How to Help Me Achieve My Potential by Lauren

How to Help Me Achieve My Potential by Lauren - January 2015 Scholarship Essay

To a current teacher. In your profession you have the remarkable ability to truly impact my future. Your actions will aid and guide me into my future profession and choices I will go on to make. My advice is to share you passion! Whatever you are passionate about in an academic setting let that shine and really allow you to connect with your students and for them to gain an interest in something you can be share an interest. Making a connection like this will allow them to look to you for guidance as they grow and potentially to go into a similar field. I'm not saying that every biology professor needs to try and make everyone love science and understand that not everyone will but they can still succeed in that class. Also struggling in a class and having someone work with you is more memorable then breezing though a class. By taking the time to help a student learn something they may not enjoy or have more difficulty understanding will greatly serve them for their future as they will have the ability to remember this experience and benefit from it.

In 7th grade, I had just started at a new school. I had gone to a private school before and now I was at a public school, I had textbooks for the first time, something that was very exciting yet daunting. I was in a biology class that year, and on the first day we had a homework assignment. I was so excited to go home and cover my textbook and also to use it for my homework. Wrapped up in my excitement I completed the first page of the assignment and never flipped it over. I got to class the next day to hand it in and as I was turning it in realized I had only done half. Not a good way to start the year! I am an excellent student but this teacher didn't know who I was nor that it was a mistake. She took the time to show me how to read a textbook and to learn how to complete our assignments. In her class my love of science blossomed and I am making a career out of that love for science. It is the little personal touches that can really impact someones life. Her science projects that were very engaging outside of the classroom and her passion for what she taught was infective and 7th grade science remains one of my favorite classes that I have ever taken.