The Finer Arts of Time Management and How to Ask for Help by Katie-Beth

The Finer Arts of Time Management and How to Ask for Help by Katie-Beth - November 2013 Scholarship Essay

The most important things I have learned in high school are time management and how to ask for help when I need it.

My freshmen year, these things were not a huge problem for me. Although I was taking all honors classes I seemed to have hardly any homework, and even when I did it was always fairly easy. Then my sophomore year hit. I was taking Honors English 10, AP European History, Honors Algebra Two, Principles of Engineering, Chemistry, and fourth year Spanish. All of these classes are either Advanced Placement or senior courses. Also, the fact that I Irish Dance and was secretary of my high school’s FIRST robotics team, did not help my inability to balance everything. I was swamped with things to do and there simply were not enough hours in the day to get them all done. School started to suffer along with my health, but then I decided to limit what I was doing. After my dance regional in November, the dance season started to wind down so I did not spend as much time dancing. I started making sure that I got all my homework done in robotics before I did anything else, much to the annoyance of my mentors.

Even though I had a little more time on my hands I was still struggling with my Algebra. My class had a long term substitute teacher from October to March, due to our teacher being out on maternity leave. As if that was not bad enough the substitute was under qualified to be teaching Algebra Two, so I asked one of my friend’s dad, a math professor at the local community college to tutor me. I had always been slightly terrified of asking for help, because it seemed like whenever I did I would either be laughed at because they thought it was a joke, or flat out refused. My sophomore year I learned that people are actually willing to help.

The most valuable lessons I have learned in high school are the finer arts of time management and how to ask for help.