A Lack of Success by Tatum

A Lack of Success by Tatum - July 2023 Scholarship Essay

The word failure sounds very harsh. I would much rather use the definition “lack of success” to describe my biggest failure during my education. That lack of success would have to be the schooling that derived from the covid-19 pandemic.
During the pandemic, I was an online student for three years. I used the platform Edmentum which is completely teacherless. The only contact I had with a teacher was a once-a-week email to check-in. This program and the material on it had a lot of flaws. I remember the hardest class I took online was Geometry because it gave me a website to use but gave no instruction on how to use it as a tool for learning. Another really hard class was French 2 as it gave no English translations and often just showed pictures that could mean a thousand different things. I remember on my French 2 exam it asked, “What color is the dress?” All the options were spelled correctly and had proper accents, but there was no picture of a dress. So, you tell me, what color is the dress?
During this time period, I struggled in school. I was teaching myself things with a flawed program and YouTube videos. I had no help and I felt so hopeless. That time period of online schooling was my biggest lack of success.
Being an online student for so long I have been able to have more opportunities because I am not at school for eight hours a day. I used my spare time to open a small business which I use to help save money for college. My biggest failure during my education opened doors for other successes so was it really a failure? Or just a lack of success?