It Takes More by Michaela

It Takes More by Michaela - July 2016 Scholarship Essay

In high school I remember striving to do what I needed to get the grade that I thought was good, (or good enough at least). After learning new material in class, I would forget about it until a few days before test day. I figured, “If I learned this on Wednesday, and the test is next Tuesday, I can start studying on Saturday and have three full days to prepare.” Logical? Sure. Efficient? Most times. But what happens after Tuesday when the test is over? It wasn’t until I reached 11th grade Honors Biology that my meticulous method would no longer suffice.

Ms. Yen’s Honor’s Bio is what I signed up for, unaware of what I was really getting myself into. The first class of the year she told all of us, “Don’t ever say you don’t get bad grades, or ‘this grade is so not what I usually get’, because now you do and now it is.” She didn’t say this to scare us out of the class or to portray herself as someone you should fear (she’s actually one of the nicest people I’ve ever met). Ms. Yen told us that because she knew students had the mentality of doing the work rather than learning it. And in her class… that would never work. In all honesty I thought she was exaggerating when she closed the class with that statement, but then I got a C on her very first test.

I remember thinking to myself exactly what she said not to on the first day of class. Towards the middle of the year she expressed to all of us that if you really want success, you have to put in effort every night of your studies. Ms. Yen explained when she was in college; she would review what she learned in class that day for 5-10 minutes each night. When final exams came she never had to fret and study like everyone else because she didn’t just memorize the information from her lessons, she learned it. Everything was engraved and all she had to do for finals was read over her notes once or twice.

It was at that point in my high school career I realized it takes more than doing the work and forgetting about it later. I learned the crucial lesson of actually studying your notes every night. I began to genuinely prepare for the test by understanding all of the test material days or even weeks ahead of time. Her class was never easy, but it became 3x less challenging by simply reviewing class notes the same night we were taught them. This way, I actually mastered what I was about to be tested on, and three nights prior (when I would usually begin my studies) I had the information already locked in, only needing to glance at my notes.

Success starts with you. You have to want to do better to get better. I graduated from high school with high honors and am now a college Freshman, and a student of my university’s Honor’s College. The remainder of my high school years would have been more challenging and less rewarding had I not learned the lesson of persistence and dedication from Ms. Yen’s class.