My Experience At High School

Graduating high school was an exciting time, but I felt lost. I wasn't sure of my career goals or what I wanted to accomplish at University. When I first decided to attend community college, I felt hesitant because I did not take the traditional route like my other classmates. However, community college was cheaper and would give me time to figure out the career path I wanted to take.

Most of my friends decided to go straight to college after high school, something I think is expected of teenagers in my position; there were a few who opted out, either going for military, work, or WOOFing across the globe. I had played with the idea of trade school, of traveling to europe and becoming an Au-Pair, and simply not going to college. It hadn't ever seemed entirely necessary to me; but, at the same time, college seemed sensible. It was what seemed to be the default decision. But after applying to and being accepted to all four colleges I had come to a sudden realization. I had dedicated all of my time considering what options I had. I hadn't seriously considered what going to college would really mean. I believe it truly settled in during an orientation I had at Umass Amherst. I was sitting in a room full of future education majors, and I felt entirely out of place. I didn't want to study Education, I didn't want to study Biology or Astronomy or African Studies. What was the point in going to college if college wasn't what I

Going to college after completing my secondary education was never a questionable decision. My mother was a first generation college student, mother at the age of fourteen, and had been married, divorced, a mother of three girls, and earned a Master’s degree all by the age of thirty-three. Being an educator and certified counselor, my mother soon realized how powerful education was and how detrimental higher education is later in life. Because of the nine year age gap between my eldest sister and I , I often found myself touring college campus at an early age. I have always been intrigued with school and soon grew fond of the sciences and math, even though I tend to excel academically in the art and language department. I often times find myself amazing in the complexity of the human body from the brain to the most complicated explanations of human

From as early on as I can remember, I was not an enormous fan of school. I’d much rather spend my free time goofing around with my friends as opposed to studying for quizzes or doing my homework. Throughout high school, I would say my grades were mediocre at best. I was not even planning on attending college; I was planning on going to a trade school to become a mechanic. It wasn’t until I experienced higher education firsthand and had a few talks with my parents when I realized that, to have the greatest possible quality of life, one has to attend college.

At the beginning of semester, I was not sure if the course was going to be enjoyable. There were some classes where I thought I had already learned some of the lectures in High School. I asked myself many times, “Why is this course required?” However, as the semester went by, I sort of started to understand the reason for the course. I had never attended college before, and I didn’t really know what certain things were,for example, Financial Aid. The topic time management was also influential across the semester. Learning a little more about my personality was also something that was influential across the semester.

My eyes squinted as I gazed towards the massive building that for the next four years would be my success, demise, and most importantly, my high school. As I strut to the tall glass doors, I felt so prepared, confident even. Armed with a couple of best friends, sufficient intelligence, and adequate athleticism, I was positive that everything would go perfectly. After all, high school was the place of beginnings, a place where my friends and I would battle through together; high school wasn’t the place where everything would fall apart.

During the first two years of my high school career, I experienced intolerable levels of hardship which I eventually vanquished and was able to preside over. In case It doesn’t become evident, I have a “type a” personality which I’ve been more than conscious of since my middle school days. The feeling of unease that tormented me all throughout middle and half of my high school years when I wasn’t excelling further more than I was in my previous years. Personal goals, and ambitions, that I wasn’t quite living up to, it raged me, It wasn’t who I was, I was better than that. I always thought I’d be destined for greater things, I never imagined it’d come with sacrifices and failures, at least not like mine. It wasn’t until I began high school when I realized how different things were and it wouldn’t be your ordinary middle school level material.

As I opened my eyes and allowed my posture to relax, I let out a long, deep breath. The Buddhist monk conducting the religious ritual made his closing remarks, and I was sent out of the temple, back into the sweltering heat of summer in Virginia. Because a scout is reverent, it was expected of me by my troop that I attend one religious ceremony during my time at the National Scout Jamboree. Leading up to the service, my 13 year old self was especially concerned that the experience would be long, boring, and uneventful. “Why should I have to sit in silence when I could be rock climbing or mountain biking?” I thought. After the ceremony, however, I was at peace. I found that I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. By the time my troop and I left the Jamboree, the culmination of my adventures started to awaken something within me.

When I was 5 years old, my mom and dad introduced me to the word “school”. They told me how important school was for everyone and how important it was to do be good at it. Recalling the first years of education is difficult for me, but I could only imagine how weirded out I was when I had to get up early in the morning, ride in a big yellow vehicle for around 15 minutes and get dropped off at a place that was unknown, filled with hundreds of others around the same age as me. Remembering the 6 years of elementary is fairly hard, but I do recall the memorable years of middle school. I had a ton of exciting moments in middle school, seeing my school district’s high school basketball team win our division state tournament and bringing home the gold ball, receiving recognition for completing middle school, and other great memories. The more I got older, the more I thought what I wanted to be as an adult, and going through high school really showed me some extraordinary things I could do with my life, but after walking down the aisle along with my classmates, I thought that this was the end of my education and I would move onto working the rest of my life. My parents though, had another idea, college. My first thought on college was questioning myself and my parents on how I could possibly put myself through more years of education after high school, but I made the decision, and now that I actually am at the collegiate level the answer is clear. If I want to be successful

Walking into the Stem Academy I didn't know what to expect. I met my friends Olivia, Makaila, London, Rebecca, and Shya. I had Mr. Jain as my homeroom teacher, he was a very good teacher just hard to understand sometimes. This whole year I passed all of my classes, this year was kind of easy to me. My behavior was really good this year I got an E for conduct the second quarter and then the rest were S, but I didn't really get into much trouble this year. I liked the way that our schedules were set up because we got to kind of explore the school and if we knew some of the older kids we would be able to socialize with them. I also liked the fact that we were able to get Ipads instead of having books to carry around. It's really neat to be able to communicate with teachers and turn in work electronically. This is how my six grade school year went as far as the school work. With social and extracurricular activities I had a lot of fun with these. We had fights, party's, dress downs, and also more fights. I went to basketball tryouts but I was so bad at basketball, that I didn't make it. It didn't really matter that I didn't make the team because I still played AAU basketball. I went out for soccer but that wasn't really for me, I only tried because my friends did. The fights were really childish and stupid. The only fight we really had this year is when Kejuan body slammed Toriano onto the ground by his head. There wasn't really too many party’s but when there were some

I am embarrassed and ashamed of the snapshot you have viewed of my performance in high school. Aside from my parents, no one apart of my life over the past decade is aware I am capable of such a poor performance. I feel ashamed because my actions represent more than just myself, I represent the Army as a senior leader, one who is charged with mentoring, training, and educating some of Americas brightest young men and women. My high school years do not define me; please take in consideration the tremendous work I have strived to accomplish over the past 15 years.

Being the eldest of three children I am the guinea pig of the family.. (ellipses) Being the first to start school, to begin middle school, and enter into high school. Not having an older sibling to tell me what to expect along the way, I had to be the first to experience these things, and figure out how to handle new situations on my own. I remember being in seventh grade being terrified to begin school at the high school. Riverside, at the time, seemed much larger than Lamuth and had many more students, especially older and taller kids, being a bit intimidating to my, once then, barely five-foot self. (imagery) I did not think I would have enough time to get between classes before the bell rang, as crossing over from John R. to Riverside is a long walk with many kids walking at a very slow pace. I was also very nervous that I would get lost or end up in the wrong class.

It all started in middle school I got suspended a lot of times for arguing with my teachers. I would argue with my teacher about the smallest things such as talking while they were talking. It made me feel like they never understood why I talked all the time. I always tried to solve problems and most teachers didn’t agree. One time I disrespected my teacher and as a result I got sent to the principal’s office. Walking to the principal office I thought about how close my principal and I were. The walked seemed extra long because I would look back to see the small narrow hallway behind me. My principal understood me and always listened to what I had to say. Even though we were close I never wanted to face the consequences he gave me.

“Sorry, I can’t. I have homework.” That was the constant excuse I used in high school when my friends asked if I wanted to hang out. Junior year of high school was a rough year for me--not only was I taking six AP classes in one year, but I was also in the marching band which dominated a lot of my time. I was so invested in all of these that I forgot how to even socialize. I would negate a lot of my friends and family who wanted to gather and just spend some time with me. Now, don’t get me wrong, this does not mean that I was a loser by any means, I loved to “hang” and party and all the typical teenager tropes. It was just that year. That one year that I screwed myself over with a crap ton of demanding classes. That one year I wish I could do all over again. That one year that would have been enormously simpler had I been amicable enough to accept other people into my life. Which leads to the situation that most strongly defines what my dilemma during my junior year: I should have gone to the movies instead.

In the summer of 2013, I received an email that changed my life forever. It was up to me to accept or decline the new journey that allowed me to be accepted into Edgecombe Early College High School. I decided to accept this new journey that was filled with 5 years of butterflies, hardships, new opportunities and self improvement.