Academic Obstacles Aren't Always A Bad Thing by Kaylah

Academic Obstacles Aren't Always A Bad Thing by Kaylah - June 2016 Scholarship Essay

I was once heard a famous quote by Moliere, “The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.” Overcoming obstacles is hard but wonderfully gratifying. If achieving goals were easy, everyone would do it quickly and without difficulty. Even if you can clearly see your destiny, there are always obstacles in the path. It's the joy and journey of clearing those obstacles that makes life rich and helps people feel truly accomplished when they finally reach their pinnacle of success.
In the second semester of my junior year, I started taking a chemistry course. The chemistry teacher was new to the school and so far he was receiving a lot of good reviews. During the first semester, I always heard about how smooth the course was going for other students and how well Dr. Mcintosh taught the curriculum. Whenever someone didn’t understand something, he would personally help them to make sure they understood everything, step by step. I thought it would be the same experience for me, but unfortunately it wasn’t. I only had him as a teacher for no more than two weeks before he broke the news to us.
Since science was always my field of weakness, I never liked to take any classes related to it. I first thought I wasn’t going to like this chemistry course, but once I heard about the kind of teacher Dr. Mcintosh was, I decided to give him and the course a chance. The Dr. Mcintosh took his time with me and actually made sure I understood everything, made me realize how much he cared about his students and their success. I was beginning to really like the class, until he told us he was leaving. This was both a good thing and a bad thing.
Dr. Mcintosh came all the way from Switzerland to come teach at Foundation Collegiate Academy, as a chemistry teacher. He thought he was going to be there for a really long time until his wife was given a job offer back at home. At first Dr. Mcintosh was hesitant about going back home but he soon realized that the job offer his wife was given was financially a better opportunity. He told us it saddened him to leave, but he had to do what was best for his family. A few days after the news was broke to us, we received even worse news. We were told that since Dr. Mcintosh would be leaving on such short notice and there wasn’t enough time to find a replacement, we had to begin taking an online course.
I absolutely hated that idea and I did not approve of it not one bit. In my sophomore year I heard all the cons about taking an online course. The same thing happened to a group of my friends when they were taking a French course and their teacher unexpectedly left. This online course messed up their grades terribly and they didn’t learn anything from the course. Since it was online and their instructor didn’t speak any French, they couldn’t receive any of the necessary help they needed.
Similar to their story, the same thing happened to me. When I first started chemistry and had an instructor teaching the class, I was able to maintain a solid A. Once that teacher left and I had to do an online course, it was like my grade dramatically dropped. The work became more and more confusing as I moved further into the course. I began to get frustrated, not wanting to do it anymore, so I decided to take a short break from it. That break went on longer than expected and I ended up falling behind. Once I saw that the deadline was coming up, I knew that I couldn’t procrastinate any longer. I needed to get the work done and I knew that there was only one way to do it.
At first, I thought about waiting until my other classmates did the work, so that I could learn from them. But once I thought about the idea, I figured out that it would only make me fall more behind than I already was. Instead of sitting around and waiting for others to complete the work, I went to find my own help. I went to find my own tutor and other online sources that would help me complete the course. By taking this initiative, not only did I get a lot of work done, I also ended up ahead of a lot of my peers.
This obstacle was a major block in my road to success, but it taught me a very valuable lesson. I learned that if you procrastinate and not take the initiative to get things done, then your quest will be much harder to complete. Using your time wisely and to your best advantage, is the best thing you could do when something like this is thrown your way.