“Failing is Great!”
1 One quality that almost every teenager shares is that they all attend high school. If high schoolers are anything like me, considering I am one, they most-likely have had a mental breakdown due to the stress of their classes. Many claim that this stress is unnecessary while others believe that it is a crucial experience for the soon-to-be adults. One must consider where a high school’s difficulty standards should be and learn the perks of the different standards. To ask if classes are too hard, to scrutinize if they aren’t difficult enough- that will lead to an answer. Ultimately, one needs to decide how education should function in order to be most beneficial for the student’s future. Considering the following, education in high schools should clearly be challenging
2 I was the student in the class that only received A’s and possibly a B on an off day. Convincing myself that anything less than an A was unexceptable, I adapted to those ways. I was the one type of student that obsessed over the “perfect grade”: the control freak. My A’s - the pride and joys of my life - began to slip away as I entered my junior year of high school. Because I had never been in a position like this before, panic overwhelmed me. The control freak freaked.
3 For the longest time, I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t receiving my usual A’s. It had been so easy in previous years. Yes, I’m taking college classes now, but that doesn’t change anything. I have always taken
Telling myself that I was too good for anything lower than an A, and being the only accepted 10th-grader, I was certain that I would hold one of the top seats in academics by the end of the year. I was wrong. I ended the semester with 4 C’s. Waking at 5AM then carpooling with a family who lived 45 minutes away and arriving home at 8PM with 5 hours of studying, I would mull over how Bowman Favan was better than me in English, and if I worked longer during my usual 4AM nights. I told myself that I could only beat Bowman if I was 100% self-reliant like he was.
During the end of my 1st semester of sophomore year, I felt as if everything was falling apart. It was my low point throughout my high school career, and I just received my grades for the current quarter of classes. I will be honest; it was a whopping grade point average of about 2.6. Once, I saw this. I did not lose it as much as others would have. Instead, I looked at this and said to myself, “what can I do differently moving forward.” The second semester started, and I know I had to do better whatever the challenges that I face this time around: and so I did. I was able to
To start, a risk I have taken was to achieve straight A's in high school. The value of straight A's didn't appeal to me until the last semester of my sophomore year. Henceforth, before that time, I enjoyed the phrase "D's equal diplomas". It was unwise of me to think this way, and unfortunate that it took so long for me to move away from this mentality. Accordingly, I began second semester of sophomore year, by making sure I took good notes, actually study for tests, and ensuring I didn't procrastinate. It was a hard semester, and unfortunately, I did not get straight A's. Conversely, my effort did show, and stood out to many of my teachers. I was happy with my progress and knew I could eventually get straight A's. Furthermore, my junior year
This school year, I wanted an academic challenge, so I signed up for AP Physics 1, a class notorious for the number of students failing. I soon learned why: every day provided new and foreign concepts taught at rapid speed, and no matter how hard I tried to understand the curriculum, I couldn’t. When we had to take mock AP exams, I scored a three out of five every single time. While that technically was passing, I left the semester with my very first B. It was a heartbreaking situation - I had never received anything less than an A my entire life and took pride in my perfect grades. This time, it seemed that there was nothing I could do to salvage them. However, I trekked past the initial disappointment and promised myself to do better the
Being a freshman in college, I set impractical and unrealistic goals for myself. Throughout the year, I had to overcome various obstacles to strive in meeting the goals I had set out for myself. One of my goals during the first year of college was to earn a 4.0 GPA. I thought this would be an easy feat as I was able to academically grow throughout my academic career—excelling from being roughly a 2.6 GPA student to roughly a 4.0 GPA student. One of the biggest obstacles I had to face was taking exams. In high school, I did not need to prepare for exams as much as I do in college. I underestimated my midterms and finals as I did not know that I had to study at least a week ahead of time in order to obtain suitable grades. In high school, I was able to study one or two nights beforehand and still manage to achieve high grades.
Just like Julie, teen all over the world deal with stress from school and trying to maintain perfect grades. The stress can stem from parent’s pressuring them or from pressuring themselves to be perfect in class.
Despite seemingly having a B in Choristers (which I learned was due to an attendance error), I have managed to make all A’s for this semester (an accomplishment I am very proud of)! This surprised me, as I felt that I would have a lot more difficulty getting and maintaining an A in more difficult classes such as MUS 170 and MUS 171. In classes such as PS 210 and WRD 112, I felt more at ease at getting the grades that I did, perhaps because it was more academically oriented rather than creatively as done in my music minor courses. Even then, I still worried quite a bit about how well I was doing and was going to do.
High school is a teenager’s best years of socialization. However, they are also some of the most stressful. The work piled on by teachers can be overwhelming for anyone, even a straight-A student. Unfortunately, a large quantity of homework is not the only thing wrong with the system in American society today. High school students face many struggles and difficulties while engaged in their education.
Throughout my 4 years of high school, I am happy to say that I am proud of my grades I have acquired. Along the way, however, I found difficulty in only 2 of my classes. The first class was my sophomore year in ag biology. I had a hard time getting through this class and finished off with a D+. Next was my junior year in my Math 3 class where I struggled all year but ended the year with a satisfying C. With my struggles, I learned valuable skills such as perseverance and a never quit attitude that will help me down the road in my education after high school.
I didn’t get an A on the next midterm, but that didn’t matter. I had three weeks left to raise my grade, and that day was about my commitment and work ethic. When the semester ended, I managed to get 95% on my third midterm and my final, and overall got a B+. This past fall semester, I aced Chemistry 2 while being in the top 10% of my class. It is from this experience that I had developed a strong appreciation for work ethic and personal commitment to fulfill the challenging tasks in college and later in medical
Even though my hard work paid off in some areas, I was not able to reach my goal completely. Through all the tears, sleepless nights, and over-studying, my GPA still suffered, my class rank fell, and there were two hideous B’s on my transcript. This was very disheartening because I had never received less than a 4.0 GPA before in high school.
A climax of my life was moving from New Jersey to California over the summer between 6th and 7th grade. Luckily I had already made the transition from elementary to middle school, but I still had considerable adjustments to make. For instance, I came from a grade of 250 students to a section of just 80, and was introduced to the concept of honors classes. Nevertheless, I found that the academic adjustments were minor, and the bigger issue was cultural. My New Jersey hometown is tiny and has a library with limited resources. On the other hand, Beverly Hills’ beautiful library boasts a newly renovated children’s section. While many of my friends’ parents rode the train to commute to New York City, Beverly parents all seem to drive. My family
When I got to high school, my grades started to climb. I was trying. In middle school, learning was hard for me, so instead of trying, I chose to give up. When faced with failure in class, I caved and quit without a second thought. When I encountered failure yet again with my grades, this time being worse, it made me feel like nothing, so I decided to conquer it and become something. Feeling ashamed of myself for being a poor student has brought me to improve myself. At first I wanted to improve my grades so I didn’t look dumb, but now I was doing it for me and my future. If my friends didn’t make an effort to receive good grades in school, I wouldn’t be the same student I am today. They helped change me for the better, and they don’t even
All parents want to see their kids succeed in school. However, by the time a student graduates they will then feel a sudden urge of relief after have encountered a significant amount of pressure throughout their high school years. The pressure is not only received by the school, but by society and the parents as well. Several students have experienced staying up long nights to finish homework, a loss of interest in a hobby, or an academic burnout at one point. It is common sense for one to say that school is not easy. Between trying to manage homework from all of their classes, studying for multiple different tests at once, and trying to maintain a decent social life, school can become very stressful for a young person. Too much pressure should not be put on high school students because it can lead to academic failure, truancy, and depression.
For many adolescents, high school is an experience of a lifetime and an opportunity to obtain many life lessons. It provides a possibility for students to better their social skills, join clubs, sports and explore life more at a younger age. Although for other students, high school tends to be more of a dreadful experience since the horrendous amount of homework, stressed it comes with and the preparation to take a difficult test that will later impact their academic future. Despite the fact that high school, in general, has beneficial aspects to it, severe issues like being unprepared for the real world challenges, having substandard teachers or mentors, and have little opportunity to apply for colleges need to be addressed.