Kit Bauer's Life-Personal Narrative

It was mid-morning when I pulled up to school, still wondering if I made the right decision by enrolling. Instead of feeling calm, cool, and collected the only thing arriving early did was increase the feeling of impending doom. My mind was racing a mile a minute. Am I going to be able keep up to the bright minds fresh out of high school? It was time to find out.

Though the parents constantly ensure that they do the opposite of the social norm, they’ve made sure to inspire Jeannette with the values of schooling. Alongside Jeannette’s parents value instillments with an added extra persuasion from her sister, Jeannette takes the leap and enters into the world of academia with an Ivy League college acceptance. “I applied to its sister college, Barnard, and was accepted.” (Wall 250). Even with her upbringing Jeannette is still bright enough to make her way into a good college, a college that most would say “trash” like her didn’t deserve to attend.

"I remember coming home from school and receiving an email notification. When I opened it and read my scholarship reward letter, I was honestly speechless. Tears slid down my face as I stood there in my bedroom telling myself how my life had just taken a turn. Playing the scenarios of college life and the great opportunity in pursuing a career; I was honestly the happiest that I had ever been at that point because there is no other greater gift thank the opportunity to continue education and be successful in this world. I was going to do it, not just for myself, but for my parents as well. I have everything to owe to them because they were the ones who always supported me and encouraged me to study in the early stages of my life." This was truly a touching story; however, because we always hear about the great moments but rarely about the rough patches, we decided to ask him a couple of questions concerning his tough times. We asked him if there were any moments where he felt like it was too much for him, and his response was as follows: "Of course, like every college student experiences, I had times were I found a class difficult and I almost gave up, but whenever I would feel that way, I would stop and think about the day I received that email and how my life had changed forever. It would motivate me to continue pushing myself and that I was there for a

Hard-working students dedicated to their work succumb to stress and panic when the pressure of college and the need to do well intensifies. For Nayla Kidd, who grew up under a household which valued education, this was a nightmarish reality. While in college, Kidd’s mother obtained both a doctorate in toxicology at MIT as well as a masters in public health from Johns Hopkins (Svrluga). From the start, the pressure was on for Nayla, and her family reputation was on the line. On top of maintaining amazing grades, “Nayla Kidd ran track and did horseback riding in high school… she taught a popular belly dancing class at Columbia--[and] loves to DJ” (Svrluga). Her extensive resume reveals her true love for

Kelsey’s recent ongoing stress is resignated around his academics and family priorities within the past two years. He was an Engineering major in one of the top schools in Wisconsin, he felt pressure to make his family happy and pursue his academic major. Before applying to the Mechanical Engineering program, Kelsey bit off more than he could chew. Seeking membership into a fraternity, visiting home every other weekend to assist his family financially and emotionally during his mother’s bankruptcy period, and taking a huge course load of 16 credits. As a result of his commitment and sacrifice, sadly his grades failed as a result. Within this year, Kelsey went from withholding a full ride (scholarships, grants, fellowships) and summer internship to losing everything including his studentship at Wisconsin. During this tough time in Kelsey’s life, I observed the frustration he endured during this strategic time. He found himself questioning his

I should be grateful that I was accepted into any high school. Although it was not my initial choice of high school, I should work my hardest there. In fact, any high school was fine as long as I put in all my effort to study and learn. A certain high school should not brand a person as a certain way, but rather the effort that the person gives. With a burning passion, I swore to myself that if I don’t get accepted to something and I put in my best effort, it will be alright. A chance will come along and I won’t beat myself over it.

“What if I fail?” I asked desperately. “What if I have to go back to school? I don’t want to go back, I want to be in college, with the other smart people!”

“Um, hello.” A voice said. Edward looked up from his sandwich. He must had been too busy to notice Lexi Crooke had walked up to him. She seemed, lonely.

Recently, Melinda’s grades have plunged down and at the guidance office, she is told, “Melinda. Last year you were a straight -B student, no behavioral problem, few absences. But the reports I 've been getting …. well, what can we say?” (Anderson 114).

Our plan was after I healed from my C-section and Malaki was at least 6 months old I would be going back to college. Of course, things do not always go, as we want them to. It was May 28, 2008. I had just had Malaki 13 days before. It was a normal day. I was nursing Malaki and Keith called to say he had just gotten off work and was on his way home. He had a great job installing insulation. As I put Malaki down in his bassinet, I could have never imagined in less than one hour and less than one mile from home my family’s lives and “our plan” would change forever.

In the book “David and Goliath Underdogs, Misfits, And the Art of Battling Giants”, written by Malcolm Gladwell, Gladwell depicts a story of Caroline Sacks’ college experience. To enumerate, Caroline Sacks was an intelligent student who was in love with science and whose dream college institution was to attend the Ivy League, Brown University. However, due to the fact that Brown is a very prestigious and very selective school, she applied to the University of Maryland as well; she considered Maryland as her back up plan. She was accepted to Brown, than began struggling academically at Brown. She began giving up her dreams of science because she was struggling in her organic chemist class. Alternately, she could’ve got an A in the class instead of a –B than dropping it; it’s several things she could’ve took into consideration instead of dropping the class, and giving up on being a scientist. Regardless of all of the statistics that Gladwell shares in the book that proves that this behavior of relative deprivation is far too normal, she could have surpassed this feeling if she would’ve actually took the time to reflect on what she could do to improve her grade instead of just stressing out, than dropping the class all together.

“Thank you for coming on such short notice, Father.” a weary voice said as the door opened. He had thinning grey hair, a scruffy beard, and looked downright distraught.

“I want to go to college for Game Design, Visual Basics. But my main goal is Graphic Design.” She said, smiling. “I was always fascinated with the way the digital world works, and I have been playing video games since I was 5. It was a very important part of my life, and it helped me realize that I want this to be my career. It’s also a great stress reliever!” She said, laughing. As we reached the part where I asked her what made her decide to want to go to college, she became serious for a moment. “I believe that it all comes down to family matters. With that being said,I want to be the successful young lady that my mom, dad, brother, and sister know I can be. I want to be a role model to my siblings, and also I want to make my parents proud of me.” She smiled and crossed her legs as I went to the next question. “What colleges did you apply for?” I asked her. She thought about her answer for a moment, before she finally spoke. “I have applied to Monroe, my main reason being that my mother went there and I want to follow in her footsteps. I am considering Mercy, since Mr. Frum said that it was a beautiful campus, as well as the fact that a friend of his went there for game design, and now he is successful and happy in his field. I found that to be very cool.” As we began wrapping up the interview, I asked her one last

To whom it may concern, Georgia Beckmann is one of the most intelligent, thoughtful and witty students I have seen in my counselling career. These qualities are impossible to miss through how she approaches her assignments, the quality of her insight into topics at hand, discussions in class and extracurricular activities. Georgia’s hard work has consistently earned her some of the highest grades of her class since freshman year, and she has continuously challenged herself each year to improve the quality of her work and analyses across academic disciplines. Georgia has earned straight A’s throughout her entire high school career, which is no surprise based on the hard-working spirit she exudes every day in all of her classes. This has carried

It was 2016, and I was finally a senior in high school. Being a senior in high school was something that I had dreamed of since my early middle school days, and at last, I was there. It was the last year in one of my least favorite environments, and I couldn’t wait to graduate and move away from the only place I had ever known. I had lived in the same town for seventeen years, and I had gone to the same school with the same people for thirteen years. I was looking forward to something new in my life. I was most excited for my senior year because it was the year that I was going to choose where I wanted to move away to and what school I wanted to spend the next four years of my life at. As the year moved along, I slowly realized that I wasn’t moving away and that I’d be staying home to attend college, which was one of the most difficult decisions that I ever had to make.