Personal Narrative: My High School Experience

Going through high school the days were all the same, except for game days. There was just something different about the culture of the school. You could almost feel the excitement in the air. Every “Good luck tonight,” that was received made it feel like the whole school was rooting for me. This was my senior year and tonight was an especially big game. The game that night would decide if we made playoffs and if I could step on the court as a Hawk again.

As the hallways emptied, the three girls gathered into Desiree’s blue saturn car. Ironically, though her car was beat up, she had managed to dress in only the best and most expensive clothes items. Many were skeptical of her work ethics, and the fact that her bag cost more than her car, but her friends were not. She had always been brutally honest so her friends never questioned why she would never wear the same outfit twice.

When kids are first asked what they want to do when they grow up they typically list off things like a princess, superhero, fireman or a pilot. As everyone grows up these interests begin to morph as they mature and experience events. Since I started my high school career I have involved myself in many different activities that have shown a light on the type of career that I would like to purse at Indiana University.

In junior high, I could not wait to grow up. I wanted to be older, be able to drive wherever and whenever I wanted, and hang out with all my friends all the time. Little did I know, that is not really how it works. In junior high, I had a variety of friends and we hung out as often as we could. I was with the same group of girls all the time, we would go to school together, play sports together in the evenings, and hangout together on the weekends. In high school friends change and I was told that it would happen, but we all thought that it would never happen. We, of course, were wrong. Most of my high school career had been taken up with playing sports. It started the summer before my freshman year, I would go from a softball game, to basketball

My high school years were going well the first three years since I came to the United States from Nepal in 2012. I was able to adjust enough through this transition although I confronted some difficulties as it was a new experience for me. I was focused on my goal; however, I struggled after we moved to Chesapeake from Norfolk at the end of September, 2015. It was the beginning of my senior year in a new school. There wouldn't have been much difference if the school system was the same, or if we hadn't moved suddenly in middle, but The classes here run everyday whereas Norfolk has an A-B class system. When I came here, I realized that I had a lot to make up for my AP classes, it was a challenge. The first day of school was a disaster for me,

Remember that day, 3 years ago as 6th graders, when our WEB leaders gave us our first tour of Lawson? Remember, trying to hide from those HUGE 8th graders and older siblings who pretended not to know us? I know on my first day of 8th grade I definitely felt excited and apprehensive at the same time. Little did I know that the next three years here wouldn’t just be a game of survival, but a place where I changed and matured into the person I am today. Today, June 8th, 2016, we graduate and will embark on a brand new journey in our lives.

The most defining part of high school occured during my freshman year. Despite my eighth grade art teacher’s words, “high school is when everyone really figures out more about themselves,” I was not expecting much for myself. However, subsequent to the first half of the school year, I’ve become much more open to friends than I’ve ever been before. Due to this, I’ve came to realize more about myself. It was at this point, and to the present, where I’ve built up the confidence to talk to more people and show more of my personality. Ultimately, I’ve been challenging my comfort zone. My metamorphosis from a taciturn person to someone more comfortable in my own skin has lead me on a pathway to

During my high school experience I’ve experienced many challenges and hardships. The things that have helped me the most is knowing that I am not alone and how my past experiences have strengthened me to be able to overcome these new challenges that I am faced with.

Before high school, I was quite sheltered in a small middle school with limited technological advancements. Going into high school, I was exposed to a great amount of resources that I never had before. For example, each freshman student was given a chromebook to use for the rest of our high school career. The opportunities provided to me by my high school helped me understand to never overlook experiences and resources that will be beneficial to myself and others. Choir has also been a major part of my high school experience. Without choir, I would not have been exposed to performing or the dedication it takes to fit a performing arts into my schedule. Performing is an artform that I love and plan to continue during college. I am very interesting

If you were to ask me if I liked my high school life here in the U.S. three years ago, I would give you a definite, one worded answer, “No.” It was my fourth year since I had moved from China to New York, I had thought that I had gotten used to the life here, until the first day of high school that screwed everything up. Everything in Midwood was totally different from what I had expected, or, from what I had experienced. Everything was new to me; I had never been used to move from class to class in between periods, and meet different people every time in a new class. As a timid person myself, everything in high school was making me uncomfortable. I felt as if I would never make any friends or even survive in this big school.

I would consider myself to be a fiction fanatic. The majority of my high school experience was spent sitting behind textbooks studying the chemistry behind how Sulfur and Oxygen interact or learning about how the colonials overtook the British. So, naturally I turned to books as my emotional release from reality. Fiction transported me to a world where the impossible was possible and forced me to channel my inner creativity. I found that the information I learned in my textbooks would sometimes ironically connect with the stories I read during my free time. I was a logical intellect while at school, but a reader who loved to dream and challenge logic.

The first time I ever experienced an academic challenge was in the 8th grade. I was told by my teacher that I would not do well at an early college high school; a school that offers students a chance to earn an associate’s degree while attending high school. My teacher believed my average grades meant I would not excel at school. She went as far as asking my mother if she was forcing me to attend my high school. My mother told her that attending Mission Early College High School (MECHS) was my idea. Later on in the year, I applied to the National Junior Honor Society and was rejected because my grade point average (GPA) was below the requirements. While other students with lower GPA’s and parents with money or time to give to the school were accepted. This experience was the first time I realized since my parents did not have the money or the time to donate to the school, I was in an automatic disadvantage in comparison to my peers. Despite these setbacks, I applied to MECHS and was accepted into the program.

I am Aislinn, a practically ordinary high school student trying my best to make it to my future goals. My life has been a series of obstacles that I have overcome to get to where I am today. I am a strong independent human being with the passion and skills to succeed.

“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” - Albert Einstein. It can easily be said that my high school career was driven by this saying. From the first day of grade nine I decided that I was going to become an active and prominent member of the school community, not for the recognition, but so that when I graduate I can look back on my years at O’Connor and be proud of the mark I left on the school.

My ninth grade year was my most action filled year of my high school time. I came in the first day seeing these massive giants with full grown beards, then there was me fourteen years old and skinny. I walked into my first period, it was team sports and I saw these gigantic men and I thought to myself, I’m going to play team sports against these guys. I was going to have a broken bone or be dead by the end of the first sport. So we all got dressed and then we walked to the gym where we found Mrs. Watson. I remember her being so enthusiastic about sports and how we would play them. Since most of the time she favored the seniors we always had to play Dodgeball. By the end of the year I hated the sport so much I wanted to drop out of the class and never take it again, it seemed all we ever did was play Dodgeball because the seniors liked it so much. Academic wise my freshman year was terrible, I went from having a 3.9 GPA in middle school to a 2.8 GPA. I