My Achievements

I must admit, I am somewhat of a procrastinator. I’ve always been an A student with ease; I have never had to worry much about getting my homework done because it came so easily to me most of the time. During my freshman and sophomore years, I could stay out with friends all night, throw together an essay in 30 minutes, and get a good grade the next day. School was always my focus, but it rarely required too much extra effort on my part.

My junior year, however, special circumstances made it harder for me to keep up with my good grades. Throughout my junior and senior years, I struggled with my epilepsy. I had brain surgery in the middle of my junior year to remove a benign brain tumor that they thought were the cause of the seizures. Needless to say, it did nothing to help, and they just kept getting worse. I was in and out of the hospital for a lot of my junior and senior year. Usually just a week or so at a time, but it made it difficult to keep up with my homework and advanced classes. I also struggle with attention deficit disorder. Without my medicine, it was extremely hard for me to get anything done. Unfortunately, my parents and my doctors thought that maybe the medicine that was helping me so much in school was actually the cause of my seizures. They made me stop taking the medicine, and I was scared about how I would continue to do my schoolwork when it was so hard to even read one assignment without getting side-tracked.

Growing up, I always knew my parents had never finished college because they got married so early. When my brother was in high school, he got in a lot of trouble, and I never expected him to go to college. I made a promise to myself early on that I would be the first one in my family to get good grades and go on to graduate college. When my epilepsy started making it harder for me to accomplish my goals, I had to realize that I had to give my all to my school in order to be successful. I decided that, despite my epilepsy and despite my A.D.D., I would do well in school to make everyone proud of me.

I would be doing homework all day during school. Whenever we had down time in one class, I would be working on homework for another. During lunch, during homeroom, even during pep rallies, I would work hard to make sure my homework was done. I was constantly checking my grades online to make sure that I was doing alright. I would get encouragement from my parents and my grandmother to keep pushing on and do well in school. My junior and senior year, I made the best grades I ever had. I got all As and one B. Looking at my report card, I felt so proud that I had overcome my struggles to do well in school. My family was very proud of me as well, and they are happy to see me here at college working hard to achieve even bigger goals. Looking around me, I see people with even bigger obstacles than I had that are achieving much more than I am. That makes me very humble and it makes me feel very lucky for the life I lead. It also pushes me even harder to take advantage of what I have and to be the best that I can be.