Overcoming Entropy by Tessa

Overcoming Entropy by Tessa - April 2019 Scholarship Essay

When I signed up for AP Physics my junior year, I expected a challenge. Instead, I received chaos. My teacher lacked answers to our questions about the confusing homework assignments she gave us. She walked out of our classroom almost daily. On the rare occasion when she did teach, I understood about as much as I would have if she had been speaking Chinese. Our tests were even more difficult than the homework, and I felt faced with an impossible task. However, our class learned to tackle the madness together.

Our motivation was a simple desire for passing grades. We had a general idea of the test material, but we knew there was still a chance that the test could contain nothing we had studied. Our poorly written textbooks, Google, and our own brains were the only tools at our disposal, but we were determined to not fail the course.

The twelve students in our class couldn't have been more different; we had musicians, athletes, artists, robotics students, FFA members, and Fortnite addicts. Our contrasting interests and personalities could have isolated us or separated us into cliques, but instead, our shared predicament united us.

Soon we developed order in the classroom, and naturally people began to take roles based on their own unique strengths. We quickly realized that Carlos, a senior with an obsession with calculus, was the first to solve almost any physics problem. However, teaching was not his strength, and when attempting to explain a problem, he often used calculus terms that left our peers confused. Coleman, Jordan, and I worked together to rectify this issue. Jordan would often be the first one to figure out a solution using algebra, which our teacher required, and Coleman and I would explain the calculations to the rest of the class. Afterwards, Reese and Ryan, who knew the contents of the supply closet as if it was their home, would often grab materials to test our new knowledge through experimentation.

Throughout the semester, I learned physics- kinematics, forces, scalars, and vectors- but more importantly, I felt the satisfaction of reaching success as a team. I learned how to study without the help of a teacher and how to be self-motivated. I proved to myself and my peers that hard work truly pays off.