My High School Experience

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.

My high school experience has been filled with many challenges and amazing moments that have helped mold my character today. From failing my first essay and getting straight A’s, I have learned that anything is possible with a growth mindset. High school has taught me the importance of an hard work ethic and to push yourself in both sports/academics. My high school years have been filled with many fun activities from meeting new people and participating in sports that require teamwork. These experiences have helped me be able to work with others towards a common goal and to motivate not only myself but my team mates as well when things aren't going as planned. High school has been an amazing chapter of my life with accomplishments in my rigorous AP courses as well as in lacrosse that have greatly impacted the person I am today: diligent, affable, humble, responsible, and respectful.

Many people think that I’ve got everything going for me. I’m captain of my school’s varsity cheerleading squad, I’m an honors student, I’ve got a talent that works for me, and I’ve got a bright future ahead of me. Few people understand that getting to where I am hasn’t been easy.

It was freshman year in high school, and I was ecstatic about the fact that I can officially refer to myself as a high school student. However, not everything was perfect, nor filled with sunshine and rainbows. It was just two weeks into the school year when I faced my first arduous obstacle.

High school has been a highly interesting experience for me. I have learned a lot about my personal qualities, such as my strengths and weaknesses, and my work habits and attitudes. High school has taught me many things, both academically and emotionally. It has definitely had its highs and lows and many confusing experiences in between. Overall, I feel like I have been equipped for not only college, but also life as a whole. My time at WACTC my education contributed to my personal growth, enhanced my sense of community and advance my knowledge basis to prepare for the work force and life outside of school.

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.

High school can be a difficult journey in one’s life. Teenagers create drama, teachers stress out students with an abundance of homework, and sometimes procrastination defeats the high schooler's will to get work done. Despite all of that, high school is great; one must look at the little moments, the fun times, and the friends throughout. Arnold Spirit, Jr. had an atypical freshman year in Sherman Alexie’s novel “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” and taught many lessons throughout the story. Arnold’s high school experience and my high school experience are different in the fact that he used his drawings for his words, and I used photography and music for mine; but our experiences are similar in the sense that we both began

Right now I am a freshman taking both honors Biology and English. I have actually never thought about not taking honors classes before I was even in high school. I guess it has always been assumed that I would be taking honors classes and harder classes. It’s something that my parents have talked to me and my sibling about when we were little so that it could be a goal for us. The high school is different, but in a good way. We have longer passing periods, longer classes (so you can finish more work) and more opportunities such as clubs, more sports, and different classes.

At Holland Patent High School, I am a 17 year old girl, who has understood how foolish I used to be, how impactful high school truly was for me and my personal growth, and how much I’ve really changed. I have a new outlook on life, I am more confident, and I am overall so much happier. This identity I have of myself is a combination of every single person I used to be over the years at the middle school and high school. Today, I can walk the halls of Holland Patent understanding that the high school has become like a second home to me. I changed the way I would look at school and began to enjoy it so much more. I got closer to people around me, staff or friends, and I started to enjoy learning and the high school environment again.

In the late months of the two-thousand and fourteen first semester, I had begun my dangerous excursion into a precarious realm of stress and irritation to a juvenile network of literacy and instruction. I was beginning my first year of high school, which was still a new territory for me. I had previously attended at Howe middle school, but I was not prepared for high school. At my high school, the building is different than any other building on the campus. The high school building is on one continuous slab of the concrete foundation, but there is a gap in between the two halves of the building. In this gap, there is a connecting concrete flooring that is level with the two previous halves’ floors. The Howe students, faculty and I called this structure the “breezeway.” During a hot school day, the wind tunneled through the breezeway and brush across me like an ocean of cool air. Of all the memories in the breezeway at my high school, I can remember one moment where I saw something that changed my outlook on what I wanted to become.

The day I left home for the first time to start Junior High was a bright day, brimming with hope and optimism. I’d always done well at school, so expectations for me were high, and I had gleefully set foot into a new chapter of student life, relationships and experiences. Now appearances, of course, can be deceptive, and to an extent, this spirited and energetic persona of mine had only been a veneer, although a very convincing one. The truth is underneath of it all, I was deeply unhappy, insecure and fundamentally frightened-- frightened of other people, of the future, of failure, and of the emptiness that I felt was within me. Despite all of this, I was very skilled at hiding it, and from the outside I appeared to be someone with everything to hope for and aspire to. This fantasy of invulnerability was so complete that I had even deceived myself, and by the end of the first year, no one could’ve predicted what was about to happen.

My first semester of college was preceded by doubts and anxiety, filled with opportunities and experiences, and followed by anticipation. This semester has been a amazing initial introduction into college life, I met some great people, got a job I like, attended a leadership retreat, got a internship, learned a lot, won tons of free stuff, gained independence, and maintained a high GPA. However, the best experience of this semester was finally accepting and enjoying the decision I made to attend UT Dallas. I remember during the Global Leadership Retreat we all decided to go down to the lake, and we sat on the pier in silence just being present and enjoying the opportunity. Lake Travis is a staple of my hometown of Austin, and I have never gotten to chance to sit back and enjoy it. This juxtaposition affirming that perhaps, for the time, this is where I am supposed to be. It was not just this one event in particular but rather a culminating sigh of relief when realizing that I made the right decision, I deserve to be here, and I a strong student.

At first I thought high school was going to be a breeze, but was not a breeze at all. The classes seem very hard for me. I tried my very best even though I thought it was hard. I gave my freshman classes my all but still getting ok grades I wanted an A on my class work but I was not getting those grades. I felt like a big failure. So I started not to care I gave up really gave up. I started not doing my work and stop participating in class. I was skipping class not giving a care in the world. I kept getting into trouble. Always in the dens office and that was just my freshman year. My report card was really unacceptable I would cry when I see my grades but I know It’s because I would skip class and not do my work. Summer was coming up school is getting to an end and I got my report cards again and I see my GPA was so horrible and my guidance consul Mr. Martin called me down to his office to talk to me about my grades and that I’m starting freshman year all over again . He was telling me to get on track, it’s not the end of the world that I can still do it if I focused on my work. So I told my guidance consul Mr. Martin I would do my best.