A New Me by Megan

A New Me by Megan - January 2016 Scholarship Essay

Every New Year people gather around to share their resolutions for the upcoming year. Common resolutions include losing weight, spending more time with the family, quitting smoking, or eating healthier. However as a student it is important to come up with resolutions that will not only be helpful in everyday life, but that can also be used to make yourself into a better student. Setting goals is the easiest way to translate thoughts into actions. This year my New Year’s resolution as a student is, to find a way to eliminate or reduce my academic anxiety. If I can bring my stress levels down I can focus more on the curriculum and become a better student. High anxiety can hinder academic success, but luckily there are ways that it can be controlled.
Being an honors student generates a great deal of stress. I find myself constantly trying to find time to complete papers and projects and still make time to have fun. For a student there are just not enough hours in the day. With so much to do and so little time to complete it self-doubt starts to creep into my life. I always wonder if I’m doing enough studying to get that A+ on my biology test or if my essay was believable enough to get a good grade on it. There are times I find myself lying awake in bed mentally going over notes to make sure I am prepared for whatever the next day has to throw at me. This means that I am already starting the next day off with a lack of sleep. Test anxiety is terrible. Before a quiz or test I work myself up into a panicked state. It is as if none of the studying or preparing I have done is enough. The anxiety makes it feel like getting a bad grade is the end of the world even though, quite obviously, it is not. More often than not I find this anxiety was unnecessary because I did indeed know the material. That does not stop it from occurring though. This is problematic because I worry about how I do right up until I take the test which means my anxiety may be causing me to miss important information about other classes or activities. Although I am a good student my anxiety sometimes causes me to do worse than I would have liked to do on quizzes, test or any other school related assignments
I think there are three things this year that I can do this year to help manage my academic anxiety. The first is eliminating my self-doubt. I know I am an honors student for a reason; I work hard and study until I feel prepared. I make sure to learn the material my teachers throw at me to the best of my ability. Second guessing myself on tests, projects, or essays just increases my anxiety. It makes me feel like I am less prepared than I actually am. Self- doubt can lead to silly mistakes. I need to learn to believe in myself more. The second thing I can do to decrease my school related anxiety is ¬¬¬do the best I can and be proud of the result. Nobody is perfect. I have, and I’m sure I will again, gotten disappointing grades on all sorts of assignments. I need to make sure these disappointing grades are not a setback, but rather a learning tool. A bad grade could mean maybe I should have asked more questions, or tried to approach the assignment in a different way, but it does not mean that I am a bad student. Being proud of all the time and effort I put into school, and learning from my mistakes, would reduce my anxiety dramatically. I also believe taking time to enjoy school and not just going through the motions of doing assignments will reduce my academic anxiety. Studying and doing homework are all an important part of being a good student, but it doesn’t mean anything unless you find a way to enjoy it. Otherwise I feel like I will be missing important parts of school and I believe it would become easy to resent it because it was consuming all my time. If you learn something, but hate learning about it you are certain to forget it as soon as it is no longer relevant. This is not productive learning, instead it is simply memorizing. Learning is the most important part of being a successful student.
This New year, in order to become a better student, I want to focus on reducing my academic anxiety. Academic anxiety can hinder academic achievement which puts serious stress on a student, especially an honors student. In order to reduce this anxiety I need to stop doubting myself, be proud of what I accomplish, and find a solid balance between school and fun. If I can do this I can become a much better student in 2016.