Beating Procrastination by Devyn

Beating Procrastination by Devyn - August 2014 Scholarship Essay

My high school was on the block schedule. That meant that we had four classes a day, each class lasting ninety minutes, with a new class schedule every semester. I was still in the GATE (Gifted And Talented Education) program until the end of my sophomore year, when this story takes place. In the spring of my sophomore year, I had Playwriting, GATE English, GATE World History and Play Production. I was on the costume crew for the school's spring musical, Damn Yankees. Towards the end of the semester, I had several different projects from my first three classes all due around the same time. In addition to my final papers closing in, the school production was opening soon and, as part of the Play Production class, I was expected to stay there until almost 7pm. Occasionally, we would be dismissed early, but were expected to be back by 5pm, and would be done usually around 11pm. Unfortunately, I took the bus home from school, which took roughly forty-five minutes both ways. This usually meant that I would get home, have just enough time to have a snack and pack something for later before I had to turn around and head back out to the school. That didn't really leave me a whole lot of time to work on my essays, so of course, my grades started to slip. REALLY slip. I will admit, I did procrastinate a lot. I had plenty of down time during rehearsals, I could have brought my laptop to work on at school. I just chose not to.

My English grade dropped to an F, my History grade to a D and my Playwriting grade to a C. I had teachers calling home, concerned about my grades but I just kept shrugging it off. "Once the musical opens, I can work on it." That was okay, until the Play Production teacher sat me down and gave me an ultimatum. I either bring up my grades or I wouldn't be able to help with the musical. That was my wake up call. I went home and sobbed, thinking my grades were far beyond repair. But the next morning, I decided that wasn't going to happen. I was going to pull my grades up! Every moment that wasn't already dedicated to class time or actual work time during rehearsal was spent on my laptop, typing up and editing my final essays. A few short weeks later, while I didn't have straight A's, I did get the grades to help out with the show. My final English grade was a C, History and Play Production a B and Playwriting an A. I may be a film major, but my first love will always be theatre. Threaten to take me out of it, there's nothing I won't do to stay in.