Personal Narrative: My Life After High School

I began slacking off inside as well as outside of the classroom. I stopped doing homework to my best ability’s, stopped studying for tests, and worst of all I was lying to my mother. For almost four months I treated my mother poorly. I constantly lied to her face about how my grades were. I had been digging my own grave and I didn’t even know it.

Who is to say that failure cannot ultimately lead you to success? Most people fail at some point in their lives, and they have to generally fail at something before they can ultimately reach success, even though failure can be defined as a lack of success. A person fails because they did not adequately prepare for success. As a sophomore in high school, one of the high school courses that I was required to take was American Literature and Writing. I did not have myself signed up for any of the AP classes offered, so I lacked familiarity with the struggles a typical student endures while they are taking an AP class, but all I knew was that the school year of 2015-2016 was personally successful for me.

The reason I want a C is because my mom never wants an F or a low D in my grade book. She never expects me to get straight A’s and B’s but that’s why I want a C. I’m not always gonna pass every class with a C, because every class I take I always have trouble with the beginning semester. The reason for that is I never like my teachers at first, then I get to

It made sense to me. I never had a moment in time where I wanted to give up in an english class because it was hard. As those 2 Failures on my transcript indicate, that was not the case for me in math. With time to look over the outcome I realized I gave up. After I was out of school for around a month after my ACL surgery it was hard to catch up

But now that I am in the second semester of college, I am shattering apart even though in the prior semester I was on the Dean’s list. I have so much pressure in college classes, not to

Don 't follow your friends, because they take a certain class it doesn 't benefit you in the long run. When picking classes, learn about the classes that they provide. In the field you want to pursue, and if you don 't know what field pick what interest you. There is a class called Advancement Via Individual Determination.

Over a long period of time, I didn’t realize how serious high school meant before heading to college. My older brother didn’t do well in high school and he was the only person to look up to at the time. While attending elementary learning the basics came to me gradually and as each year passed by I was more interested in why my older brother attended a different school at a certain age/grade. My first year in middle school as an experience as a whole wasn’t what my older brother described and I expected the same for high school. My older brother did graduate high school but didn’t take the measures to attend a university or community college.

Author Larry Cublin believes that students in high school should know about this topic “ Why everyone shouldn’t go to college” due to the fact that students don’t know how many years they want to go to college, hot they are going to pay for college, and they realize college is not for them. They way that I see it is that everyone may not want to go to college because they already have a mindset on what they want to do. For instance, most students think they know what they want and what to do but they don’t realize that there are alternatives like taking a vocational program that is only two years which is less time to waste in college and you are able to work quicker after those two years, but the downfall is that you won’t get paid much

Something that stood out to me while watching Remember the Titans was when Coach Boone told one of his team members to come to him for extra studying so he didn't fail school. This made me think about something Mrs. Balfour did for me that I will never forget. The summer after 9th grade for me, My mom passed away due to liver failure. Mrs. Balfour had heard about it from one of my other teachers. Right before class on the second day back to school, she told me to go wait for her outside of the classroom in a harsh tone.

It was the day that I’ve been waiting for over 3 years. A day that would finally let me be normal like everyone else and have the choices as other people without being ridiculed by the teachers that saw me as unqualified to be taught in a standard way. Thanks to my mom thinking that it would be a marvelous idea to have me be placed in special education due to my lack of effort taking reading comprehension test. I was placed in special education at the end of 5th grade, and sought to see the end of it. That day would eventually come on early April of 2015, where I was called upon to the office during class in 8th grade.

I stopped doing my homework and studying for all my tests, I began to worry about boys and all the fun times my friends and I would have. I got suspended and asked to get sent to a anger management school to help me focus a bit more on myself, nobody would have expected that from

Senior Fall Pathways Portfolio High school my year of success, potential and goals. For the past four years of high school, they have not been what I expected because I expected something more challenging and difficult to graduate. I also expected to experience things such as involvement in school activities. To not be categorized as your level of our understanding because that meant the high level students couldn’t really have a connection with the low improvement students. For example I’m not that high of a performing student

I had doubted myself when I set this goal because high school was so difficult for me, not because I didn’t like school but because in high school I felt like an outsider and no one teacher ever took an interest in me, my education, or my future. In my yearbook I even have a signature from my high school human anatomy teacher and it reads: “David- Congrats! When I first met you, I questioned how you made it to 12th grade… Now I know behind the big mouth is a big brain &heart. Best of Luck,” Mr. W. That just tips off my high school time, on the outside, that seems like a very uplifting message.

I had to snap out this mindset because it was taking me nowhere, I knew school would be my only escape so that I never had to experience this pain again. My only weakness was my own self doubt holding me back, If I truly wanted change I had to focus on myself and not the mistakes my mother had made. It took me awhile to get over this part of my life and start focusing on my future , I knew I had to make up for messing up my first two years of high school which resulted in such a low GPA. Although my GPA now isn 't the highest it could have been, I have since then received three honor roll certificates for having a 3.0 GPA for 3 different semesters. Pushing through this obstacle has motivated me to push to be successful.

When Gerald Graff says “Until I entered college, I hated books and cared only for sports.” I can relate to him in many ways, not specifically speaking, but in relation to what he had to say as an author. I understand that people aren’t enticed by books until they learn about the power of knowledge. I for one, was such person who didn’t care to read much when I was younger until I reached my senior year of high school when I finally understood the meaning of being educated in all aspects. Education, to me is one of the most important things that a person can have; without an education you’re stuck at the lowest levels of society’s hierarchy.