Personal Narrative: Lessons Learned In High School

I guess my school experience has been one of many trials and tribulations, more of a story of redemption. My intent is to shed a beacon of light onto what I deem to be the beginning chapters of my educational journey.

Due to my financial situation, I had no other choice but to stop attending UIC for the time being. During my Sophomore year, my financial aid was revoked at UIC due to SAP. Managing my time was also a big issue for me at the time; working 30+ hrs a week, having a huge workload from school and barely sleeping, it took a huge toll on my mental and physical state. Freshman year, I selected 5 classes totaling, 16 credit hours, and that was the toughest transition coming from high school to college. The transition was hard and I wasn’t able to adapt quickly, I found myself lost and very unsociable during my years of UIC. I did not make any classmates, friends until my sophomore year of college. All these factors made it tough for me to do exceptional

By time I was in middle school, I thought the world was simple. I went to school, did my homework, and never got in trouble. My parents went to work everyday and I had no concept of money or how the world worked. As I continued going to school, I started to realize that middle school was an unsafe learning environment. I felt out of place with the disrespectful students who were in my classes. I was physically bullied by classmate, from getting tackled to the ground to begin punched in the back for no reason. I never took it as bullying, I thought the student were only playing around. My thoughts on the bullying changed when student and teachers started calling me ethnic slurs. Nonetheless, I thought I was the smartest kid in my class because other students didn’t care about their education. Some students would sleep in class, others would disrupt class and argue with the teacher. Once I came time to take a test, the students with bad behavior would not know

When I was 10, I first heard from a teacher about college and the need to do well in school. My fifth grade teacher briefly mentioned the idea, one that I was to become very familiar with over time, whilst annoyed at a group of boys who were acting out in the class. I constantly heard from middle school teachers about how they were “preparing me for high school” and how those teachers “were going to be a lot harder on [us].” I was told that my grades, even in middle school, would be vital to gaining entrance to any college. In early high school I was introduced to the idea of needing top grades and extracurricular activities to make one well rounded. Thus, my work ethic was established from a young age. At 10, I had no idea what I wanted to

In high school I always believed that I was capable of achieving more in life. Although I initially felt that I had a strong work ethic, the college admissions process soon showed me that I had a lot of growing and maturing to do in order to be successful. Thus, under the Blinn Team program I was able to realize my true academic potential, and began to work towards gaining full admissions with a degree in Nutrition,

In Second Grade, I moved from Framingham to Weston and started going to Woodland School. I was a really shy and quiet kid in general, and it didn’t help that I was a new kid, too. For our ELA (English Language Arts) “class”, we sat in a circle and took turns reading passages from a book. I wasn’t a bad reader, but I was scared of having to read in front of everyone. In fact, I was so scared that whenever it was time for ELA, I would hide behind someone else so my teacher, Ms. Garcia wouldn’t call on me. When I was eventually called on (despite my best efforts), I gathered up all my courage and read the passage. I ended up reading it perfectly fine, and the experience helped me break out of my shell. After that, I stopped trying to avoid reading

A new responsibility can be very terrifying. A new and terrifying responsibility that I had to experience in the past year—September 9, 2016, to be exact, I was walking to my mom's work after school. My mom said she could come pick me up at school, but I knew that would be an inconvenience to her. I also thought this would help me not to be so scared about staying home by myself, or having to go anywhere by myself. What I didn't realize was this was going to be one of the hardest things I've ever done.

Throughout my high school experience I have developed an interest in how government functions operate and observing it occur in the real world. In 10th grade, I enrolled in AP United States History where I not only learned the roots of democracy, but also how the United States government adapted to issues which arose such as the great depression. My teacher, Mr. Estela, connected many current events to prior similar situations in the history of the U.S.A. and most recently during the 2016 election season I began making those connections on my own.

During high school, I feel that I’ve grown a lot as a person. Even though I still have a significant amount of growth left to do in college, my family, religion, community, and the various experiences I’ve had in high school have allowed me to mature and become a more enlightened person.

I am a student who has taken classes at many of the Peralta colleges; Berkeley City College, Merritt and Laney. My highest aspiration is to major in Economics and Business and I am currently looking to transfer to a 4 year university. Someday, I would like to have my own business.

It was the first day of kindergarten and I remember walking into the classroom feeling like an alien who had disembarked from a spaceship. My mom introduced me in her broken English to the teacher. “Hi everyone, this is Anna Ramashkevich,” the teacher exclaimed. The class erupted into laughter. “Richmanivich, Ramach…” she stuttered, trying to correct herself before accepting defeat and sending me utterly humiliated with my alien-green head and antennas to the ground into a crowd of mocking kindergarteners.

This is a real story that I have experienced, it is about my friends I have from Elementary to High School.

What I learned from my teammate, Hannah, was that Alce and Calixta actually met in Assumption and fell in love. However, they could not be together due to their very different social classes. I also learned that Bobint and Bibi were terrified to go home and face Calixta because of the way that Bibi looked. Surprisingly, Calixta was actually happy knowing they made it home safely.

I got a 68% percent on a history test. My teachers, even some of the teachers that I favor dearly, look at me with their mean and vicious eyes. I try to greet them in the nicest and sweetest way as I can but never get the genuine reply I want. I go to some of my classmates to talk to them about my struggle until I realized I don’t have my go-to friend. That was my life 2015 was the year when I finally got into a prestigious private school called Collegiate School, having just transferred from a public school. The common wisdom that people had been that private school’s curriculum was more hectic and more difficult than that of a public school’s. It did not take long for me to notice that there was truth to that saying.

Learning something new every day seems really boring to high school students. But, looking back to when we were younger, it was very exciting for some of us. One of the roughest things I had to learn was ride a bike. I was excited to learn how to ride a bike without training wheels, so I could be like my brother and dad. The thing I didn’t know is that I would be a confident and adventurist person. I learned that doing what your parents says is the safest way to doing anything.