One New Year's resolution - Becoming a Better Student in 2016 by Brenda

One New Year's resolution - Becoming a Better Student in 2016 by Brenda - January 2016 Scholarship Essay

One New Year's resolution that I have made for 2016 is to manage my time better. Because of the fact that I am a full-time working mother of two as well as student, time management is essential. I have been in school for the last two years working on my doctorate, and there are times when it has become almost overwhelming when trying to manage it all. There are times of guilt because I was studying so much and I felt
that I was taking away time from my children. Other times I felt that I was spending too much time with my family and not enough time towards my studies. Late in 2015 I had a very scary medical scare, in which the results of a mammogram that I had gotten came back questionable and I had to go back in for more diagnostic testing. Thankfully, after further testing which took several weeks, everything came back normal and I was not diagnosed with breast cancer. However what this situation did is made me realize how important and precious life is and to take time for myself and my family. However, that it was also okay that I was trying to better myself and my career by being in school. I had a long talk with my advisor because I had fallen off course for a couple weeks because of this scare. My advisor made me realize that everybody wanted to see me succeed, that it was okay that I felt overwhelmed, but that I just needed to take a deep breath, talk to my class instructor on how I could make up some of my homework assignments, and manage my time as I was getting these assignments done. This helped significantly as my class instructor was very understanding of the medical scare that I had, and allowed me to finish the assignments at my pace while still finishing all my other assignments, and was able to complete the semester on time. This was a very good lesson for me as I realized I put a lot of stress on myself and really have a difficult time asking others for help. Having the medical health scare that I did was a very dark time for me, as it almost froze me to the point where I was not able
to accomplish anything. I was already stressed and felt so much pressure to be a good mother, wife, and employee. The what ifs started – what if it is cancer?, what if I do not survive this? Because I was so overwhelmed with the stress of it all I literally shut down and did not have the emotional strength to do anything for several weeks. For 2016,
I have made a resolution to manage my time better so that I do not become so overwhelmed that I become stressed out to the point where it does affect my family and my health. I have discussed this with my family and have told them that I will try to do better at communicating with them when I felt overwhelmed or when I had a deadline to meet. I am also rearranging my schedule and eliminating other commitments that I
had kept, so that I do have more time for my family and school work. I do believe that this New Year's resolution that I have made of managing my time better will have will allow me to have a much healthier and less stressful 2016. Thank you.

Brenda Hendrick
10010 East Clark Street
Wichita, Kansas 67207
316.682.7966