My High School Experience Essay Example

I was born on March 6, 2000, at 9:36 pm in Sacramento, CA, at the Kaiser on Morse Ave. into the family of Albert and Peggy Kong. Albert is my dad and Peggy is my mom. My parents are immigrants from China. My mom is from Guangzhou, China, and my dad is from Hong Kong. English is their second language. I grew up speaking Chinese, so I know some Chinese phrases. I even sometimes went to Chinese school on the weekends, but because I lived in a primarily Caucasian neighborhood, the Chinese language never stuck, and English is the language that stuck with me. So English is my primary language, which is also the language that I speak at home with my family.  

Overall, academically, when I was in elementary school, I did alright in the language department. But in 3rd grade, I had issues with the workload, such as doing the homework and writing cursive. Also, I didn’t like the teacher that much, so that kind of contributed to me not doing good in the class. Then I got good grades in 4th grade but that was because I was motivated by an outside factor and, I was finally able to get my act together to do the work that was to be done but it was primarily to get the iPod touch. I really wanted an iPod touch in 4thgrade, so in order to do that I had to make the honor roll. That year I made the honor roll twice in a row. But then, after I got the iPod touch, things started to go downhill from there because I got very addicted to my electronics and couldn’t control myself. After I got the thing that I wanted, I just kind of stopped trying in school because I felt like I didn’t really need to try without some sort of reward.  

That’s kind of how it was throughout middle school too and my first two years of high school because I just didn’t care. However, during my third year of high school, I started trying in my English class because I liked what I was learning, and the things that I learned motivated me to want to learn more. For instance, I had to write a paper about To Kill A Mockingbird that was about empathy and what it means to take a walk in someone else’s shoes. That really got me motivated, made me think, and just overall tugged at my heart strings. I also had to write about The Crucible and about how the children used witchcraft to control their whole town. I got passionate about that topic as well because it just made me think. Because of the books that I read and the topics that I wrote about in the class, I got a B+ in the class, which was my best English grade in a long time. I was also motivated because I wanted to get into college and, in my mind, I thought that this was the last chance to get into college.  

The same thing that happened in my junior year happened in my senior year of high school as well. I was in an expository writing class, and there were just certain topics that really tugged at my heart strings. For example, I had to write about the juvenile justice system and if people should be rehabilitated or not. I also had to write about Christopher McCandless. For people who do not know, Christopher McCandless was a man who went to Emory University and graduated with high honors and was going to go to grad school for something. But then after he graduated, he decided to go to Alaska to live in the wild where he dies from starvation. In my essay, I had to discuss whether his actions were heroic or hubristic. In my opinion, I thought his actions were hubristic mainly because he was arrogant and thought he had everything figured out when he didn’t. He just made a lot of mistakes based on arrogance and knowledge he thought he had but didn’t have. He also overestimated his whole situation of him going to Alaska. But anyways, those types of topics just made me feel a certain type of way, and that made me motivated to write how I felt on paper because once I feel something, there is no changing my mind or persuading me on how I feel. As a result of this writing, I got the best grade in English that I’ve ever gotten, which was an A in the class. 

What I have discovered throughout my time in high school is that what makes me a good writer is that I tend to get passionate about certain topics, which makes me write good papers.  The topics that I would like to write about are genetics, certain history topics that really aggravate me, and I want to know why things are the way that they are, books, etc. However, I’m bad at coming up with something to write on the spot, and when I can’t think of anything to write, and I’m just sitting there staring at a screen and don’t know what to do. Also, I tend to go off topic a lot because of how passionate I get on certain topics. And another problem of mine as an English student is that I don’t read anything fully and just tend to skip to the end because I’m very impatient. But my biggest problem as an English student is that I can’t come up with a good English paper on my own, which is essentially what college is about: being able to come up with your own ideas and write a paper about it. I must get assistance on my papers because I need a little more guidance on certain topics because like I said about writer’s block; I’ll just stare at a screen and I won’t write anything, which leads to no paper. So I need a little more help and guidance from the teacher in order to get an A paper. I need a prompt and instructions on what to write the paper about.  

This leads me to why I’m here in English 10/11. I’m in this class because it’s slower- paced, and I’m not at the college level of writing yet. I want that one-on-one time with the teacher to help me write my paper so that I can succeed and do well in English. Also, I want help with editing my papers too because I want to improve my writing style and how I write. Some areas, in my opinion, that need to be worked on in my writing are the introduction and the conclusion paragraphs. I need to work on my introduction paragraph because I can’t ever seem to think of a good way to start my paper. What also needs work is my conclusion paragraph. Because like my intro, I can’t ever think of a good way to end my paper. Another one of my goals is to improve my communication skills because sometimes I have a hard time communicating my thoughts and gathering my thoughts so that I can express them well enough so that people can understand me. Another goal that I have is that I want to be able to write my papers and do good on them without having any help from my professors or teachers because I find myself kind of relying on them for help to tell me what to write, and I need a little more guidance than the average. So I want to work on being able to write a paper on my own and not have to rely on my professors for help. 

By being in this class, my goal for this class is to become a better writer, reader, and communicator. Ultimately, I want to become a better writer so that I can move forward in my life and go on to bigger and better things in college. I also want to be able to pass the WPJ in my sophomore year of college. How I’m going to achieve this goal is that by hopefully going to class and doing all the work and getting some one on one help with the professor. This way I can become a better reader, better write, and more effective communicator.