Personal Narrative Essay: Outreaching In High School

Alfreda was a first generation college student. She had a difficult academic experience being one of only four African American students majoring in animal science. She used her social life to help her cope with the experience. Alfreda mentioned Zinck 's night which is a campus tradition named after a bar keeper in Ithaca that owned a bar that was a haven for college students. Alfreda found no interest in this event, however, she did participate in Slope day because it was an opportunity for her and her friends to celebrate the last day of school. Instead of participating in the university-wide homecoming, she mentions a separate homecoming sponsored by a Black fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha and the Festival of Black Gospel. She states:

When I first started thinking about college schools I never thought about going to MSU or Ole Miss. I wanted to go to the bigger universities, but I knew I wouldn’t do well if I went there my first year. My high school did not prepare me enough for University, and I hadn’t decided on a major either. I choose East Central Community College (ECCC) as the school I would go to for many reasons, and when I got here I knew I made the right choice.

I never thought that the years would go by so quickly and I am senior now. For having three years in Western High, I learned a lot of things especially educationally and academically. I experienced many things in this school. There were a great times and bad times as well. English is my least favorite subject, which I struggles many times. When I looked back those essays in my portfolio, I couldn’t believe that I wrote a bunch of essays during my three years. There were some great essays and terrible essays. I noticed that on my essays I struggled on these three focus areas: organization, weak evidence and grammar/spelling.

My family and I had lived in Oregon for my entire life. We had moved a couple times, but nothing enormous. I was getting to the age where I would have to go to high school soon but my mother did not want me to board, because she did not like it when my brother boarded. So she started looking around for a nice high school with a job opening in the area for her as well as my father, all of this going on without my knowledge of course. One day when I was on my mother's computer I “accidently” found out where my mother was considering we would move to. That was the day I found out we would be moving across the country to Virginia.

English has never been my strong suit. During high school I took many advanced placement classes in all subjects except English. I have always been fascinated by the sciences and those were the classes I really excelled in. I thrived on my ability in those classes and honestly tried to avoid English because I was only average. Now, looking back at my high school writing experience, there was not a whole lot of writing which would make up for that explanation. I took many film as literature classes, reading classes, or a mixture of both reading and writing but never just writing. I think that will have a lot to say about my writing this quarter.

It was October of last year, my first scheduled debate ever. My cool laid back bravado was officially terminated in that moment as my stomach turned. “A kid with nerves of steel was now overwhelmed?”, I asked myself. As I stared at the face of my first debate judge, a great deal of nerves stampeded through my body. There were two debaters to the left of me ready to make their school proud. My body was in complete shock because I had to compete against complete strangers. The judge was also a debate coach from another school. I began to think,“what if the judge shows bias against my team” and “what if the other team has a better speaker than me?”. All of these things took place as I stood in a room about to do what I said I’d never do in my highschool career.

Sorrow, disgrace, and rage are just some of the emotions I felt the first time I performed poorly in school. I asked myself,”Why? Why did I do this to myself?” My failure couldn’t be attributed to lack of knowledge or skill, but rather my extreme case of procrastination. It was my junior year in high school when I took honors English 11; this class was set to prepare me for college which was not an option, but a necessity. I knew what I was getting myself into when I signed up for it. “This class will great experience,” I said. “I need to learn how to prepare a proper essay for college,” I continued. This class seemed like a great idea for me. I remember when I was little my mother always told me, “Jimmy you’re going to college whether you

College Writing 1 is my first college writing class ever, I have high hopes I will learn a lot. I hope during this class I learn how to correctly cite different sources, learn new styles of writing, and fine tune the writing skills I already have. I think the most challenging part of this class will be keeping up with all the different writings we do, from journal entries to a research paper. Another thing that will be a challenge is the amount of words needed for each paper. I will need to practice how to write more in depth to make sure I at least hit the two hundred fifty word mark. The thing I am most excited for with this class is to be able to write again. As a former writer for the Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania newspaper, writing food

Over the summer my family had decided to look at getting a dog. The only problem was finding out the right dog for our home and family. My sisters attempted to convince my dad that a teddy bear was the best option. Lack of research and interest was shown so my dad did not think we were being serious. I had some time off work a few days so I did an online test called Meet Your New Best Friend on the American Kennel Club website. The test asked questions about how many people were in you’re home and how big your house was. The answers gave results to what dog best fit your answers. It gave 5 best solutions and then about 20 other breeds that would work as well. After doing the test multiple times I came across the shiba inu breed. I was on

I woke up to the sound of my Alarm going off. I looked at my phone and got a text saying there wasn't school today because It had snowed. I went back to bed and woke up at nine O' clock and remembered I had to get papers for school. I got up with a headache so I made some coffee while my kids were still asleep. I just left them home. While I was riding an enormous deer run out in front of me. I smashed into the deer and my car was flipping over and over until I finally stopped and my car was awful and it wouldn't run anymore. I was about one mile away from the school so I walked the rest of the way after I got my papers from the school. I got a ride home after I got there I walked in and called my kids because I was going to make them food

My first year working as a 5th grade tutor through the Student Outreach & Academic Reinforcement Program in Morristown, NJ was an unforgettable experience. To match each student with a tutor, we played a series of bonding games before the first week of the program. During the first week of tutoring, I was paired with two students. As the weeks passed by, I soon found myself tutoring 3-4 students because they each wanted me as their tutor. My main goal was to not only aid my students in completing their homework but I challenged them intellectually. With every opportunity, I engaged my students in areas they’ve shown weakness. While aiding one student in reading, two students were working on math problems while another student was working on spelling. Another major goal was for me to assist them in passing the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (NJASK) test. The NJASK is a standardized test given to every student of New Jersey from grade 3 to 8 that are attending public schools. The week before my students took their test, I told them to stay calm and to not overthink while they are taking the test because they’ve prepared for it for months. After receiving

Opening, option, lucky chance, possibility, regardless of the synonym used, opportunity is often overlooked. Who can lay blame? Life is busy. Adults have work, homes, children, volunteer activities to distract them. Students have school, practice, jobs. Daily obligations keep us from seeing opportunities or at least that is a convenient excuse. Don’t take chances, don’t call attention to yourself, keep your head down, the expected road is the safe road and consequently each day will securely turn into the next. That was my existence, one of the crowd, one of the many. Then I sorted socks.

It began when I was about three years old. My step sister (Rylee) and I were board, my mom was making dinner, it smelled delicious. We were trying to figure out what to do when suddenly an idea popped into Rylee head and all of a sudden,

I cannot believe that this week has ended already and that there are only two weeks left of this summer program. I had a very exciting week and I cannot wait to talk about it. I got to help out a two organizations as well as explore outside of the campus.

Final straw for me was my own  personal hands on experience. I was a junior in high school, a sixteen year old girl. Into the hair and makeup just to go to school. It was the end of the week and I had planned out what I was going to wear to school on Friday. Funny now to look back at it, because who was I trying to impress. Well, Thursday night I had all my stuff set up and planed on getting up early to curl my hair. Told my sister I was getting up early and I would be quite so she could sleep in. By the time morning came, way to soon for me, I just wanted to sleep. Forget all about the hair I could just put it into a braid and get some sleep. Shutting of the alarm I rolled back over to sleep another half hour or so. Before I could get back to sleep I was shaken vigorously. Thinking my sister was trying to be helpful and get me up so I could do my hair, I said OK I am getting up already. Took the morning trip to the bathroom and still didn't plan on curling my hair. Back to bed for me. Returning to my room I stood in the doorway looking at my bed. Sitting on the bed in a red and white shirt with blue eye's was a boy I have never seen before. But, he wasn't really there was he. How could he be when I only just got up and no boy's wherein the house. It dawned on me that my sister is still asleep, so how could she have woke me. This must be who woke me by shaking me. I looked at him for what seemed like a long time but was merely seconds. I closed my eye's and said out loud,