AVID by Theresa

AVID by Theresa - September 2017 Scholarship Essay

High school is filled with students who are stressing about homework, projects, and getting ready to graduate, over the years I would pick classes for the upcoming school year and the one elective class I have chosen that made a huge impact in my life would have to be AVID. AVID had shaped me into the student I am now. During freshmen year, I didn’t know how to manage time, be organized, take good notes, and ignored opportunities that could affect my future. Sophomore year came and during that year, I had made one of the best choices and chose AVID as an elective, this elective helped me shape into the student I am now. Cornell notes had saved my life because I would never know what notes I needed for a certain lesson, AVID had opened a door of tutors and new friends, they helped me become more organized and ready, but most importantly, it helped me believe in myself.

My AVID teachers and tutors would always encourage me to take harder classes and helped me on a subject or lesson I did not understand. They would take their time to help me understand everything I was struggling with, they would also tell me upcoming opportunities that will help me in a subject or for my future in college. Growing up, I would always focus on one college and ignore the rest, AVID opened that door and introduced me to other colleges that I might enjoy and look into. This elective always informed me about college requirements and what I should be aware of; teachers and tutors are slowly but surely shaping the students to become a successful student for both high school and college.
As a first generation college student, I do not know what to expect from college and how college works, during Junior and Senior year, AVID would set up days for students to visit different colleges in Utah, walking around the campus, sleeping over at Dixie, witnessing how class works had given a small gist of how college was. The tour showed me the different buildings, informed me what classes they offered, and gave me the college experience. It made me think about a lot of other colleges that I might enjoy and opened more options of different amazing colleges. AVID opened my eyes on other colleges and taught me to do more research on different colleges that I might enjoy and would fit with my major.

Not only does AVID help students with college, they also help students prepare for the ACTs. The teacher would recommend the students every day to go to the library to get help and study for the ACT because he/she wants us to have a great score for colleges. They would give us time every day to take a practice test that might be on the ACT’s and then we would correct them, if us students did not understand a question, the class can go over it and help the questioning student debunk what they did wrong so they would not make the same mistake on the test. They would also give bits of advice on what to do when you have five minutes left for that certain test and how to manage your time for each test. Not many students would take the advantage of getting free help on the ACTs, with AVID, not only are you getting free help, but you are also learning and remembering everything you had learned in your past education.