The Game Plan by Jeffrey

The Game Plan by Jeffrey - August 2014 Scholarship Essay

During 2008, I met a young woman in one of my classes. We hung out quite a bit leading to us ultimately dating for nearly two years after. Why is this significant? Everybody has their view on dating while in school. Though not technically controversial, it is still up for debate on the risks of dating while completing ones studies. At least, if one is to give themselves to a relationship, one has to be prepared and determined to push through any negative aspect of that relationship as it arises. I did not!

I was not prepared mentally for a relationship while completing my studies. This was evident by the way I invested myself into the relationship and how I handled the situation when it arose. In 2009, nearing the end of the relationship, I began my second academic year. About a month into the semester, I was blind-sided by the breakup of the relationship and caused me to go into hiding. Because of the breakup, I started missing classes, neglecting my responsibilities, and my grades began to decline.

Let me be clear, I don’t blame the breakup for my academic failure; I blame myself for not handling the situation as an adult were to handle it. The way I ignored my responsibilities was immature. It was still early enough for damage control. These types of things happen all the time and we are all human, as to say the emotional reaction to that sort of situation would relatively be the same. It is, then, the next steps that show if you are prepared or not. I had three choices I could make at the time: 1. Readjust my focus on my studies and really bear-down on the books, 2. Withdraw from my courses so there would be no significant impact on my academic record, or 3. Runaway from everything and let the chips fall where they may. I, obviously chose number 3 and I am currently paying the price to rectify that decision.

That situation was not the end of me and my academic career, though. After some healing and an assessment of the damage done, I did a self-evaluation on what’s really important, what I did wrong, and how to proceed in the future. From that period, I found what I was truly passionate about and, because of the time lost, forced me to create a game plan for the future. The hit my academic record took meant that I would have to buckle down and do an exceptional job if I wanted to salvage my record in a timely fashion. I did so when I re-enrolled in classes in 2013 maintaining a 4.0 GPA during the academic year. There is still work to be done to build my CGPA to where I would like it to be but because of my dedication within the past year, I was able to build my GPA exponentially; enough so to be accepted into an elite 4 year university for the fall 2014 semester. This dedication was born from my academic failures of 2009 with a promise to be true and to not lose myself again.