Chaos in Chemistry Class by Shiwan

Chaos in Chemistry Class by Shiwan - June 2019 Scholarship Essay

As an arrogant sophomore student whose only known how to receive straight A’s throughout his entire educational past, I enrolled in Honors Chemistry, a rigorous course known for its strict and authoritarian teacher by the name of Mrs. Pendleton. Failure was never an option nor experience for me, and I always went about things in isolation, which always seemed to work out for me. However, I soon learned that the system Mrs. Pendleton had in place for her class was college based; something I have never dared to try. Using my knowledge and optimism, I did my usual strategy and soon realized that it is not effective at all- seeing that my grade dropped to a C the first two weeks into her class. Time progressed, and my grade was only getting worse. Sometimes I would stay up all night thinking of my fate if I was to keep this horrific grade, and if this embarrassment was to be placed among my other good grades. I would hate it if something as simple as a grade held me back from reaching my dream, or if it were to bring down my class rank and sabotage my chances of becoming valedictorian or anything special in the future. I grew into feeling hatred and anger towards Mrs. Pendleton and slightly towards myself for ever deciding to take her class in the first place. These poisonous thoughts haunted me every day from the day my grade dropped to the day I came to the realization that no amount of sorrow I feel for myself would ever bring my grade up.
After much deliberation, I also realized that this was my first time failing, which is why it was so hard on me. Once I knew that at the end of the day, anger and complaining would not get me anywhere, I began to reflect on ways I could get back up. So the next day I visited Mrs. Pendleton to ask for ways I can bring my grade up before the end of the semester. She said that extra assignment are not provided but I could come in on my own time during office hours to seek help with the material. She also suggested that similarly to college, her class is not based on main points during lessons, but the information in between them. Taking her advice, I paid extra attention during lectures and wrote down the main points of the lesson on a sheet of paper that I would later research for information that would be categorized as the “information in between” Mrs. Pendleton spoke of. As the semester progressed, visits to Mrs. Pendleton’s classroom during office hours combined with my new college-based strategy gradually helped my grade improve on assignments, quizzes, and tests until my overall grade astonishingly raised to a low B. After this, I experienced an epiphany that in order to move forward in life, one must ask for help, I have always been locked up in my little shell of isolation and for the first time, I have come out to ask for help.
Once I stopped the bleeding, it was up to me to heal the wound. In other words, raise my grade to an A. As finals approached, I have raised my overall grade to an 87% and was optimistic that my score on the finals will bump me up to an A. So I approached Mrs. Pendleton to ask for the grade I needed on the finals to raise my grade to a 90%. After asking, she told me that it would be impossible to do so. The instance those words came from her mouth, I felt like my world stopped spinning. I stood there in agony thinking of all the hard work I put forth and how it will not pay off. I was too late to change anything else and ended the first semester of Honors Chemistry with a B. However I did not let this setback bring me down. Since I could not get what I wanted the first term, I saw no issue in redeeming myself the second term. Using my knowledge of how to play Mrs. Pendleton's game, I worked hard and finally received an A the next term and now stand as a beginning Senior, with a 4.6 g.p.a, ranked second in my graduating class, all made possible thanks to my favorite teacher- Mrs. Pendleton- who taught me the importance of seeking help, recovering from a downfall, and most importantly how to fail. I was once fearing failure all the time because of my inexperience of it and avoided any routes that I felt would potentially lead to it, but after Mrs. Pendleton's class, my education was impacted beyond a simple letter grade for an honors chemistry class; the next year I excelled in four AP classes and one honors class, and despite not getting the grade I wanted the first term in Chemistry, everything was okay at the end. At first, I was on the brink of dropping the class, but now I am eternally grateful for the dose of reality honors Chemistry gave me. I feared failure so much that I did not even realize that this feeling was exactly what held me back from greatness, after all, it is not how many times you fall, it is how many times you get up.

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