My Senior Year Of High School

My eighth grade year of Middle school. I had many challenges, with making friends and subjects. But one challenge was mathematics.I knew my eighth grade year was most important when it came transferring into my high school years, yet I didn’t do anything to raise my grade in mathematics at that time. It wasn’t until two I had a very low grade in mathematics on my report card at that I realized I needed to do something about my low grade. So after that report in math, I really was determined to really bring that F up to at least a B or A. So I remember I started to go to after school tutoring to get help with my math subject. They placed me with a teacher named Ms.Alice. And she really helped me with my subject.

When junior year ended last summer, I felt like I knew exactly what was coming my way-- after all, I watched three different groups of my friends go through senior years of their own. It was finally my turn to experience senior year, something it seemed I had known about for years, and I felt like senior year would be easygoing and uneventful. Now, it has taken just a few short months to realize how incorrect I was. If senior year has taught me anything, it is that one never really knows what comes next for them, even if they have a good idea. The monumental highs, as well as the deepest of lows, have kept me on my toes throughout my senior year.

Freshman year, I imagined that year to be amazing. I wanted it to just have an awesome flow but did it? It did in the beginning then a bomb went off during the middle of the year and turned freshman year into a complete disaster. Freshman year was supposed to be about having a great start to the rest of your high school life before you enter the big bad world but other students just couldn't help themselves but to create that bomb during the middle of my freshman year.

My memories are blurry. They are fragments of disjointed moments, without a linear narrative. I remember reading. It was in Mrs. Davidson first grade class. My reading proficiency skills were very poor, the English language still thick and unnatural on my tongue. While some of the other students took a Gifted class, I had to take a remedial course—English Learners (EL)— just so that I could hold onto the edge. I remember reading. I had a hard copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar in my little hands, reciting only the first page of the book from memory. The classroom was dark; the stream of sunlight filtering through the windows served as our only illumination. The rest of the words on the book looked like a mess of jumbled letters. I couldn’t make out anything other than the words “the” and “and.” I remember enthusiastically pointing out my “fluency” to my teacher, seemingly applauding my menial abilities: “The catpater at droo!” (The caterpillar ate through). In the first-grade, my free time was spread sporadically between watching The Little Mermaid, catching ugly black crickets and pretending that I was Sailor Moon, guardian of the galaxy. In the first grade, I was not at all concerned with words, literacy and books. In the first grade, I did not know the power that words hold. I did not know that books would change my life.

Towards the end of my senior year of high school, I was preparing for the next chapter of my life. I would be attending UC Davis in the summer for a four weeklong orientation program, specifically for first generation college students. This was the first time I would be leaving home by myself to a different country and it was the first time in over eight years that I would be exposed to the American culture. I did not have any roots in any American city nor did I have a so-called “home state.” However, if there was one thing for sure, it was that Germany was my home and it has been for the majority of my life. In this paper, I will be discussing how the following topics in sociology: culture, socialization, and identity are related to my move from Germany to California as well as how I felt during the entire situation.

Your freshman year will be exciting, but it can also be intimidating. It is the start of four long years of high school, some of the most important years of your life. There are a lot of important things to do your freshman year, many of which I didn't start until much later. So here is some advice that will help you survive your freshman year, and prepare you for the rest of high school.

I began my higher education at Antelope Valley Community College in pursuit of these skills, and graduated cum laude in May 2012 with my Associates in Liberal Arts and Sciences. Shortly after, I was admitted to California State University, Fullerton for my Bachelor’s in Psychology, where I also joined the University’s Delta Epsilon Iota Academic Honor Society. It was here that I also discovered how useful philosophy is in understanding human behavior, and added the subject as a minor to aid me in my studies. My belief is that while psychology generally explains why a person reasons in their particular manner, philosophy explains the different ways that said person could reason. I believe that this will be useful in treating clients, since the philosophy aspect will help me understand the perceived logic that the client holds, which in turn will support the overall treatment.

My senior year of high school was really lonely. I had gotten into a drama filled fight with my closest friends at the end of junior year, so my senior year I was voted off the friendship island and outcasted. Sure, I probably could have attempted to fix things, but I was stubborn and insisted on isolation rather than forgiveness. It was a really hard year for me emotionally between losing some great friends and the idea of college in the back of my mind. Who was I going to be? Where was I going to go? Would I ever make anymore friends? It seemed many of my classmates were busy making memories with their friends as our high school days were dwindling down, memories they would remember forever and there I sat hidden in the background, admiring from afar. It broke my heart, and to be honest with you... it just really sucked. I tried my best to make the most of it. I spent a lot of time that year with my nose in a book. It was my own unique way of making memories that year with no one else except myself and some truly memorable characters.

Sophomore year, I was thinking about surviving the next two years of high school. I realized I wouldn't graduate, not with the grades I was getting. My grades were at a 65 and I was going downhill. Panicking, I realized it was imperative that I go to a technical program.

Freshman year is quite a change from the way you live in high school. One of the largest changes of which was fiscal responsibility and expenses of being a student. There were 3 main expenses that I incurred throughout my freshman year that I likely should have put more thought into budgeting. The first expense was food, I'm 6'4" so I eat a lot of food and never realized how expensive it is to buy groceries myself. Some freshman do a campus meal plan for their food expenses, which can be quite costly (upwards of $1000 a semester), and some people decide to cook in their dorms. Another major expense is textbooks or course materials, some of these books can have a price tag of more than $200 a piece. Many students, including myself, chose to

Sophomore year in high school had greater demand on my time and made me realize about my future more than my freshman year. Time management has been a theme I was constantly reminded with academic and extracurricular activities. Furthermore, the realization of entering college and pursuing a career is closer than before. These two factors have transformed my outlook of my junior year.

My feelings toward certain grades differ depending on my teachers, courses, and other internal and external factors. I think my favorite grade so far has been freshman year, even though my mood wasn’t always so great. I had great teachers and fun classes. The year was overall pretty good, especially compared to the year before that. My eighth grade year has been my least favorite grade. I had pretty okay teachers, good friends, and I wasn’t getting bullied, so it might seem confusing as to why I disliked it so much. Starting in sixth or seventh grade, my motivation severely declined and my head was always filled with negative thoughts. My bad habits only grew worse and snowballed my last year of middle school. Everything was so overwhelming

The people, our surroundings, and our memories are what make the years of high school go by at the blink of an eye. Freshmen year, scared of all teachers, classes, and new people. Sophomore year is a breeze because you finally understand the bell schedules, and you’re aware of the teacher’s expectations. Junior year, the stress hits you all at once. You’ve got the ACT, EOCs, and many other tests that are a major part of your future education.

The time came when I was sitting in my guidance counselors office my sophomore year of high school. The pressure was on, I had to decide what classes to take to help me not only prepare for the ACT but that would impact my future. With the support of teachers and counselors I was able to choose and pick out difficult and challenging classes that would help me excel in the future. The list grew long, I signed up not only for my junior year classes but I also planned out my senior year schedule as well. My counselor took the time to explain to me the honors classes that were weighted, helping my GPA, and were dual credit as well. I signed up for several of the dual credit courses and weighted such as Composition 2, American Lit 1, AP U.S. History,

When people think of graduating, they’ll usually think of high school or college, the “important” graduation ceremonies that are usually called milestones in people’s lives. But a middle school graduation, no matter how small it may seem, is the one that marks a major turning point in anyone’s growing up story. Middle school are the three years of your life in which you change the most. Going into sixth grade, most kids are young, excited, naïve students, as we see in the sixth graders our school has today. But right now, as we graduate middle school and prepare for what comes next, we’re all completely different people than when we came in, and, therefore, better (hopefully). Throughout these three years, we’ve become real people with proper