My Educational Experience In High School

Students who are becoming freshmen often ask “what’s it like to be in high school?” High school is not what you think. Freshmen don’t get pushed in lockers, there's not that one popular girl who shoves other students books out of their hands, and the cafeteria is not the most embarrassing place to be. High school is not an amicable. If you really think high school is a amicable place where students smile at each other, think again. Here is some advice from my high school experience.

1. Provide a short description of your high school experience. How have you grown/evolved from 9th grade to this point? List some of the highlights of your high school career.

Going into high school didn’t give me the effect I was expecting. Instead of my usual indifference about life, I found a light at the end of the tunnel. My entire outlook was shifted from one point of the spectrum to its opposite. Everything I thought I knew had been revised in way. My experiences in high school have done a great job in shaping how I perceive the world. Freshman year is when I began learning about the real world.

For many people change is full of stressful and not welcome. Not a lot of people handle change well. It’s difficult to make changes when you are uncertain of what you want to be doing. Life is full of changes that are big and small. Some changes are taken solely by yourself, and others with a group of family or friends. Life is very dynamic and it always will be.

My mom and I were driving home from my club volleyball practice when I broke down in tears due to stress. High school class registration was coming up and I still had no idea whether or not I wanted to do band or volleyball in high school. Being a 14 year old in 8th grade, I never thought that I would have to make such a colossal decision that would affect my life forever. I only had 2 more days to decide how I would present myself in the new world of high school popularity, and I had no idea whether I would choose the life of athletics or musical talents.

When I entered ninth grade, I was someone totally different from the person I am today. The experiences I have gained during these long four years of high school have shaped me into the young adult I am. I have had to learn many lessons about myself and friends. Many failures have had to be taken in stride, and I am glad to say that I overcome and dealt with them all in the name of evolution.

“So, why did you choose to come here?” a dorm proctor asked the very first time we met, right in front of my room in Bancroft Hall, which would be my new home for the next nine months. Confused and a little jet lagged, I did not respond; I nodded, smiled, and stepped back into my room. As the door closed, locking me into my little world of isolation, I thought about the question. I did not know the answer, for I did not “choose” to come to this school. In fact, I expected to attend a school in the UK. However, as a Thai Scholar, I did not have much choice but to go wherever the Thai embassy told me to go. As fate had it, I was placed in one of the most prestigious high schools: Phillips Exeter Academy.

Almost three years of high school had gone by with nothing but straight As. However, my Junior year ended with a B printed firmly on my report card, yet I was proud nonetheless. I had worked my hardest in that class, harder than I had for any other. I stood by my mark, and if my best was a B, I was satisfied with that result. My pride would have been inconceivable to the Alexander of the years prior, though. I’ve been an obsessive perfectionist as far back as I can remember. I remember checking my elementary school math homework again and again, just to make sure that there were no errors at all. It was easy to be perfect when the work I got was easy and limited, but when middle school came and went and high school began, it was a different story. By the beginning of tenth grade, it was not uncommon for me to stay up several nights in a row, toiling in the office downstairs over a product that was already good but not quite flawless. As the minute hand whirled around the clock and the coffee supply dwindled, I became more tired and depressed over a goal I always fell short of. My teachers said that I did great work through, and that’s what mattered. Perfect work meant perfect grades; perfect grades meant a perfect college; a perfect college meant a perfect job, and a perfect job meant a perfect life. Schoolwork was all I thought about. Even the necessary act of eating was always accompanied with a pencil and paper. When winter break arrived and I had no papers to write, no

One of the most successful experiences I have had in my previous years in school was taking nine science credits in four years. This might not sound like much of an accomplishment, but when you consider that the requirement to graduate from most schools is three it takes on a little more weight. The reason I did this was that I want to be a doctor and that drives me to learn as much about science as I can. My top strength from the Gallop test was empathy, this helped me to get nine science credits in that my empathy partly drives my desire to be a doctor. While taking the science classes taught me a lot that will be helpful in my profession, it also taught me how to study and manage my time wisely.

There is a new student who will be coming into my first-grade classroom this Monday and I must say, I am quite nervous as to what it will bring. This student’s name is Jack and he has a background that differentiates him from other six-year-olds that I have encountered in my professional experience. Jack is a family name that has become very well known in every American household in the last year. Yes, Jack is that Jack. The Jack that escaped from being held captive by a man named “Old Nick” that had kidnapped Jack’s mother 7 years before. Jack was born into captivity and all he has ever known in his life was the 11 by 11-foot room that he was born into. While Jack has established some basic skills such as language and reading, thanks to lessons from his mother, Jack will need more help than the average six-year-old in order to succeed in his elementary school experience. I am confident that through providing Jack the extra assistance and accommodations that he needs in the classroom, we can guide him from elementary school into his junior high and high school careers and give him the tools he needs to become a successful member of society.

The past four years spent throughout the halls of my high school were filled with laughter, the undeniable mix of cultures, and the enforced golden rule, treat others how you would want to be treated. Throughout those four years I was granted opportunities to venture off to the city that has my heart, spontaneously volunteer my summer as a youth group leader, and meet the teacher who taught after retirement. And while I never could have predicted that life would turn the way it did, all I store is thanks because these few, however enormous events shaped me as well as my thinking towards the rest of the world.

Like every Saturday morning in the spring, I found myself cramped up in the backseat of a car at an ungodly hour. With swim season ending today with the All-Star meet however, this would be the last time this year that I would have to worry about this specific discomfort, then I could focus on other 5-year-old things like my upcoming birthday. Until then, I’d have to ‘deal with it,’ something nobody my age ever wants to hear. Luckily for me, I fell asleep within a few minutes and didn’t have to endure the rest of the trip to Beaumont High School.

n the second grade, after a fun weekend of watching football, I decided to go to my parents if I could start playing football. They decided to get me to play soccer first and see if I enjoyed that, and being the stubborn little kid that I was. So after a year of soccer, my parents asked if I liked it and I told them no. That fall I signed up for the Little Devils, a little league football team. My football career started out great. I was a starter for my first four years at the Little Devils. Quarterback which was my favorite position to play. In my last year as a starter, my team went undefeated and won the championship with me at quarterback. The next season everyone had grown a lot more than I did. I was very short and the head coach decided to not let me start at quarterback and instead moved our running back at quarterback. The next year was my 8th-grade year I started the first game, but I struggled and eventually lost the job. I also broke my left arm ending my little league career.

High school started for me in August, and it was my freshman year. My arsenal of pens, pencils, and binders were ready to be used. Also, I purchased a burly backpack, chic clothes, and swaggy shoes. The school supplies were supposed to impress the teachers while the aesthetics were supposed to impress the girls. Only one worked out.

My freshman year in high school was rough compared to the normal high school things. On August 12, 2013, I almost lost my best friend; he had smoked for twenty some years when he had a devastating heart attack. I remember the fear and the thoughts of death that made my skin shudder. It was the second week of school on Tuesday when I got a pass at the beginning of my World History class immediately circled three or four times. The pass made me baffled considering I didn’t know about any appointments I had, and I didn’t ask my mom if I could go home early. Leaving the class and entering the empty hall, thinking about what’s going on as my footsteps echoing through the halls. What’s going on? Why would I be leaving this close to the end of school? As I walked past the office to my locker, I saw my mom with red eyes and purple bags under her eyes. At that moment, my stomach flipped and knotted up, because it’s at that moment when I realized something very wrong has happened. My pace quickened to the point of almost running; shoving my French one book and Algebra one in my backpack before sprinting to my mom. She met me by the big glass doors in the lobby of the office; laying a hand on my shoulder, she told me my dad had a major heart attack. I had felt my body instinctively lunged toward the door, but my mom held my shoulder tightly. As we walked to the car, my sister was in the front seat with her hair all messy in a bun and in her pajamas. She looked as though she had been