Cleverly Determined by Carrie

Cleverly Determined by Carrie - July 2014 Scholarship Essay

Growing up, I had a desire to learn, to be academically challenged, and to find somebody who was as willing for the challenge as myself. All through elementary school, middle school, and even high school, I breezed through school. Everything came easy to me. Tests others would study hours for, I would glance at the material for five minutes and do just as well if not better. While this might seem like a great situation for some students, I yearned for more. I wanted to learn, conceptualize, and analyze material, not regurgitate facts and cleverly talk my way through answers when I had not prepared. I finally got my wish my senior year of high school in my AP English class taught by the infamous Mrs. Wentz.

To start from the beginning, I had no clue why I was enrolling in AP English. This was notoriously known for being one of the hardest classes at my high school, something that did not bother me, but the fact that it was English bothered me. I am a math and science person, another fact that was known by all my friends and teachers. While I English was not a weak point of mine, I hated writing papers, and classic literature did not interest me, but the one thing this class provided was that challenge. I knew I could not talk my way through an essay over a book I did not read or hide in the four-person class. Mrs. Wentz knew this as well. After having her for an English class my junior year, I already knew she was the harshest grader in the school, but also one of the kindest and most attentive teachers.

Mrs. Wentz was the type of teacher who inspired her students. I came into AP English slightly intimidated; knowing the minimal effort I was used to giving was not going to grant me the same success I was accustomed to obtaining. Nevertheless, I not only wanted to prove to myself that I actually could handle the challenge of reading, analyzing, and picking apart all the “boring” literature I had avidly avoided throughout my life, but I wanted to succeed for her. It was her last year teaching after 25 years, and I wanted to be a part of the last class that she was proud to have taught. My fear was to be the person with potential who was too lazy to put in the work and make the effort. I was one of the first hand recipients from how much work she put into her teaching, and I wanted to reciprocate the favor.

Mrs. Wentz was not only a teacher who improved my writing (but not my emotions towards the subject), it was the way that she went about her teachings which made students appreciate her. The respect she gave me, as a student, is one of the things I most appreciated most about her. As a slightly too opinionated teenager, I never once felt that one of my thoughts was wrong. Numerous times before I had been ridiculed by other teachers for not having the “correct” opinion, but that never happened with Mrs. Wentz. She equally respected each one of her students. This included listening to the trials and tribulations of a teenager, demanding the best of each one her students through academics, and giving a calm, unbiased opinion when asked.

By the end of my high school career, I had gone from a cocky freshman, whose academic effort was mediocre at best, to a budding adult, ready and willing to learn, ready to start the foundation of my future life, and eager to get started. I gone through high school doing the necessities to make it through, even if I was very successful a long the way, it was not until my English class that Mrs. Wentz reinstalled that drive and ambition to learn that I started to lose during those years. She made me want to succeed not only for myself but also for others around me. Mrs. Wentz drove me towards success not only in this class, but also for my college career, and made me realize the result is so much sweeter after the work, time, and effort that I now unintentionally put into everything.