Reflective essay
I think the personal quality that has helped me the most in my years of high school has been pretty skewed through the course of my four years. I honestly did not really try in my freshman and sophomore years, I mean, I passed, but that wasn’t due to any hardship of myself, more so because it was just easy. I would say my intelligence is the personal quality is the quality that helped me the most, but that sounds super conceited and that’s just not me. So I suppose that my perseverance to try and succeed in my Junior and Senior years have been my best personal quality. I have been battling with a lot of mental health issues throughout most of my life, and for a while it was fairly easy to juggle that and school, but towards the end of Sophomore year and then in my Junior year, it became too much to handle, but with help from teachers and school counselors I passed, with good grades at that, so I think I can say my perseverance is my best academic quality.
The classes that I guess could be considered my “basics” for my high school experience were Algebra 1, English 8 and Physical/Life Science. I took all of these classes in middle school at Lincoln Middle School. I did considerably well in all of them. Annoyingly something went wrong with my transcript and I had to take Algebra 1 again in Freshman year, but in retrospect it was probably a good thing, as I had not fully grasped some of the concepts needed for maths such as Geometry, Algebra 2 and now Pre-Calculus. Both sciences I did fantastic in, actually being the teachers aid for my life science teacher for both my 7th and 8th grade years. English has always been sort of a struggle, which is interesting really because I love reading and I was reading at a much higher grade level than what I was in for most of my life. It was mainly the writing of the essays and things like annotations, and just silly tedious things that I could never wrap my head around.
My problem solving over my years of high school have honestly been pretty poor. I’ve had to constantly ask my parents for help communicating with teachers about things like accommodations for my IEP. I think I have gotten better at that this year however, asking teachers for accommodations for late work and such. Other than that I am a fairly good at reasoning and analyzation, it's actually probably my strongest part of school. The visualization of things for me is amazing, but putting in into effect, such as artwork, or format for a poster can be often difficult for me as I have a Visual Perception Disorder. A Visual Perception Disorder is when you can think of something as creatively as possible in your mind but just CANNOT put pen to paper and make art, that's why my handwriting is so atrocious. Also solving problems for math has been hard, but I think that makes sense because I took an IQ test and they found out that more complex math is much easier for me, and I didn’t get into more complex maths until 10th grade and then again this year, I went straight from Algebra 1 in 9th grade to Algebra 2 in 10th, then back to Geometry in 11th grade, unfortunately I had to drop my math class because I was a little overwhelmed with all the homework I was getting.
Okay, here’s where I start really bashing on myself. My social skills are terrible, like actually incredibly bad. I’ve been socially awkward since middle school and got bullied for it then so instead of trying to socialize with kids I just isolated myself even more, which did not make things any easier. However, I work harder when we do a group project because if I don’t do well I won’t just be letting myself down, I’ll be letting my partner or partners down. I also flourish in group project situations because I can give the things to the group that I am actually good at, like deep thinking, and writing, rather than having to stress over things that I am terrible at, like artsy stuff. My social skills have gotten a little better now though I guess. I actually talk to people during my free periods instead of sitting by myself and sleeping like I did last year, and its actually made school a whole lot easier.
Technology is where I shine. I love technology, computers are like my whole life. I literally think I spend more time on my computer a year than I do sleeping, which is incredibly unhealthy, but honestly, that's what most kids are like nowadays. Technology has gotten so much more advanced, literally most people are carrying microchips around that are more powerful than computers people had in their home not even ten years ago! So I think it is very useful that I am adept with computers. I also know how the insides of computers work, honestly I could probably be the leader of tech team if I had been here long enough, but this is only my second year at ACLC. I much prefer the computers here at ACLC then I did at NEA, because the computers here are PCs and the computers at NEA are Macs and well, PC is the master race. Being proficient with a PC really helps with school work, because the computers here at school are PCs and I know how to navigate them, and having a Mac and a PC at home causes me to know how to use both, which is incredibly useful.
The classes that I guess could be considered my “basics” for my high school experience were Algebra 1, English 8 and Physical/Life Science. I took all of these classes in middle school at Lincoln Middle School. I did considerably well in all of them. Annoyingly something went wrong with my transcript and I had to take Algebra 1 again in Freshman year, but in retrospect it was probably a good thing, as I had not fully grasped some of the concepts needed for maths such as Geometry, Algebra 2 and now Pre-Calculus. Both sciences I did fantastic in, actually being the teachers aid for my life science teacher for both my 7th and 8th grade years. English has always been sort of a struggle, which is interesting really because I love reading and I was reading at a much higher grade level than what I was in for most of my life. It was mainly the writing of the essays and things like annotations, and just silly tedious things that I could never wrap my head around.
My problem solving over my years of high school have honestly been pretty poor. I’ve had to constantly ask my parents for help communicating with teachers about things like accommodations for my IEP. I think I have gotten better at that this year however, asking teachers for accommodations for late work and such. Other than that I am a fairly good at reasoning and analyzation, it's actually probably my strongest part of school. The visualization of things for me is amazing, but putting in into effect, such as artwork, or format for a poster can be often difficult for me as I have a Visual Perception Disorder. A Visual Perception Disorder is when you can think of something as creatively as possible in your mind but just CANNOT put pen to paper and make art, that's why my handwriting is so atrocious. Also solving problems for math has been hard, but I think that makes sense because I took an IQ test and they found out that more complex math is much easier for me, and I didn’t get into more complex maths until 10th grade and then again this year, I went straight from Algebra 1 in 9th grade to Algebra 2 in 10th, then back to Geometry in 11th grade, unfortunately I had to drop my math class because I was a little overwhelmed with all the homework I was getting.
Okay, here’s where I start really bashing on myself. My social skills are terrible, like actually incredibly bad. I’ve been socially awkward since middle school and got bullied for it then so instead of trying to socialize with kids I just isolated myself even more, which did not make things any easier. However, I work harder when we do a group project because if I don’t do well I won’t just be letting myself down, I’ll be letting my partner or partners down. I also flourish in group project situations because I can give the things to the group that I am actually good at, like deep thinking, and writing, rather than having to stress over things that I am terrible at, like artsy stuff. My social skills have gotten a little better now though I guess. I actually talk to people during my free periods instead of sitting by myself and sleeping like I did last year, and its actually made school a whole lot easier.
Technology is where I shine. I love technology, computers are like my whole life. I literally think I spend more time on my computer a year than I do sleeping, which is incredibly unhealthy, but honestly, that's what most kids are like nowadays. Technology has gotten so much more advanced, literally most people are carrying microchips around that are more powerful than computers people had in their home not even ten years ago! So I think it is very useful that I am adept with computers. I also know how the insides of computers work, honestly I could probably be the leader of tech team if I had been here long enough, but this is only my second year at ACLC. I much prefer the computers here at ACLC then I did at NEA, because the computers here are PCs and the computers at NEA are Macs and well, PC is the master race. Being proficient with a PC really helps with school work, because the computers here at school are PCs and I know how to navigate them, and having a Mac and a PC at home causes me to know how to use both, which is incredibly useful.