My High School Student

During my time at Union County College I have been faced with a lot of difficulties. I’ve struggled along the way but one thing I do believe is that I have the power to do better. My GPA has been affected by my personal mistakes. In my past semesters I have let my job take over my life rather than let school be most important. I have also let my personal family problems affect my work ethic. But through my fall 2014, it was most difficult because of March 2014 I lost my father through an unexpected heart attack. Throughout my fall semester I did struggle and cope with my father not being here anymore. I believed that I wasn’t focused enough because I used fall semester as a time to occupy myself rather that time out to deal with my father’s

My transition into high school was as easy as taking a breath. I had always found school quiet easy and I never had to put much effort into getting promising grades. Before high school I had my whole life figured out, or at least I thought I did. I had planned that I would attend a law school or major in English. After a while of being in high school I started to realize many things. My parents did not have the financial stability to send me to a law school, I was not as smart as all the other kids, little by little I began struggling with a negative mentality about myself and my future. I slowly let go of my dream of becoming a lawyer and decided to join the Health Careers Academy. Soon enough, I began to have a deep interest in the medical field but then again I continued to have the same question; how can I afford going to a medical school? I did not know much about college or what it took to get into college. I assumed I just had to have a pretty transcript and that was all it took. My self confidence began to lower as I saw how other students cruised through their high school years so effortlessly. I never wanted to ask for help because I did not want to seem “dumb”. I would bite my tongue and hold in all the unanswered questions I had. My junior year, I was having a very difficult time. I had a tight schedule which consisted of almost all AP or honors courses. I slowly began to give up because I did not believe that I could do it. I let my grades slip failing almost

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.

Growing up, I’d always been expected to do well in school. Which isn’t out of the ordinary, every parent wants their child to be successful and have a beneficial career. So, since good grades were what my parents expected that’s what I got. All throughout elementary, I strived to do my absolute best in every subject. At my sixth grade graduation I was awarded the Presidential Award for Academic Achievement, in my junior high years I did well as well. My eighth-grade year I achieved my goal of obtaining a 4.0 G.p.a. The first year of high school was nerve-racking but I still managed to keep my grades up. However, Sophomore year was definitely a bump in the road for me. In all my ten years of being in school (including head start and kindergarten)

In the Fall quarter of 2014 at pierce I was still being introduced to this style of learning and the school setting of Pierce College which was a pretty big turnaround for me seeing as my only previous schooling had been public high school. Along with my unfamiliarness with my academic surroundings I was also beginning my first job and had weekly meetings with a counselor.Needless to say, i put too much on my own plate and wasn't able to keep up with it as much as i had hoped to. I had been visiting a counselor to get help on some issues i had been facing with an Anxiety disorder along with issues in my home life ,which had been keeping me from focusing on many tasks. The anxiety was a major issue for me during fall and winter quarter but has since then improved and taken a back seat and is much less of an issue now. I know that none of these are an excuse for my poor grades but it was a heavy influence on how i handled

I admit, I had a very challenging time last semester, and as a result my grades suffered. I don’t mean to make excuses for my poor performance in school but I would like to explain my circumstance. During my second semester of college I treated my classes like I did in high school thinking I could coast by and pass my classes, but when I noticed how poorly I was doing in class everything was already headed downhill. I started the second

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,

In 7th grade I was unfocused, unprepared, and childish. I didn’t know my grades would have an impact on my high school career. I thought everything that happened in middle school stayed in middle school so I focused on useless drama. I used to blame my C’s on bad teaching but now I realize I have no one else to blame but myself. I was the one coming to school unprepared to work not my teachers. Now I know all of my grades count. I have blossomed into a person I am proud of. This year I’ve made it my mission to actually pass not just get by. I now sit promptly in the front of the class and take notes. I focus on test scores and grades not drama that’s not even going to matter next week. I now know what’s important and what I should just leave

My Freshman year of college, I was a mechanical engineering student at the George Washington University. It was there that I learned how difficult school could really be. My past schooling experience had not prepared me for this extremely rigorous program. As one of my requirements for the program was a social science, I had registered for a history course my first semester. Unknowingly, I had registered for a third-year history class, clearly not the correct class for a freshman engineering student. I went on to struggle with the amount of work that was assigned for the course including an 18 page research paper. This course, on top of the difficult engineering curricula was extremely challenging. At this point, I also realized that although

During my sophomore year, I had gotten into the wrong crowd. I started hanging out with a group of people that I thought I could rely on and trust but in the end they just brought me down. I started struggling in my classes, which caused my grades to fall. School wasn’t a concern for me and my parents were watching me go downhill. They would ask me what was happening when I would bring home my grade card or look at progress book, because I normally told them that I was doing great. My mother mostly had realized that my friends were not who I should be hanging around because they was not taking me down a good path. On September 12, 2013 was my Sophomore homecoming. My friends and I ended up going out for dinner and then we all headed to the dance. The dance wasn’t very exciting so we all thought that we would just head to Abby’s house. We ended up leaving Abby’s house and staying out all night in town, getting ourselves into things we shouldn’t have. Toward the end of my Sophomore year I started to fade away from that group and focused more on my schooling. I ended up getting my grades up too at least C’s. The following years I had to really push myself to get my GPA back to where I wanted it. Graduating high school I had a 2.9 GPA and at the end of my first semester of college, I had a 3.6. This just shows that hard work pays off and if you push yourself hard enough you can accomplish anything. This semester I plan on raising my GPA to at least a 3.7. If I didn’t have the support I did and still have today, I would have never been where I am right now. I am so thankful to have my parents and even my grandparents in my life. Starting my junior year, going into softball, from the first game to the last, my support system was at every game. This really impacted my life knowing that my grandparents would drive anywhere just to watch a game of ball for an hour or two. It’s not just sports it’s anything that I have that

At last, I worked my way to take my final required math class which was college algebra. I felt a great sense of accomplishment to have succeeded after failing several times. My persistence and determination helped me proceed but the college algebra was extremely difficult. I barely understood the intermediate algebra course that I previously worked hard in to get a passing grade, so I was ultimately afraid of what would be ahead. I received all failing grades on my tests and I felt discouraged to continue. Due to my failure, I dropped the class because I knew that it would of been a better choice rather receiving an F on my transcript. Then I challenged myself and I took the same college algebra course with another professor and it was an intermediate class that lasted 4 hours. I practiced my course material as much as possible outside of the hectic schedule that I had to work around. Eventually, I once again barely passed with a C. I realized that I was not successful because I was not genuinely interested In math and I didn't understand it well. I tried my best to practice as much homework as I could, I stayed up hours and repeated several math problems in hopes of understanding

I failed my freshman year of high school. Continuously through middle school, I did terrible in my academic classes. Shiftless, I skimmed by with Ds and Cs and an A for art thrown in there. But still I was shoved forwards, my middle school gladly letting me exacerbate my bad habits into a trench, seemingly impossible to climb out of. Until I reached a school that wasn’t afraid to tell me to try again.

Going into the classes, I thought I could do what I had done in my previous high school classes, but little did I know at the time, that that would not work and I eventually had to re-position myself in the midst of this trial. Being that I was not as focused from the start of one of my classes, my grade slipped, and I was unable to bring it back up by the end of the first semester. I was devastated and I attempted to put all the blame on my professor, but in reality, I was to blame. I did not properly take responsibility for my role in the problem, because I tried to convince myself that I put forth my best effort, when I truly didn’t. The feeling of defeat took me over, as in I knew the possibility of me leaving the early college program were high. Fortunately, the principal granted me and others the opportunity to prove ourselves and get better grades the following semester. I was grateful for the challenge, but was stressed from the pressure I felt from family and administrative officials at the time. Instead of

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 can remember missing 8:05 classes because I stayed out too late the night before. In high school the teacher would constantly remind the students when certain assignments were due, but this was not the case in college. I learned that the hard way my first semester. Sometimes I forgot to turn in an assignment because I didn’t properly read my syllabus and my professor never mentioned it. These were all new problems that could have easily let escalate without taking the proper actions. For the most part I was doing fairly well but a few of my grades began to plummet. I was losing the confidence in myself and started to wonder if going to college had been the best decision. The time had come for me to grow up and become an adult even I didn’t feel the time was right. I immediately began attending tutoring sessions, working with peers and also keeping a daily to-do list. These factors were the eventually led to drastic improvement and success. After my first semester I learned how better manage my time, take advantage of campus resources and also how to organize myself better. These struggles also taught me that sometimes I try and rush through things instead of taking my time. I realized that one of my strong points is being able to really do well when my back is against the wall. Although I was unhappy while facing obstacles I am happy I experienced them. I believe this experience was the reason for my