Trust Your Gut, Not Your Head by Grace

Trust Your Gut, Not Your Head by Grace - December 2024 Scholarship Essay

If you were to ask me what my favorite hobby is, I would tell you “reading.” Ever since I was a child, reading has always been something I loved. Writing was also something that came naturally to me, and every language arts class I’ve taken has seemed too easy for me. So, for my junior year, I decided to push myself and take AP Literature and Composition. On the first day of that class, my teacher wanted us to play a little game to get to know each other, and afterwards write an essay about something we liked. I thought the class would be a breeze, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. A week later, and we were writing 4-5 page essays on things like; Regulating AI or Is the Death Penalty Necessary? and I was shocked at the drastic change from the first week. The weeks went on, and things slowly got harder and harder. Instead of 4-5 pages, we would switch to 6-7 pages, and instead of getting 100% like I’m used to getting, my grade started to sink. This was partly because the teacher believed in only giving 100% to students that had perfect essays, and partly because I kept making silly mistakes in my essays so he took points off.
I then made a goal for myself to get 100% on at least one essay, and I would spend 2-3 hours after school writing and rewriting essays to achieve that goal. In the end, I was only able to achieve this once. By the end of the semester, I still had an A in that class, but it was only because I would spend countless hours writing these essays.
The second semester was even worse than the first. My teacher announced that we would have to take these “multiple choice tests” to prepare us for the actual AP exam, and they would be timed. Now, I’m not a very good test taker because I get stressed and make dumb mistakes, so I got really nervous. Thankfully, he said that we would be writing essays as well, and because of the first semester, I had pretty much mastered how to write a solid essay that would get me good marks. Fast forward to the first “multiple choice test” of the semester, and I bombed it. In fact, I did so horribly that after the class I sat in the bathroom and cried. I told my mom about it when I got home, and she made me feel a lot better.
However, I didn’t improve at all. Week after week I did horribly on the “multiple choice testing” part, and really well on the essay part. Naturally, you would think that because I did really well on the essay part that it would balance out, but the multiple choice part was always counted for more than the essays did.
After bombing my 3rd or 4th test, I went up to my teacher and asked for help. He then gave me more practice tests for me to try on my own time. I went home that evening and did my best on them, but nothing changed. I kept missing things or not choosing the best answer. I felt dejected. I couldn’t believe how hard it was, and for the first time in my life, I felt like the one thing I was naturally good at was suddenly gone. It was a horrible feeling, and I felt like that for months afterwards. I still tried my best, but it was never enough.
My breakthrough happened a month before the AP exam. I was still spending hours after school studying and taking these tests, and nothing was working. So I went up to my teacher again and asked him if there was anything else I could do. He sat me down at his desk and showed me a site dedicated to the AP Exam and told me to look through it. I pulled up the website on my chromebook after school, and they were examples of other people’s work and videos explaining how they did it. I watched these videos, and I came to the conclusion that I was trying “too hard.” Now, that sounds strange, but to make it simple, I was spending so much time trying to make my essays perfect or trying to pick the right answer that I totally ignored my gut feeling.
When I realized this, it made so much sense. I’ve always been a perfectionist, and more than not ignored my gut feeling to make it “perfect” instead. So for my next essay and multiple choice test, I went with my gut feeling and chose my answers based on that instead. When I got the results, I realized that I had done better than I’ve ever done before. The relief I felt was inexpressible, and I finally felt as if I was good enough for this class. I improved tremendously after that, and when I took the AP exam, I felt like I did better than I’ve ever done. Overall, I ended that class with an A-, and got a 3 on that exam, which was good enough for me.
In summary, I learned many things about myself while taking this class, but most importantly I learned that I need to give myself grace and accept that not everything has to be perfect.