This Crazy Place Called High School by Amber

This Crazy Place Called High School by Amber - November 2014 Scholarship Essay

I used to think that whoever thought of high school really did not know anything about children or teenagers. Parents are forced to literally dump their little-just-out-of-middle-school-immature-tiny-almost-baby children in a building with grown men who have beards possibly long enough to braid. However, even with the four year age difference, and maybe a two to three foot height difference, high school is as beneficial as you make it. I'm sure all your older friends give you advice, which teachers are nice and don't make you do anything, who you don't want to be seen with, how to be popular, and all that superficial, juicy drama that you're about to be in the middle of. Well, I'm here to tell you that these aren't the things that make up high school. Whoever came up with the idea of high school had the intent to actually teach teenagers stuff. So, my biggest advice to you is to learn, get good grades, and prepare yourself for anything after high school. Unfortunately, I didn't start out high school with that logic; instead I pushed my way to the middle of the drama just to get attention.
I started high school with the intent of being unique. I didn't want to be an unrecognizable face; I wanted to be known. I had never really thought of high school as a place to learn, because who cares about grades at that age, right? Well, actually I did, but I wanted to be popular so I couldn't act nerdy. Since second grade, I had gone to a tiny kindergarten to eighth grade school, so switching to a fifteen hundred plus student high school I hardly knew anyone. I was so excited to have a fresh start, but I completely blew it. Almost immediately, I got in with the wrong crowd, started skipping classes, and caring way to much about what my peers thought of me. The problem was I loved it. I got all kinds of attention, yes it was mostly negative, but almost everyone in the school recognized my name. Miraculously, my grades stayed at a decent level, but not at all anything to brag about. I didn’t really get involved in any clubs or anything, I wanted to, but I had to act too cool for that stuff.

Sophomore year I got a warning letter about skipping too many classes; I was being placed on the Becca Bill program, and skipping several more classes would result in me having to go to court. This was the first red flag for my parents and surprisingly, me. I started to realize that being put on this program, acting like I did not care about my okay grades, and getting referrals and negative comments by my teachers could really affect me later in life. It was a scary thought that I could have just screwed up my chances to get into a beneficial college and pursue the architectural career that I have wanted since eighth grade. Unfortunately, I still wasn’t ready to grow up. I looked at the impossibility of me changing my reputation and went the easy way out; I kept doing what my classmates expected of me and pushed away anyone who would try to help. At the end of the first semester of sophomore year, my parents were done giving me warnings, they announced that I was to be home schooled for the rest of high school. Homeschooled! I had gone to public school my whole life, and I was going to be homeschooled. No college would ever accept me with pass or fail grades, and I would have to leave all my friends, my popularity. However, the first week I was homeschooled I was strangely relieved. Instead of spending all my time trying to impress those around me, I was spending time with me, finding out who I wanted to become and seriously working on fixing my transcript.

Looking back, homeschooling me is the best thing my parents could have done. Yes, at the time it truly was the most negative time in my life, but I wouldn’t be who I am now if it weren’t for that experience. Somehow, I let high school get to me. You see, in the moment high school seems like the most important time of your life. But to be completely honest, most adults hardly remember their high school friends’ names. After high school no one cares about your popularity status: you can't put that on a resume or a college application.

My advice here is not to become a terrible person so that your parents are forced to home school you. My advice is to do exactly the opposite of what I did at the beginning of high school. Care about your grades, care about the activities that you join, strive to be the best. You don't want to limit yourself later in life by the choices you make in high school. You may not realize it yet, but starting freshman year, your decisions seriously start to affect you. However, don't be too worried. Get a couple bad grades and your life isn't over. Just don't let your peers determine your future. You have to live the rest of your life, not them. You need to be yourself. Go to high school to learn and to create an amazing future for yourself. You can do it.