Proactive by Nevada

Proactive by Nevada - May 2015 Scholarship Essay

As I was approaching the end of my eighth grade year, I had an important decision to make: where I am going to attend high school in the fall. All students from my middle school were required to attend our local high school, Moon Valley, but I chose instead to attend Ironwood High School, which was outside of my school district, so I could be a part of the International Baccalaureate (IB) Program (none of the ten schools in my district offered IB). The International Baccalaureate Program is a rigorous, competitive program with the goal of making its students better-rounded and better prepared for college.

The students a part of the IB Program are generally the most hard-working and intellectual students at the school where the program is offered. So when you put the most hard-working and intellectual students in the same room for a majority of their classes for four years, it gets pretty competitive to say the least. These are the students who are fighting for the best grades in their school, the best class rank, the best grade point average. In addition, they are fighting for acceptance from the same colleges and achieving the same scholarships.

What sets me apart from the rest of my IB class is how proactive I am with everything I do. The biggest difference between IB and say Advanced Placement or Honors level classes are the large projects. We have a 4,000 word essay on the topic of our choosing, a two year community service project, a multi-month science project, and more. Although these projects do not have the same start and end date, it is not uncommon that IB has multiple projects going on at the same time. This is where being proactive really helps because I always complete one project before the start date of another, while for other students they wait until the deadline and try to complete multiple projects, sometimes in one weekend. By being proactive, I put out higher quality work than my peers. Another benefit of being proactive is the amount of rest I get compared to my peers. My IB class has a Facebook page called “IB Getting No Sleep” because they always talk about the little sleep they obtain because of IB. The little amount of sleep obtained is not because of IB, but because of the IB student. And I am proud to say that all throughout high school, I have not pulled a single “all-nighter” while some of my peers have stayed up all night over twenty times working on assignments/projects that are due the following day.

Being proactive is a skill I learned from my peers through IB. I saw how tired and miserable some of my peers looked because of their procrastination and I knew I did not want that for myself so I learned from their mistakes to always start my assignments/projects early. One of the most notable experiences that I learned was from one student on the day of Internal Oral Presentations (IOP). An IOP is a twelve to fifteen minute memorized speech on any topic revolving around the novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This one student procrastinated on writing and memorizing his speech until the night before and paid the consequence with his poor grade as he was not fully prepared. As for myself, I wrote my speech weeks in advance and had been practicing for weeks and it paid off when I was one of a few students to receive a 100% on my IOP.

High school is supposed to be four of the best years of your life. I knew when I chose to attend Ironwood to be a part of IB that I would have to put a lot of my time into this program to succeed in it, but at the same time, I wanted to enjoy high school. By learning to be proactive, I was able to obtain the best of both worlds with amazing grades (I will graduate in the top 3% of my class of 499 students) and an amazing high school experience. I never stayed up late because of IB and never allowed my social life to suffer because I began and completed my assignments early. Being proactive made me a better student and taught me how to be more organized and responsible; two important characteristics which I will carry with me for the rest of my life. Being proactive also allowed me to be a part of many extracurricular activities and hold many leadership positions in them. I was President of IB Club, Vice President of Spanish Honor Society, and Historian of the Academic Decathlon. I also was a member of National Honor Society, Future Business Leaders of America, and Key Club. With all of that, I also am on my school’s varsity volleyball team. Without being proactive, I would never have had time to help these clubs and my team prosper.