Rearranging my Priorities by Wen

Rearranging my Priorities by Wen - January 2016 Scholarship Essay

Amongst different crowds of friends, I am either really smart, or not smart enough. Most of my friends have GPAs way above the 4.5 mark. Some of my other friends struggle a lot more with school and hold GPAs that are below 4.0. As a junior in high school, I currently have a cumulative academic GPA of 3.86. I know as a student, I am slow to learn and understand the material that teachers teach me. To understand a certain unit, I have to work extra hard just to obtain a C on the test. I have to spend a lot more time studying than someone who is a quicker learner.
This year, as a new goal, I want to use my friends as motivation. I can be up there with them as long as I put in all the extra work. To achieve this goal, I will have to cut out a lot of distractions from my social life and put more time into studying. For example, instead of hanging out with friends on Sunday, I could be using that extra day to be reviewing my notes and homework for an confusions or questions I would like to ask the next day in class. It would also mean spending lunch periods instead of chatting with friends, in classrooms with my teachers so I can get one on one tutoring on homework that I didn’t fully understand from the night before. As a new goal, I’m going to be rearranging my priorities and putting academics first because it is so much more important than enjoying a fun social life.