My Life's Up And Downs And The Decisions

However, junior year of high school changed that: I was given the opportunity to take either AP Psychology, or AP European History. I felt that the obvious choice would be to take AP European History, since I’m European and therefore already had a solid foundation for succeeding in the class, but something inside me told me to take a blind leap of faith and choose AP Psychology instead. This choice proved to be one of the greatest decisions I have made in my life. Through this class, I emerged myself into the world of psychology and fell in love with it. I didn’t complete the assignments to get a good grade. I completed them because I cherished every minute of it, and I started applying the materials learned in class to real life

Over the summer break, my mom had accidentally thrown out my summer homework that I had labored for days over. Despite the fact that I was fuming with anger, I asked myself, “If I don’t redo the packet by tonight, will I be satisfied?” My answer was no. I stayed up until two in the morning redoing the packet, but it was worth it. No matter how miserable I was that night, it was exponentially better than the feeling of anxiety that would loom over my head during my last few days of summer vacation. Knowing myself, I would have constantly thought about it as the impending due date neared if it wasn’t finished yet.

In December 2011 Suleyman Avci conducted a study on 508 first grade students to learn the relationship between self-regulation and the delay of gratification in doing well in academics. Most people are aware the more time they put into something the better the results will turn out and the bigger the reward will be. This theory applies to almost anything including academics. The more one studies the better they will do on a test however, not all students understand this, which explains why some students are more stressed than others. In order to perform well in school students need to set goals for the future and not get distracted by things in the present, like watching television or playing video games, instead of studying for a test. I am completely aware of this; nevertheless, it is still hard to do because my “hot system” wants the instant gratification of doing something fun rather than homework. Future success is hindered by the need for instant gratification. Students who achieve higher levels of academic success are those who realize academic rewards are more important than temporary satisfaction. Those

What would you rather do, your homework or play your favorite sport? Some people may have to play sports as soon as they get home. People without homework have more freetime. While people with homework have to do a bunch of work.We should not have homework; homework is not beneficial to students’ mental health. Homework is mainly just busy work, and homework has a negative effect on home life.

At a young age, we as a collective society have experienced the first-hand the struggles of attempting to be successful. We are told that excellence inevitably leads to success. We are told as children that one must go to college in order to be successful. As a result, children aspire to go to college only because we are told it is essential to be successful in life. The path to be a success is a stressful one and requires a great deal of work. There is too much homework, too many tests, and too much needless pressure is put upon the shoulders of young children by their parents. In her essay “Is the Drive for Success Making Our Children Sick?” Vicki Abeles argues and exposes the harmful effects of the drive for success. Abeles incorporates other ways to improve a child’s drive for success with consideration to the children’s health. One of her strategies for a healthier drive that would be beneficial and adopted by both college educators and fellow students is a limit on homework and weekend and holiday homework ban. Although a drive to be successful is essential for achieving excellence, limiting homework would be beneficial because it is less overwhelming for students, provokes less stress and

As I continue prioritizing, the activities I participate in which include serving the community as an altar server for my Catholic Church, to my class work, my school and club sports and other extracurricular activities takes a tremendous amount of hard work. Juggling all these activities has not been easy, however; setting my priorities straight played a major role of reaching the short and long term goals I had for myself. I know that I have to perform in the class room first before I can play softball and attend a University. Since I can remember, I have worked hard to learn and keep up with my grades by receiving all A’s and having perfect attendance daily. I have not missed a day of school in my whole career, from kindergarten to today, my senior year.

Throughout my time at Chelan High School, I faced many challenges when it came to my homework and it took me nearly my whole high school career to realize how to fix it. The problem was how unmotivated and lazy I was when it came to have to complete my homework. Looking back at it now it seems that the solution was so simple, and it is frustrating that it took me so long to be able to self-motivate myself. It turns out that this responsibility was a habit of mind. This habit of mine helped me very effectively and completely changed how I went about doing all my school work and studying.

After my early 9:00 a.m. Philosophy recitation I headed towards the elevators to head back down to the first floor. I slowly drug my sleep-deprived body to the 10A bus that took me to my dormitory hall up the hill. Once I finally arrived at my room, I sat down at my desk to start on my schoolwork that would surely take hours to complete. Looking into my pages of notes, I started to question myself on why I am doing all of this repetitive, seemingly unnecessary work. My homework consisted of Calculus problems that required me to find the derivative of extremely long functions, and I realized I am not benefiting anything from completing these tedious equations. Some of the answers to the problems required a whole page to write the answer

As I began my junior year, I found myself juggling a rigorous academic schedule, varsity tennis, a social life and a new job. At first, I figured I could balance all of these activities. However, I became humbled by a 32% on an early Physics test triggering sheer panic regarding future applications to college. Knowing my grades needed to trend up as a junior, I dug down and did everything possible to improve my grades. I committed myself to a nightly study regimen consisting of intermittent on-off study blocks. Diligent removal of all distractions, including my I-Phone while studying was a major key. Also, I reduced my hours at work and often went to school early to meet with my teachers to review material. This action plan ultimately led to the improvement of my grades in all classes, culminating with a “B” in Physics and meeting my overall goal of a 4.0 GPA. Yes, I had failed a single test, but the real failure was not prioritizing and planning my activities proactively. The lesson I learned from this

The author of the article “My insane Homework Load Taught Me How To Game The System”, Elif Koc, wanted to explain how her homework load caused her and her friends to find a way to complete their schoolwork with minimized efforts. On a daily basis, she was overwhelmed with the amount of work her teachers dumped on her. She was forced to increase her efficiency, by less than ethical means, in order to survive high school. Her attitude was very realistic, albeit unforgiving. She knows that her teachers would have been upset with her, and would have been upset with their students if they were caught doing what the rest of their grade is guaranteed to be participating in. Although she does not show any remorse for her actions and argues that it is the fault of the education system, as its expectations are misguided. She would do enough work of her homework that her teacher would think she had done the assignment. Koc learned how to be a good student, not a good learner.

Learning and studying for many months, with so days doing homework from three to eleven had made my life adapted to being busy. Now that I had more free time, I do not want to do nothing because to me that it would be a waste of time. I want to go to sleep every day knowing that I did something that day and I did not waste my time. I also felt I could become more efficient in learning because there are still many students who are smarter than me and are somehow able to pick up new material really fast. This had driven me to challenge myself more, striving to become a better

I wish to tell next year’s freshman if you play sports you need to keep up with your homework. As I experienced this year during the first quarter when I played on the Northview golf team I had practices or matches every day after school. Occasionally, when I came home, I was tired and didn’t want to do my work. One night we had a match and I didn’t get home until 8:30 at night. I had 4 assignments and a test to study for the following day, I felt tired and I didn’t want to do my homework. I knew if I didn’t complete my assignments they would be late and I wouldn’t get full credit.

As a student at USC, one can assume that I’ve always taken schoolwork seriously and may even infer that I partake a considerable degree of enjoyment from it, which is by all means an accurate assumption. However, in my early childhood I was often characterized as unruly, uncooperative and impulsive in nature. At that age I had been more interested in social endeavors more so than anything relating to studying or doing schoolwork. It was always a negative issue when I brought it up in a conversation, and that assumption was reinforced through subsequent agreement amongst my peers. Coupled with negative criticism from my teachers of the purported “attitude” I had in

We all start high school with certain expectations for ourselves. Mine? Simple-do not procrastinate. But somehow I still found myself awake at 4 A.M. trying to cram in a chapter's worth of biology notes while simultaneously writing a paper on Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven.” Fast forward to junior year, both my parents’ expectations and my procrastination levels are still extremely high. “Why can’t they just understand that I’m not the same, straight-A student I was in middle school? High school is so much harder.” I thought to myself as I sat and stared at a blank screen. Here I was, doing anything but my assignment. I didn’t even know why I couldn’t finish anything. It’s not that I didn't have motivation, I wanted to do well in school, I just

To begin, Alfie Kohn’s take on how students let grades control their lives shows that teens throughout their high school years focus on getting high grades, and only that. The biggest part of which students are missing is the enjoyment of learning. Learning should be fun, interesting, and engaging. Instead it consumes