Personal Narrative: An Alternative High School

I attended Eureka College, a liberal arts school, where I learned how to be a cheerleader. I studied economics and sociology.and I graduated with a C average. I played football, and I was captain of the swim team. During college, I was elected student body president and led a strike against the college president after he tried to cut back on faculty.

If someone were to ask me what I learned in high school, I could say a lot of things. I could talk about my Lifespan Development class and how I learned a lot about babies and prenatal care, and how much it helped me when my sister got pregnant and had questions that I always knew the answer to. I could talk about how much it helped me to learn how to multiply percentages in Algebra, because now when I go grocery shopping, I can add tax and know exactly how much money I’m spending before I even get to the register. I could even talk about how after taking a field trip with my Family Studies class, I realized that I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher. These are some of the things I learned in high school that prepared me for life or my next step in education. But if you were to ask me if the writing instruction I received in high school was effective in helping me prepare for the next step in my life, the answer would be no. The writing instruction I received in high school did not adequately prepare me for college.

Deciding to attend Texas A&M University was both a hardship and immense, opportunity in my life. Coming from a close knit background, and possessing a very family oriented character, my decision to come to this incredible institution was one out of my comfort zone. If I was to be asked one year ago, If I could ever see myself standing on this marvelous campus, attending one of the top schools in the nation, I would have honestly responded, no. My counselors would have said no, my friends, my college advisor, my family. The answer would not have been yes, not because I wasn 't capable of meeting the standards to attend, but because there seemed more obstacles in my way than there was forces pushing me forward.

When I first graduated high school I thought I wanted to be a pilot to fly airplanes, so I signed up to attend classes at Kishwaukee College located in DeKalb. ECC helped me sing up for classes at an in district rate because Elgin could not offer the courses that I wanted to me. During the first semester I found out that I did not want to become a pilot anymore and that I would be happier if I changed and focused on computer science. The advisors helped me schedule classes back at ECC for computer science then next semester. During the last year and a half at ECC I have been able to start fulfilling my education goals by getting a good education and find out what I want to go to college for.

Most of young students got marriage and dropped out of school by 11th and 12th grade. There were no examples in terms of academic aspirations or career options. Despite this fact, I dreamed of going to college. I developed a fascination with computer science from academic class and online courses, and started learning about software, codes, and web development. Even though the time and money are the issues for my higher education, I knew if I worked hard, got good grades and stayed focused, I would find a way to make my dream a reality.

As I traveled through each grade of the Croton-Harmon High School, my personal and academic goals helped to me to really flourish. These goals may have varied from year to year because a freshman is a little different from a senior, but they basically had all the same concept: I wanted to strive in school to be the best all-around student I could be, constantly stay focused and immerse myself in the Croton community. By setting my expectations and goals very high, I could flourish academically and really work to my full potential.

Growing up, for most people, going to college is not an option- its an expectation. In our society, going to college has become a fundamental part of our education, becoming an adult, and for most people just simply part of our lives. However, as people grow up and experience reality, the realization hits that college may not be as simple as once thought. As much as attending college is expected from the majority of young people, dropping out of college is not. Even with the idealization of the college experience, some students are forced to cut their education short due to a plethora of issues.

A true High school story cannot be believed. Most of the problems we face in high school involve sex, drugs, bullying, and endless drama. Parents and teachers are aware teenagers go through things like this I mean c’mon it’s the classic stereotype but they don’t seem to believe that they’re really happening anyway, the irony. The pressure to know the newest slang and trends is real and very much a struggle people face when trying to fit in. Therefore most people, specifically adults, can’t sympathized with what you go through in school because each experience is different. Sure we might share some similarities but in the end almost no adult believes the types of struggles we go through while in school.

When I started Unity High School I thought that it was going to be boring school because my first choice was Skyline but my mom made me come to this school so I had to obey what my mom wants because she takes care of me and helps me with whatever I need help with so going to the school that she wanted me to go to was the least I could have done. I thought that high school was going to be difficult because the work that my brother would bring home when he was in high school looked really hard and I did not understand most of the work he needed to complete. But I realized that I need to be taught the material before I go on and do the work and I learned that as soon as I started high school because I started getting the same work that my brother

The balloons are out, the flowers are in bloom, I smell summer. I smell a summer like no other. Not because the groundhog came out early this year, or because I was one year older, but because I was a graduate, from Gilkey International middle school (finally). Sophie comes up to me yelling, super excited for the night ahead, graduation. As we rehearse our ceremony, in our high inched heels and dainty fake eyelashes Charlie runs up behind us screaming in our ear jumping us out of our own skin. He laughs, we pretend to be delerious but how could we really be? Gilkey was over, we were all done there was really nothing more to fuss about. As the day comes to a close, and the festivities begin. We lign up, all dressed up and ready to go until something

Just shortly after 2:30pm on a Thursday, Heather and I pulled into the parking lot at the new Middle School and caught up with the rest of our English Comp class. I am dumbfounded by how this new Middle School has turned out. I was thirsting for knowledge about the new building yet the only thing I really wanted to know was the comparison between the new and old school’s way of learning and schedules. The building itself reminded me of college campuses that I have visited where the architecture is very geometric and intricate. The building itself looks as though it has been untouched and unused even though school has been in session for about a month and a half now. Even the landscape looked a bit off for a school because it was vast and open and there were only small, young trees planted around the building. One could see the potential this building will have down the road just by the exterior appearance.

We were rushing out of the room as fast as we could; the alarm was set to go off in just two minutes. The light switch was on the opposite side of the door so we had to run through the darkened room before it turned eleven. We finally made it out of the building, with two minutes to spare. It was that night that I learned how important it was to honor a commitment.

Beep, beep, beep, beep, bee- “Ugh,” I groaned. It was Wednesday morning and I had a big math final today. I got up out of bed and went to go open my white curtains, that hung low to my floor. The sun welcomed my face with a warm, bright embrace. Trying to avoid stepping over my school books and clothes, which are currently sunbathing on my dark hardwood floor, I went to go check my phone in bed. I saw nothing unusual, a bunch of Snapchat notifications, couple texts from my boyfriend, messages from my friends, some pictures that I was tagged in; the usual. After looking through and answering them I checked the time, 6:04 am, then went to go get ready for school, of course, with some music. After getting dressed, doing my makeup, and freshening up, I grabbed my keys and my ID then headed to the bus stop.

The Mora High School cafeteria is a very familiar place to me, with it’s columns in the middle of the room, the off-white paint, and white and blue tiled floor. The cafeteria is usually a place full of a lot of kids and incredible amounts of noise. It’s nearly empty except for the four tables placed in the formation of a square near the little nook where the lunch ladies serve us food, or at least what tries to pass as food. The seats around each table are occupied by the cast of Annie celebrating the completion of their second show. The cast of Annie doesn’t even come close to filling the cafeteria, but the noise level could nearly be the same as when it’s fully filled during lunch. Over the years that’s what I’ve come to expect from the play kids. Play kids are a special breed of people. We’re super quirky, and we don’t care what other people think about us. There may not be many of us, but we are very good at creating a lot of noise.

One of the places that I have personally observed and felt judgments based on my gender and presence was in high school debate. A fun fact about me is that I competed in Speech and Debate for four years and earned four varsity letters from my beloved GlenOak High School. My category was known as Public Forum Debate and my partner was my long time best friend Malcolm Guy IV. Two teams consisting of two people would give alternating speeches for their side, either affirming or negating the selected topic of the month. The side that I had to represent was determined by a coin flip at the beginning of each round. Every month each debate team prepared to defend and attack both the Con and Pro side. Topics ranged from the NSA, universal healthcare,