Reflective Essay: Being The Only Latino Students

Whenever I take on an assignment, whether it is school or work related or anything else for that matter, I always put my heart and soul to it. Many of my friends and teachers would call me over-ambitious, but I do not see that as a negative designation. Something I have learned through experience is that if you want something, you have to work for it. Going to an elementary school with a history of royal children attending, such as our crown Princess Victoria, as well as many talented students, put a lot of pressure on me to succeed. I managed to graduate with straight A’s, and received a scholarship for “excellent study results”, something I am very proud of and still value highly.

So my mom taught me to not be negative or rude to those who had that one barbie everyone wanted so bad. But when we did have money, I would get rewarded with a toy because I would be doing good in school or behaved well at home. However when it came to my older siblings, they weren’t gifted with the same opportunities like me. My brother and sister were high school drop outs, so they really didn’t set the right example for me. Their actions led to me setting high standards for myself because everyone in my family thought I would be a highschool drop out like my siblings.

If I win this scholarship, I will know that the hard work of students who thrive for academic success isn’t looked over just because a student next to us thrives for success through their sport. In high school, we see an ample amount of our classmates get signed to different colleges and universities because of their abilities on the court or on the field. But, after being in classes with them for four or more years, we know that their grades aren’t of good quality all of the time. But, us students who work the hardest in the classrooms to pull off 4.0s and 5.0’s can barely get a decent scholarship because we don’t have a 25 or above ACT score. This can at times prevent students from going to their dream school because they don’t have the money to pay out of pocket for school.

I have never been a perfect student. I have had many shortcomings and struggles throughout my middle school years. Regardless of that, I’ve always tried to be the best student I could be. The thing that got me into trying even harder to maintain my grades was not my parents, but the stress that I had piled onto myself. Yes, my parents wanted me to achieve excellent grades, but it was mostly me who put the pressure on myself.

All of these attributes are related in that they all reflect my determined mindset in achieving my academic goals. Because I experienced hardships during high school due to my lack of determination, I worked to improve these aspects of myself so that I am not only more confident in my abilities, but also have a goal set in my mind that I can work towards achieving. I practice strategies such as avoiding to carelessly rush through homework by setting enough time to thoroughly complete the task, and investing myself to the tasks at hand. All of these had a direct correlation towards my academic self-confidence, because I now believe in my abilities to work through difficult tasks and

My mom had always told me, “School first, sports later.” I have fallen victim to not putting in time and effort, and my achievement was either not how I wanted the outcome to be, or I didn’t achieve anything at all. As a high school student, I know grades are of high importance because they can shape your future for you. Being aware of this statement, I know I have to take school even more seriously and put in more effort in order to obtain satisfactory grades. I believe that time and effort are imperative in order to achieve our goals and accomplish what we want. For the past five years I

Last year my essay on equality was chosen to represent the school in a district wide contest and won first place.Yet my proudest accomplishment has been the gradual yet astounding results I have seen in our mentoring initiative. We have established a bond with all of our students, discussing more than academics but their personal and social concerns that impact their academic success.A large percent of our eighth grade students have applied to magnet and early college programs. Though we in no way claim responsibility, I believe our program gave them the confidence to take the chance .We were able to expand from a small group of people who saw and issue and hoped to help, to a diverse group of students using their combined skills to make an impact.This experience revealed my genuine passion leading and helping others, working from grassroots to making change. In the future I will expand upon what I have learned thus far continuing to address the issue of education equality and pursue my personal

It drastically decreased my grade point average since I had enrolled in this course with other difficult courses in my schedule; however, I did end up learning a lot from this experience. It taught me to be very aware of what I choose for my courses as a senior in high school and possibly as a freshman at Purdue. This experience also taught me, even though it is a human instinct, not to compare my intelligence to other people, regardless of what grade they are in, what grades they have, or how many more AP courses they are taking. I have also learned to make my own decisions instead of letting others make them for me because if I let others control what I do, then I will risk missing out on following my own unique path and expressing my individuality. Classes are different for everybody since every person has strengths and weaknesses, and everyone is intelligent in a unique way.

It was a challenge to learn how to communicate with my teachers and acquaintances. However, I conquered that challenge and became an A honor roll student since then. I came across other obstacles in life as well. All my life I was always ahead of my class and would take higher grade classes such as in math and reading. Once I got to high school, it became more of a challenge to

He is my hero because I was having some trouble understanding the material for statistics and he helped me understand it clearly. According to him, “I got here by doing my best earning good grades during my 2 final years in my high school classes and prepping for the SAT.” His definition of a hero is a person who is looked upon by others and being someone’s role model. He chose Eminem as his hero because his dad wasn’t always with him since he worked a lot and his mom was always

Especially within Little Falls High School the tools that faculty, and even other students ensure provide an environment to which anyone can thrive. Throughout my years I have achieved multiple academic awards and accolades. To get to to a point in my education where I was able to receive such great awards took serious dedication not only on my part but all the teachers as well. Learning new material in various topics does not come easy to me. I started off certain classes like geometry or spanish with no clue what I was doing and even a few bad grades in the beginning.

Palm Beach Atlantic University, has challenged me in many areas of my life. These specific areas including; acedemics, leadership, and my relationship with God. In my two years here, I have been impacted by many of the amazing professors. These professors never fail to challenge me in my academics, and push me to be a better person all around. Leadership, is a characteristic that intimidated me in my highschool years, but here at PBA, I have been challenged to rise up to the occasion.

They always look up towards me and will always see me working. My parents always tell me stories how they were raised and how they had little money but they continued to work hard and are blessed with all these things. Being hispanic automatically make anything think that you are a hard worker. They may not know where you came from but know you are willing to do anything at any cost. I plan to teach my future children what it really means to be from a hispanic culture and how they should go out and proudly tell the world who they really are.

I expect it to be really challenging and hard. From what I have heard you get a lot of homework and essays. Since my teachers in middle school are really good I don’t think I will have a problem in high school. I also expect high school to be a lot of fun. It will be fun because I get to have classes with my friends and I get to do fun activities like gym and different clubs.

That was definitely the challenging pressure I was putting on myself. Their support slowly turned into pressure because they were all going out of there ways to help me achieve my goals, so the pressure of graduating and achieving my goals was 100% more. I think that the main reason to pursue my career was getting behind, and the pressure of not letting my family down was leading the way. Taking the first step of applying to San Francisco State was a big one to take. I was committing myself to giving my all to accomplish my goals, but it felt satisfying.