My Drive To Graduate High School And Attend College

I find myself to be a very curious case in how I grew up to fit a mold that had not even been made yet. There was never anyone pushing me to do my best, there was never a role model which I wanted to follow the footsteps in. I was always alone in my academic pursuits, in fact, I still am. I am poised to be a first-generation college graduate, maybe even college student, in perhaps even my extended family with the exception of a cousin once removed. I am poised to be the first in my nuclear family to graduate high school. Surely this must mean that I have the guidance and pressure placed upon me by my family of being the first son to graduate high school. However, this does not feel true. It’s up to me to have the drive to graduate high school and attend college. I have not benefited in the slightest; this only means I cannot get the help of a family member to even help me through high school. Even then, this goes back as far as my elementary student days where I would skip out on homework and where I developed my horrible work ethic. I have realized, however, that this has developed as a result from me being — maybe even cursed to be — born smart. In truth, I am not able to pinpoint what lead me to be the “smart kid in the class.” Perhaps the Public Broadcasting Station did wonders in my developmental years. Perhaps I was, after all, born smart. But this has come at a great cost to me. The terrible cost of being too academically independent. It was never a matter of my parents being negligent, it was because they have always had their faith in me being able to things on my own. At the same time, it did not take long for it to become very apparent that they really could not aid me in any way… I had surpassed them at an early age.

Riding the high horse of a higher base intelligence would soon slow down, though. The real world is made up by people who labor at their trade and careers, by people who initiate action. Labor is something that had never really applied to me, all subjects and coursework came naturally to me. Yet the cracks of apathy formed as early as the fourth grade: “I’m sorry Ms. Ritchie I could not do the homework because I wasn’t home.” And they only got bigger in middle school… “Wow… I got a C on my report card. I can’t believe I did not turn in that project.”

Would a smart student not turn in a project worth twenty percent of your grade? Would a smart student not learn from this experience and repeat this several times through high school? Would a smart student get desensitized to having Cs on their report card? Would a smart student let this bleed into even his junior year? I truly believe no. Who would have thought that high school would be hard?

I may finally be more goal-oriented in high school, but I don’t have the criteria to surpass these goals as I once wanted to; the damage has been done. I’m not the “smart kid” anymore, and quite frankly I don’t deserve to have such a title. It would be a surprise to me if anyone ever noticed that I had great potential. There were two paths that I could go by, and I chose the wrong one for myself, but there is always time change to the road I’m on. The teacher I feel that I disappointed the most congratulated me for earning a five on the APUSH exam. It is incredibly inspirational to finally make someone think better of you after they witnessed you at your worst. I now aspire to make everyone that I know have this change of heart, and so far I’ve had initial success. The friends I made from taking the class together have also started to realize that I was never at my full potential. While it may be heartbreaking to think that I once did not need to change people’s opinion about me in order for them to believe I’m smart, it has let me set the satisfying goal of proving them my worth. Without the realization of these personal traits and influential ideas then I would have never started to tutor my little brother through his own life and academic performance. I hope to continue this so that this same experience may be prevented. I have only grown and hope to keep growing as a person from these factors because it will take more than just smarts to be the first generation college graduate.