Fun or The Future by Ameilya

Fun or The Future by Ameilya - April 2019 Scholarship Essay

Graduation is something every student looks forward to and works toward. From kindergarten to senior year, our goal is to graduate high school and for many to graduate from college. As my senior year is ending, I am fortunate enough to get to graduate twice. How you may ask? Well, I participated in early college so I could graduate from high school and with my associate’s degree at the same time. This was one of the best experiences but also the most challenging academic experience I’ve ever had. Although it was so difficult, it is an experience that helped me to grow as a person and learn to manage my time wisely and be a better student.
Most high school students go to school for 8 classes a day, some seniors even get release periods after they’ve finished all their required credits, so they have even less classes. Throughout my senior year, I would go to all my high school classes and then come home to even more college classes! Sometimes this became extremely difficult to balance homework from both classes and extracurriculars. Luckily, I was able to take the classes I needed either through concurrent enrollment at the high school or online through the university, making things a little bit easier but still tough.
I was lucky enough to be able to be a part of my school’s chamber choir as well as in my school’s production of the Phantom of the Opera. I loved both experiences but both were super time consuming with lengthy rehearsals and weeks at time where I was at the school from 7 in the morning until 10 at night. It was during these times that I really learned the importance of time management and I spent every second of downtime working on homework for either high school or college classes.
Spending so much time on college classes caused me to miss out on some social opportunities though I found many ways to balance my social, extracurricular, and academic time that allowed me to still have fun with my friends and do all that was required of me while still maintaining a 4.0 grade point average in both high school and college. This was hard to do watching all my friends have fun and missing out on things, but I think I found a good balance while also learning to prioritize so that I accomplished what was asked of me.
Now that I am graduating and my last couple of college classes are ending, I am seeing and enjoying the pay-off of all those hard months and sleepless nights. I am now two years ahead of the game and am ready to jump in and start on my bachelor’s degree in the fall. I am very grateful for this opportunity not only because it helped me get a head start, but also because it taught me lots of valuable lessons about prioritizing and time management that I am sure will help me throughout college, my career, and my family life. As hard as it sometimes can be, I’m glad I can go through hard things and overcome them to come out a better person.