How My Struggle Turned Into Success by Brittanie

How My Struggle Turned Into Success by Brittanie - June 2016 Scholarship Essay

This past year I endured my toughest class thus far, Honors Trigonometry/Pre-Calculus. For my educational entirety, I have earned straight A’s and taken nearly all honors or advanced placement courses. I entered Trigonometry with the same high aspiration of earning another A. At first it seemed that I had a teacher that would be there to help every step of the way during the year, but as the year progressed, she expected us to become more and more independent. She truly treated us like college students, and I absolutely loathed it! She expected us to learn the material, understand it, and be prepared for the tests on our own time. There was no extra credit and no grade for homework, so what you got on the tests, was your grade that was reflected for the class.
First semester began as mainly review from Algebra II, the class taken before Trigonometry. As we got later into the semester, we began to actually do Trigonometric Properties; thus commencing the more challenging part of the class. Although the class got more challenging, I was still able to handle it and easily maintain an A. I understood this semester so well, that I got a perfect score on that semester’s final exam. Words cannot explain how unbelievably proud of myself I was. I knew I understood the materials, but I had NO clue that I understood it so much to literally ace the final. With first semester having gone so well, I wholeheartedly thought that second semester would be no different. I was completely wrong!
We began second semester with small review from the previous semester. I struggled with the new lessons that we were learning with. We dove deeper and deeper into mathematical concepts that I had never even heard of. We did statistics and began calculus. I heard words like derivative and integral, and before I knew it my grades were plummeting. I began getting B’s and C’s on quizzes, when I was used to getting A’s and maybe a B every blue moon. It was when I took a quiz that I did so poorly on that it dropped my grade by 3 percentages, that I really began to break down and doubt myself. I cried to my mom, and I even cried to my teacher. She told me that she knew I would be upset from the grade I got because I normally scored so much higher than I did on that particular quiz. As we got closer to the end of the second semester, I knew I needed to give this class my all and study harder than I ever had in my life. I knew if I didn’t get my act together, I could possibly receive my first B ever in a class. I began to make my own quizzes, watch YouTube videos on the lessons, and do extra homework problems just to make sure I fully understood everything. My grades began to crescendo, and before I knew it, I was making A’s again. Even though I didn’t get a perfect score on my second semester final, I still finished the class with an A, and that was all that mattered to me.
While first semester had its rocky times, second semester was unlike any challenge I had ever experienced. However, I managed to pull through. By overcoming this difficult challenge, it taught me to never give up no matter how hard the obstacle may get. It also taught me that I can achieve anything I put my mind to, along with some hard work and dedication. This class helped me to learn new, effective study habits that will benefit me for the rest of my educational career. While there were times that I hated the class, looking back on it now, I could not possibly appreciate it any more!