Start out Strong by Emma

Start out Strong by Emma - November 2014 Scholarship Essay

Four years. Four of the best and most important years of your life. Get involved, embrace new opportunities, but most important of all: do not goof off your freshman year! If you do, it will be like dragging yourself uphill on a very hot day. You may see a glass of refreshing ice water in the distance, but the glass moves a foot or so further away from you as you climb. In other words, start out organized, disciplined, and industrious or you may never catch up.

It starts and ends with you. There are so many distractions in high school. Football games, a plethora of clubs and activities, new kids, and all the fun opportunities that appeal to any American teenager. It is important to enjoy as many of these activities as you can handle, but pick and choose wisely. Do not sign up for everything and scrape by on homework. Do not stay up all night on Instagram and then fall asleep in math class the next day. And never wait until 11:00 p.m. the night before an assignment is due only to find out you were supposed to interview your grandparents for an essay on World War II. Instead, plan ahead. Break your homework down into bite-size pieces and whittle away at them around your extracurricular activities. When you do it this way, you'll find there's still plenty of time to play soccer, take a dance class, hang out with friends, or even read a book for pleasure!

Of course it is never the end of the world if you do not make class valedictorian. But it would be a shame to sell yourself short when it comes to applying to college. If you start out strong, you will finish the best you can, and that is all anyone can ever ask of you.