It Takes A Failure To Succeed by Angelica

It Takes A Failure To Succeed by Angelica - August 2014 Scholarship Essay

Up until my senior year of high school, I was never good at the academic scene. Half the time I was unable to understand what I was being taught, and the other half of the time I didn’t care enough to actually apply myself. I was literally your stereotypical student in high school that thought this was all a waste of time, and if it didn’t make sense there was no point in trying.

However, my junior year of high school, that all changed.

It was the day of our orchestra-choir trip, and we were having to leave very early in the morning. It wasn’t until we were on the road for about an hour, and by then it was already five in the morning, that I realized I had not turn in an assignment. I shrugged it off, thinking that it was not going to be that big of a deal. It was just one assignment after all. I have missed a couple here and there, and I was always able to turn in the assignment late.

But not with this class. This class was Creative Writing. This class had a teacher that did not accept late work. This class only had five assignments. This class had this assignment worth 500 points, and determines whether or not we pass or fail the class.

During the time of the trip, I did not make the connection that it was going to be that disastrous. Upon arrival back home, however, I was shortly greeted with a wake of months worth of pain.

The first day back into the class the teacher had pulled me aside and had alerted me that I was not going to pass the class that quarter NOR that semester. I was shocked beyond belief; I always came close to failing a class, not actually failing! If that was not enough, she had called home that day. My dad had got the phone and found out. He was disappointed in me, but he was not upset.

However, I could not say the same about my mother.

She was furious. My dad told her about failing the class and in an instant I was in a phone call with her, listening to her sob and screech at me, saying over and over again how “my brother almost getting arrested was less of a disappointment than me failing a class.” It tore me down so fast and so hard that it wasn’t until then that I realized that I needed to be trying harder. I need to succeed in school.

After that experience, I forced myself to try hard. I worked hard and for once I was able to see the fruits of my labor. Now being in college, my grades are the highest they have ever been. My mother no longer considers me such the disappointment I am.

And it has proven that hard work actually does pay off.