Personal Narrative: My Dual Enrollment Student

I am enrolled in the Commonwealth Governor's School. It is a rigorous academic program for highly gifted and motivated students. The program, which spans all four years of high school, is designed to challenge students in the four core subjects. Students in the program are required to take the most academically challenging courses available at their school, including a total of eleven Advanced Placement courses and one Dual Enrollment class. The program also requires its students to create two independent research projects called culminating projects. The goal of these projects is to teach students about how to conduct scholarly research, write literature reviews, create original products, correspond with experts, and present their findings.

I am dual enrolled at Macomb Community College, earning 22-23 transferable college credits. I have a job and work quite a bit. My mom is a single mother of four children with no child support. This has forced me to grow up a lot faster than I should have. I essentially support myself financially which has made it tough past few years but I would not trade it for anything.

I am amazed at how the reading assignments in this class interest me. I gave up my leisure reading in order to have the time to attend this school, and I find myself losing my self in this reading, just like my "fun" books.

During these past three weeks I have realized that college is going to be very challenging, it is not what I expected it to be like. This class has helped with my reading and writing experience and has contributed to my understanding of expectations for college and goals for my future. It has helped me with preparing and planning my work ahead of time. Dr. Sariscany has helped me with becoming a better writer and helped me prepare for college level work. She has showed me that college is not going to be easy and we should get used to it and put in all our effort and time into everything we turn in.

Before taking this class I thought that my reading skills were exceptional, but I was undeniably wrong about that. Now, after taking this class I can say that my reading skills have greatly improved. I now know how to analyze works of art and find new meanings behind the words that I read. Now, with the knowledge on how to use criticism to my advantage, all types of literature will become wide open to me in a sense that I will be able to understand literature in greater detail.

Coming into this class I did not know what to expect. Also, I did not know I would learn so much about myself by just reading deeper into literature. This class has definitely opened my eyes to a new style of reading. I wouldn't say I focus on every word when reading books now, but I would say I think deeper about the meaning of a few lines. I do this because of the specific words that are used and the order that they are placed in. I’ve definitely taken what we have learned it class about reading in a different manner and applied it to my everyday reading.

There are many different kinds of genres, such as romance, comedy,suspense and mystery. If you really enjoy mystery and suspense books because there is a cliff hanger after every chapter, and it keeps wanting the reader to read more. Found the novel by Harlan Coben, and the last book of the Mickey Bolitar series was very exciting and also very suspenseful for many reasons, such as setting, point of view, and the conflict.

I prefer to read fantasy, mystery, science fiction, and horror genres. I like books that I can relate to. Modern stories or older stories with a modern twist are fun to read and figure out what all was changed from the original story.

I developed a relationship with my professors by making appointments when I need help or sending emails. Just like your daughter spoke with the TA’s I do went to my TA’s for assistance but it was never very often. I would rather interact with the professor instead of the TA. As for the staff, I worked in the financial aid office at my institution which made it super easy to understand my financial aid. The admissions office is also in the same building so whenever I had a question I would just walk-in and ask. I never had a problem seeing my academic advisor, because I always made a point of actually communicating with him or her. The reason I had no issues attending a large institution and developed a good relationship with my professors

I will not be satisfied with becoming a number. I was, and I will remain, deeply devoted to my academic career and service to the community. My academic success was founded by an honors program, known as OMNI, in my elementary school. As a transfer student, I was not eligible for the program. Hearing the stories of OMNI students motivated me to want to participate. Unfortunately, academic success has never been simple for me, and my B average grades did not meet the requirements. I began to push myself academically, as getting into the program became my number one priority. I am surprised my parents didn’t take me to a psychologist. I was probably the most stressed-out third grader in school. For the first time, I became deeply motivated to achieve academic excellence.

The initial path that really influenced my decision to go to medical school was learning about autopsies while taking Anatomy and Physiology in high school. From that course, I learned about how doctors must be detectives in order to come up with the right diagnosis. This was very interesting to me and I decided that is what I want to do for a career.

I briefly skimmed through the course syllabus and I am very excited about what we are going to learn from this course. I expect this course to help me improve my critical reading, analysis and research

Overall this class was my favorite in this school so far. I got to read all the time and talk to people reading the same book, which is harder because I never read the same book as the people I talk to, and it was very enjoyable. Even though I was not a fan of the post-its at first, it did really help me with finding literary devices, and make people look at me weird when I pulled out a book full of them but their reactions were hilarious. Also in this class I learned I can read multiple books in only one day if I really try. If I have a chance I would definitely take the second part of this

Ever since I was a child, my favorite type of books to read were novels. I was never really fond of picture books and moved onto chapter books as soon as I could get my hands on them. I specifically enjoy fiction novels. Supernatural (not fantasy), realistic, action, drama, and comedy are my favorite genres. What attracts me to fiction is the way fictional stories challenge my imagination. Fiction stretches my mind to create new worlds, meet non-existent people, and entertain previously unfathomable situations. I enjoy writing fiction in order to further elaborate on the experiences that reading fiction has given me.

“Mike, give us an inspirational quote,” I yelled over the grumbling bus engine as we sped down the highway.