How I Overcame an Academic Challenge. by Emily

How I Overcame an Academic Challenge. by Emily - April 2019 Scholarship Essay

My name is Emily and I am currently a senior at Timberlake High School. I normally do pretty well in school because I am a hard worker who gets things done on time and I am also pretty organized. Throughout my past 4 years of high school nothing ever truly challenged me until my first semester of this year.

To start off the year I decided to take anatomy, government, economics, trigonometry/pre-calculus for college credit, English for college credit, and a class called sports medicine. As you can see I wasn't really taking any easy classes that I could mainly work on homework in like I did in the past, so every night I had homework and not to mention I was taking way harder classes then I ever had before. I was struggling to keep up and do well especially in my English, anatomy, and sports medicine classes.

In English I struggled with the amount of work we had to do in such a short period of time and how the essays needed to be written. Every essay except two I was either a D or an F and it was frustrating me because I felt I was doing well on these essays. We were expected to work fast and to get things done on time more than any other class and if you turned it in late you could only get half credit so that stressed me out quite a bit. I also struggled when it came to the final because we mainly worked on essays and reading the stories that we were assigned that we didn't do much with grammar which is what the final was on.

In anatomy and sports medicine I struggled because I didn't know much about the human body or sports. The students around me didn't help much either when they seemed to know quite a bit already and seemed to understand everything the teacher was saying while I was struggling to just get the simple concept. I also struggled when it came to trying to remember all the terms they wanted you to remember and to keep them straight. My anatomy final wasn't that bad but my sports medicine one threw me off quite a bit. Instead of a regular paper test my teacher tested you on how well and fast you could tape an ankle. My teacher also had us give a ten minute presentation on a certain injury we chose and got approved by her.

To overcome these challenges I studied my butt off, when I never had to study before, created flashcards,practiced what I could outside of school, and asked for help. My English grade went from a C to B with these changes. It kept my anatomy grade from falling and it helped me to pass the tests and finals in sports medicine. If I wouldn't have stuck with these classes and figured out new ways to succeed I wouldn't be the better version of myself now and I would not be prepared for college.