Not just academics, but life lessons too by Itzel

Not just academics, but life lessons too by Itzel - August 2013 Scholarship Essay

My senior year was coming to an end and all of my classmates were very excited about it. We had all been waiting for the day we graduated high school and got out of there. I mean who isn’t excited about graduating and leaving the prison they went to for four years. My excitement was too much that I wasn’t paying attention to what was actually going to happen in reality.
I walked into my AP Environmental class and everyone settled down when the bell rang. I looked up at my teacher and he was just sitting there staring at back at us. He wasn’t writing on the board or putting up a power point to give us a lecture. I found it strange and looked at everyone around me. They all had a confused look on their face. My teachers name was Mr. Sim. When Mr. Sim finally decided to say something to us, his words were “you guys have no idea of what’s going to happen once you cross that stage huh?” We all looked at him thinking is he okay? One of my classmates decided to say “yeah, we’re going to finally get high school over with.” He then looked at us and told us to pay attention to what he was going to say.
I still remember his speech like if it was yesterday. The thing that I will always remember is when he said “your life starts now, realize what you are going to do with it, and never let anyone tell you that can’t.” That day he told us that once we crossed that stage on graduation day, what we were leaving behind was a legacy at school, but also a lot of memories in each and every single one of our hearts. We were a graduating class of one hundred and thirty five Hispanics in a charter school, who had never been surrounded by diversity. We were about to leave our comfort zone and enter a new one, that we had to adapt to. He had high expectations of all of us and saw us all doing bigger and better things for our community and the world. He asked us to look at each other and remember that we spent four unforgettable years together and to never forget them when we come across each other again when we are experienced adults in the working world.
That day in class, the lesson I learned was that it was time to grow up, take responsibility of my actions, and always overcome the obstacles that were soon coming my way. Not everything in life was going to be easy, but everything was going to be possible. I was going to enter the college life and I knew I wanted to finish college strong and achieve all my goals. That day in Mr. Sims environmental class, I learned a life lesson and not a standardized lesson. A life lesson, that I will always take into consideration and remember it. Now I started college, and I went back to visit the teacher that took the time to teach us a life lesson, and I wasn’t the only one that did. What I took from that day was the knowledge to never give up and always remember those who want to see you succeed in life.