that I would come face to face with. Soon enough, I realized I was not fully equipped to what was about to hit me. Junior year consisted of countless number of assignments, numerous amounts of quizzes and tests, and countless numbers of essays. Staying up late had been consistently part of my schedule to finish the work. The perfectionist side of me always wanted the homework to be done right the first time which caused me to stay up even later than expected. Occasionally, I also lost my sleep to study for a quiz or test that was to be given the following day. Even though losing sleep had been difficult, it helped initiate significant results, because my grades began to exceed my

School started with my first period biology class, my teacher would go off-topic everyday, rambling about science would cause me to fall asleep. It didn’t quite help that the room was always dark, quiet, and gloomy. It was apparent that everyone felt the same as I did because their heads were down on the table not paying attention to our boring biology teacher. It wasn’t just biology class, in all of my classes, I never felt like I had a clear path to success: I didn’t know how to take notes, ask for help, get good grades, and become successful. I thought to

I had to quit track and cross country due to low grades.  Even after I put running behind me, my grades continued to plummet throughout my 10th grade year. Resulting, in me  going to the Bowie library every day after school and only for me to stay until I finished all of my homework. I would study for  classes, but never felt like I actually grasped the information. I attended tutor sessions with my tutors and only to receive a high C in a class. I stopped making honor roll  and watched from the sideline of races  that I could no longer participate in.

I have always enjoyed school mainly because the work was easy to me. I was an honor roll student with plenty of academic awards presented to me. Elementary school was a breeze and intermediate school brought no competition. However, high school was a different story. My worst subject, by far, was English. I love to read books but to my surprise Harry Potter did not help me analyze short stories. It seemed my brain could not process tone and mood as well as it could understand numbers. Writing essays was an even bigger problem for me. This level of education required more from me than ever before. I, who won the D.A.R.E. essay contest in 5th grade, could suddenly not put my thoughts on to paper. Within the first month of my junior year, I had

At 17 years old I entered UCLA as a biology major. I had graduated in the top 10 of my high school class, and I had received only A’s since coming to the United States as a Sophomore. With my prior academic performance and younger age, I was overconfident and immature going into college. During my first 4 quarters my social pursuits smothered my academic ones; I lived a very unbalanced life, and my grades suffered. With a 3.05 GPA my first quarter, I was disappointed but too overconfident to embrace the dedication required to succeed in such a competitive academic environment. Furthermore, when confronted with each poor grade report I would bury my head in the sand, and naively convince myself that it will be better next time. My second winter