Sophomore's Accomplishments

With a year full of hurdles I was set to overcome, senior year did not seem like the right time for me to defeat my dragon. My introverted qualities have grown tremendously over the course of my life due to traumatic events I have been forced to face on my own. Since adolescence, I have always been known as the “quiet girl” in the room. I always took this as a compliment, until recently, when I realized I was missing out on crucial events that would help prepare me for the future. Through careful consideration, I decided that senior year would be the ideal time to slay my dragon, introversion.

As a freshman in high school, I had the worst grades in Biology, English and Math. I was struggling in English and Biology because of my poor English-language skills. I was new to the United States, and that made the transition difficult. However in math I was just being lazy and I did not want to put in the effort needed to get a decent grade.

My Junior Year of high school just recently started. I have learned so many different things while attending high school, and still have over a year to learn even more. As Matthew Kelly said, “whether you are sixteen or sixty, the rest of your life is ahead of you. You cannot change one moment of your past, but you can change your whole future.” This means while I have done a lot in my past, I cannot change anything that has already happened, but I am able to change my future. One of the most important things that I am involved in right now is school. My first two years at CBHS were good, and I made decent grades. Some of the grades that I made I am not very happy with now but I cannot change that so I need to focus on my grades right now because those are the ones I can change.

My high school years, unlike the past years of steady achievements, felt much more like a sine graph with ups and downs. To begin with, I conquered my freshman year in a breeze. My easily achievable classes not only earned myself confidence, but also admiration and respect from my classmates and teachers. As a result, I comfortably acclimated myself to the status of a star student.

Major changes in my life have affected my high school career, but a large impact came from the death of my father in eighth grade. Before his passing, I was an average A/B student in middle school and even elementary school, which quickly changed in 8th grade when my classes became too hard for me to handle. I decided the best thing for my mental health was to drop out of my higher level classes. This lead to being in standard classes throughout my first year of high school with minimal effort from my part. After constantly missing school, I failed my second quarter. Instead of bouncing back from this, it pushed me down, making me believe I would never be able to recover. Without any motivation, I ended my ninth grade year with a grade point average of 1.4.

Throughout my academic career, my grades and accomplishments have always been of extreme importance to me. To keep up with my goals, for example, making honor roll every quarter, I have taken steps and faced setbacks that have enabled me to see the big picture rather than focusing on the little issues that could discourage me from reaching those goals. To make the honor roll at my high school means obtaining a 3.5 grade point average or above for the entire quarter. As a freshman, I made it my goal to meet this standard throughout my complete high school career. To do this, I studied hard for every one of my classes, always did my homework, and put in as much effort as I could; I gave it my all. Through tough classes and staying up all night

My moms raised me with a strong set of morals, including “hard work pays off.” Sometimes this can be discouraging when you work hard, but it doesn’t pay off as you’d like it to. I’ve always gotten the grades I strive for without much struggle. However, once high school started, everything changed. I’d work for weeks on a scholarship essay, and I wouldn’t even place. I’d work for months to get something published and then read other people’s names in the congratulations announcement. I’d constantly wonder: Who’s at the top of the class? Who’s going to win the end of year awards? When you consistently get the grades that I do, people just expect those grades. No one congratulates you on your hard work anymore, and you don’t always get recognized. Despite the lack of recognition, I still take pride in my grades, and continue to work hard. Getting great grades is something I know I can do, even when it’s difficult to do. The difficulty makes it even more satisfying when I see the hard work pay off, and I get the grade I wanted. I’ve encountered

A special attribute that sets me apart is my tendency to work hard. I constantly try to do my best in everything that I do. Throughout high school, I’ve always set a high standard for myself by taking rigorous classes, joining sports and clubs, and maintaining a high GPA. Even if certain classes didn’t have any relation to nursing, club meetings were the day before a large exam, or tennis practice was especially grueling, I still worked hard and put in as much effort as I could. With this type of attitude, I was able to maintain Distinguished Honor Roll and a cumulative 4.08 GPA throughout my high school career. I chose to maintain this attitude during senior year instead of taking it easy, as I was able to gain knowledge and experience that

About four years ago, I was just starting my first year of high school. During my previous tenure in middle school, I was basically an average student with multiple C’s and barely passing classes. So when I entered high school, I was not that enthusiastic about it and I continued the trend of not really caring about my grades in the 9th grade. As I became more aware of the opportunities I could get by receiving good grades, I began to actually care more about school and tried to get good grades. I began to do something that I never did before,

In my years, here at Senior I have grown for the better in many ways. One of these ways is my strive to do good in school. I came into high school with the attitude of I’ll do my best and see how things go. After my freshman year, I had good grades, and that’s when I really realized how important and that it was possible to keep getting good grades. Then last year and this year I have really been pushing myself to get good grades and really put school first.

In 7th grade I was unfocused, unprepared, and childish. I didn’t know my grades would have an impact on my high school career. I thought everything that happened in middle school stayed in middle school so I focused on useless drama. I used to blame my C’s on bad teaching but now I realize I have no one else to blame but myself. I was the one coming to school unprepared to work not my teachers. Now I know all of my grades count. I have blossomed into a person I am proud of. This year I’ve made it my mission to actually pass not just get by. I now sit promptly in the front of the class and take notes. I focus on test scores and grades not drama that’s not even going to matter next week. I now know what’s important and what I should just leave

I entered high school, and I made it a personal promise and goal to absolutely succeed and push my limits. So far, I have succeeded with this goal. From the beginning of my freshman year, I made sure I took the maximum amount of classes, and I finished each course with an A. I took advantage of an internship program at my school, where I shadowed one of the science teachers at my school. Throughout my Sophomore year, I continued this. I finished each course with an A, except for Biology, for which I finished it with a B. I am now in my senior year, and I continue to be successful with all of my classes.

During my sophomore year, I had gotten into the wrong crowd. I started hanging out with a group of people that I thought I could rely on and trust but in the end they just brought me down. I started struggling in my classes, which caused my grades to fall. School wasn’t a concern for me and my parents were watching me go downhill. They would ask me what was happening when I would bring home my grade card or look at progress book, because I normally told them that I was doing great. My mother mostly had realized that my friends were not who I should be hanging around because they was not taking me down a good path. On September 12, 2013 was my Sophomore homecoming. My friends and I ended up going out for dinner and then we all headed to the dance. The dance wasn’t very exciting so we all thought that we would just head to Abby’s house. We ended up leaving Abby’s house and staying out all night in town, getting ourselves into things we shouldn’t have. Toward the end of my Sophomore year I started to fade away from that group and focused more on my schooling. I ended up getting my grades up too at least C’s. The following years I had to really push myself to get my GPA back to where I wanted it. Graduating high school I had a 2.9 GPA and at the end of my first semester of college, I had a 3.6. This just shows that hard work pays off and if you push yourself hard enough you can accomplish anything. This semester I plan on raising my GPA to at least a 3.7. If I didn’t have the support I did and still have today, I would have never been where I am right now. I am so thankful to have my parents and even my grandparents in my life. Starting my junior year, going into softball, from the first game to the last, my support system was at every game. This really impacted my life knowing that my grandparents would drive anywhere just to watch a game of ball for an hour or two. It’s not just sports it’s anything that I have that

The transition from middle school to high school was difficult for me. I’d gone to very a progressive middle school where the students basically got to choose their own curriculum. I’d never had grades or a standard structure of any kind to measure my academic performance. Saint Mary’s, my high school, is college prep so the teachers move quickly, I am graded on everything, and expectations in general are much higher. For all of ninth grade I felt like I had been tossed into the deep end without knowing how to swim, and my grades reflected that mentality. Summer before tenth grade, I knew I couldn’t continue performing so poorly, so I began to study and to try and get a jump start on the next year’s curriculum. When school started I put much

Ever since I was a child, I’ve always had dreams and desires that I want to accomplish in my life before I get to old or die. In the eighth grade I had desires to become Valedictorian of my class by senior year. I wanted to speak at graduation in front of all my peers as a respectable young man. By the end of my sophomore year I was told that I was Valedictorian of my class for the time being. People soon found out and told me I had no chance, I wouldn’t stick with it, and that I couldn't do it because I wasn’t smart enough. This negativity only motivated me even more to accomplish my dream. I stayed up countless nights til two or three in the morning to do homework and study because I worked until eleven, every night. By senior year, my high