The Key to Success by Aubrey

The Key to Success by Aubrey - December 2017 Scholarship Essay

The thought of a school project-especially a group project—can cause many stomachs to churn. Working hard to earn a grade on a subject you may or may not know very much about can be very stress-inducing. Throughout my high school career I too have struggled with projects and I have not had success on every one. Upon looking back on all of my past projects, there is a common theme: those I start within a few days of the teacher assigning them have been the ones from which I receive the best grade.
Often when the teacher assigns, or even brings up, any type of project I push it to the back-burner of my mind; with other difficult classes and other things to be doing outside of school as well, this is very easy to do. However, when I was assigned a project in my history class—one that turned out to be one of the best grades I have ever gotten throughout high school—that night I went home and began looking over the rubric and thought through the topic—which was not one of my most passionate topics at the time. By doing this early, I budgeted my time and was able to use the small amount of class time my teacher gave us to the best of my ability and was able to really stay focused.
I also attribute my success on this project because of my willingness to get ahead. Rather than waiting until the weekend before to start it, by starting early I was able to be most successful and have the most time to dedicate to my project. This helped especially when I would get frustrated when working on my project, I did not have to continue to work on my project, instead I could stop for the night, regardless of what I had completed, and call it a night. This freedom kept me moving forward in small amounts and kept me from wasting time “spinning my wheels” and not making any progress.
Asking questions about the project has also given me much success, but only when I have time to ask those questions. One paper I wrote was particularly challenging for me. I started the paper about three days before most of the other people in my class. In that time I realized I was not well prepared to write the paper and even when I thought I was prepared I didn’t know where to start. I had time to go in early in the morning before school twice, both for about a half of an hour each and work one-on-one with my teacher and get help when I felt stuck and lost on this paper. Another student in my class was also feeling lost about the paper. Rather than starting early, she decided to wait until the night before it was due to attempt to write the paper. Obviously, this did not go over well. The next day in class the paper was not written and she still did not know where to start. Thankfully our teacher was very forgiving and allowed her to turn in whatever she had written at the end of the day for full credit. I will never forget the look she gave me as she walked upstairs to turn in her hastily done paper—she had a look of pure regret. If she had started her paper earlier she would have had time to talk to the teacher and have her questions answered and would have been way more successful and gotten a much better grade on the paper.
Starting early is easily one of the easiest ways to be successful in any school project. I have found that asking for help, budgeting my time, and stopping when I was tired or overwhelmed have all given me the most success and the best grades in my projects. Even when I am doing a project on something I am not too interested in, by allowing myself time to get into the topic and dive deep into the project I usually find I do like the topic after all.