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Narrative story about senior year
Narrative story about senior year
Struggles of student athletes
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All forms of life experience change, the way you respond to change determines your character and impacts the outlook others have about you. One major change, I continue to experience is the transition both athletically and academically from sophomore to junior year. Previously, I have heard the position from many of my peers that junior year is the hardest year at Gonzaga. I now second this belief. The struggles I continue to experience junior year both academically and athletically supremely outweigh those I encountered last year.
I am a two- sport athlete, but what i regard and cherish most is academics. I did not come to Gonzaga for its fame, glory, prized athletics, but instead its prestigious and reputable academics. Sophomore year was not an easy year for me academically. I thought staying up and completing homework until 10pm was exhausting. My teachers were difficult and almost all assigned homework on a daily basis, but
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the homework was brief and straightforward. I often slacked of thinking everything would be good and in return i received decent grades. The grades was not what hurt me it was the habits I had formed from living this serene lifestyle. Sophomore year, I played both baseball and football. I played varsity and JV football along with JV baseball. For baseball, I started in left field for the majority of the season but my main contribution to my team was my hitting ability. I hit in the cleanup spot for the greater part of the season, which is designated for the player who consistently hits the ball the furtherest. In football at the JV level, I started at offensive tackle and defensive end along with most of the special teams. At the varsity level, I was the backup right tackle behind Griffin Jackson. Trying to balance my time between these two sports was very difficult. I was unsure whether I was going to continue football or baseball the next year because my father wanted me to focus solely on one sport. Playing sports at this level, I found quite simple yet enjoyable. It is currently almost halfway through the Junior year and the transition from last year was profound.
This year I decided to drop playing baseball because at the varsity level I would be facing players that have played year long and my commitment towards football stopped me from joining them. Instead of playing baseball, I am going to try playing rugby since it requires less commitment and it incorporates aspects related to football. I am starting at right tackle for the varsity football team. The level of competition is much more difficult than I have faced at the freshman and JV level. Everyday I discover new bruises on my body and am extremely sore and find moving difficult. I constantly take Aspirin and ice baths to combat this pain. I look forward to rugby in the spring but I feel like it will not be a walk in the park like baseball was last year. Our rugby team is in its second year being the best team in the US and over spring break we will travel to Barcelona to play against the best high school rugby teams in the
country. I also feel the academic strains building up Junior Year. I get hardly any sleep at night because I am constantly until 12 pm and 1 am completing homework. Not only do the sore muscles from sports impact me, I have constant headaches and am deprived of precious sleep that a teenages needs. If I get to bed at a reasonable time, I have a hard time falling asleep because I am frequently thinking about all the homework, tests, quizzes, and projects that are due the next day. Surprisingly I have started the quarter off well with a solid GPA so I guess that means that I need to continue to struggle in order to produce the same or better results. This time period I am also stressing out about the SAT and ACT that I am required to take. To get into a great college it is vital that you have excellent scores. The transition from Sophomore year to Junior year proved difficult and treacherous for me. Athletically, I ended up retiring my talent as a baseball and picking up rugby. No longer am I playing football at the Junior Varsity level I am now the starting right offensive tackle on the varsity team. Academically, homework has become much more plentiful and the constant reminder of upcoming assignments and grades plague me and drive me to many sleepless nights. The academics and athletics changed dramatically from sophomore to junior year and these changes had put great stress and pain to me.
Walking into Walnut Hills High School right now would have anyone thinking the just walked into the middle of a tornado. Everyone you look there are students running in and out of doors, in and out of cars, and most certainly either turning in missing assignments or retaking tests. There is only one way for you to explain all this ciaos, Senior Year, the year that all teens await with so much excitement and ambition and the year that every single hour long study dates pays off. For the class of 2021 this isn’t just their final year at Walnut Hills this is the year that friends separate and head off to their different university to follow their dreams.
When I was accepted into the University of Oklahoma, I was not aware of the tradition or prestige that the football team carried. Moreover, I had no idea about the honor it was to don the crimson and cream in the arena of athletics. And, I never envisioned rooming with them. I enjoyed sports, but I loved reading and writing more. Initially, I was focused on building a collegiate career that one day would propel me to my goal of studying law. Yet, the more time I spent interacting with the athletes, the more parallels I noticed between their personalities and mine. Their diligence, perseverance and compassion were all traits that I could identify with since they were reflective of me. For the most part, the majority of the athletes were hungry to achieve and they desired knowledge at all costs; a combination that still resonates with me today.
This semester has been really tiring. It has been really stressful for me lately with all my classes. It is hectic preparing for finals, finishing up end of the year projects, as well as practicing for state soccer. It is not easy being a 4.0 student athlete. It’s probably the most stressful thing for a high school student. Some people think that the athletes have it easy but they don’t. We have to work hard to earn our spot. We constantly have sports as well as school on our mind. It is especially hard for someone who wants to become a college athlete. They are trying to do everything possible to become the best athlete possible. They are in the weight room a lot trying to become stronger. Some may even have more than one sport to go to in one night. Going from the weight room to school to one sport practice to the other and then home to do homework is enough to overwhelm someone. You would think that the work load would start to slim down towards the end of the year but not in Mr. McGee’s Honors English. Of all the texts we have read this semester, my favorites are Carry Your Own Skis by, Lian Dolan Arthur Ashe by John McPhee, and Dreams by Langston Hughes.
Anxiety ran throughout my entire body the morning before my first class of college began. Not knowing what to expect of my professors, classmates, and campus scared me to death. I knew the comparison to senior year of high school and freshman year of college would be minute, but never did it occur to me how much more effort was need in college until that morning, of course. Effort wasn’t just needed inside of the classroom with homework and studying but also outside of it where we are encouraged to join clubs, get involved and find a job. Had I known the transformation would be so great, I’d have mentally prepared myself properly. It’s easy playing “grown-up” in high school when one doesn’t have to pay expensive tuitions, workout a
Growing up in a bilingual household, I have struggled with many things especially reading and writing. Reading and writing have never been my strongest points. The first struggle that I can recall, is when I was about six or seven years old. I was beginning my education at Edu-Prize Charter School. I was a cute little kid, in the first grade, just like everybody else. But in the middle of the school year, my mom told me that my great, great aunt, who lived in China, was getting really sick and old. So if I wanted to meet her, it had to be now. Being a little kid, I didn’t quite understand why she couldn’t just go see the doctor, take some medication, or let time heal her. Unfortunately, now I know it was my mom’s way of saying that she was dying. My parents made the decision that it was probably the best way for me to understand my Chinese culture, along with meeting my relatives on my mother’s side of the family. So for a month, I had to leave my dad, my brother, my school, and all my
All college students sitting in classrooms today face challenges that can impede their success. A challenging course schedule, competing demand for the student’s time, and college readiness are all factors that can hinder a student’s performance in the classroom. Moreover, these challenges also have the ability to impact the student’s overall student development. While most students share a common set of stressors, there are certain groups on campus that face pressures and challenges that are not shared by the majority of their peers. Student athletes are such a group. Joshua Watson (2005) noted the positive benefits of participating in intercollegiate activities, but also noted that such participation can lead to issues of “maladjustment, emotional illness, and psychological distress” (p. 442).
“Maintaining good academic standing is part of the student athlete culture,” according to women’s head soccer coach Jack Hyde, “It’s part of their responsibility...they embrace it,” he said (Stricklen). “I love football and I wouldn’t want to mess it up by not getting good grades in all my classes,” said Narayan, a student athlete (Given and Tribou). However, more and more student athletes are not finding studying and keeping their grades up a priority. Most student athletes dream of one day becoming a professional athlete, but without good grades, they won’t be able to go to a good college to play for. Being an athlete with good grades also benefits them when trying to get scholarships. Becoming a professional
Growing up in working class family, my mom worked all the time for the living of a big family with five kids, and my dad was in re-education camp because of his association with U.S. government before 1975. My grandma was my primary guardian. “Go to study, go to read your books, read anything you like to read if you want to have a better life,” my grandma kept bouncing that phrase in my childhood. It becomes the sole rule for me to have better future. I become curious and wonder what the inside of reading and write can make my life difference. In my old days, there was no computer, no laptop, no phone…etc, to play or to spend time with, other than books. I had no other choice than read, and read and tended to dig deep in science books, math books, and chemistry books. I tended to interest in how the problem was solved. I even used my saving money to buy my own math books to read more problems and how to solve the problem. I remembered that I ended up reading the same math book as my seventh grade teacher. She used to throw the challenge questions on every quiz to pick out the brighter student. There was few students know how to solve those challenge questions. I was the one who fortunately nailed it every single time. My passion and my logic for reading and writing came to me through that experience, and also through my grandma and my mom who plant the seed in me, who want their kids to have happy and better life than they were. In my own dictionary, literacy is not just the ability to read and write, it is a strong foundation to build up the knowledge to have better life, to become who I am today.
Colleges demand a well-rounded resume that students are trying to fulfill so they can get accepted to the college or university they desire most. “We know schools and families are embedded in society and are responding to its changing requirements and demands, with respect to the competitiveness to the college admissions process, the kinds of skills needed to succeed in the workforce, and even uncertainties in the global economy” (NYU Study Examines), in a study, students from a big university admit to finding that students are becoming more stressed out because of college pressures while still in high school. Colleges are trying to find the students that can succeed in both academics and extracurricular activities. Once students get into college, student athletes can buy a book written by Carl I. Fertman appropriately titled Student Athlete Success – Meeting the Challenges of College Life, to help organize their priorities with their busy schedule. This is a work book that allows the college athletes relate to other college athletes that feel the same way they do. College has its own set of challenges that high school students usually do not face, so this book would help the students cope with these new challenges. In the first section, there is a heading that is labeled “What Student-Athletes Say” with a list of common quotes from student athletes themselves. For example “Sometimes I feel like student athletes have extra pressure and greater expectations placed on them than other students. Everyone knows who we are and people are looking at us to catch us doing something wrong”. (2), which shows how students that do participate in sports feel as though they have added pressure because they are so well known in most cases. Although they do commit to being more known than a regular student when they join a sports team, it is often not fair to the
“In middle childhood, 30% of a child’s social interactions involve peers, compared to 10% in early childhood” (Blume, 2010). Children place a large importance on friendship more when they grow older. In early childhood, friendships are associated with a particular activity. During middle childhood, children focus more on bonds and trust when it comes to making friends. Children start to use selective association meaning that children start to pair off with people that have the same interests as them. Sociable kids are attracted to other sociable kids and children who are shy tend to get left behind.
Some of the major stresses faced by student athletes tended to be, lack of time, unrealistic academic and athletic pressure along with mental health issues. A majority of universities are currently doing very little help alleviate these stresses, unintentionally placing the burden on the backs of the student athletes themselves. Current high school athletes need to look at the risks and rewards of becoming a collegiate athlete and make a decision based on what’s best for them. In many cases, the greatest decision made by students was to pursue their dreams and become a collegiate athlete. For some this proved to be their downfall, unfortunately being unable to successfully manage the pressure and expectations of being a student and an athlete simultaneously. From personal experience I can tell you, being successful in both areas will come down to proper time management. Despite the lack of time and even added stress, following my dream to play collegiate tennis has being one of the best decisions of my
English was an subject that was a little difficult for me since I was a kid. Even though I was born and raised in the United States, I’ve spoken Chinese at home with barely any English before eighth grade. Therefore, my ability to practice my English to an certain extent was altered. Systematically, my chinese improved rapidly while my english crawled slowly upwards. Thus, my ability to speak and write was obstructed until I was enrolled in your class during tenth grade. Since my freshman English teacher only taught us how to write four paragraph essays, the high school standardized five paragraph essay was alien to me. However, throughout my sophomore year, you taught me vast amount on how to write an essay. Furthermore, through the books
A very controversial issue in college athletics today is whether student athlete's academic goals or athletic events should be placed in higher importance. In our society today, many people people tend to think of highly renowned college athletes as athletes that dedicate all their time to the sport that they play. What many people tend to forget is that these college athletes have as large a responsibility in the classroom as they do playing football, basketball, baseball, volleyball, track and field, or whatever sport it is that they play. These student athletes are required to practice for many hours each week in addition to having to complete hours of homework and research papers that they may have. Some people may think that being a collegiate athlete would be a fun and easy task but however, they are wrong. Regular college students receive enough homework and papers to do. Imagine having to complete all of the homework that all non- student athletes have to complete in addition to the time consuming dedication to a sports team. This is the stressful and challenging life of a collegiate student athlete.
One of the biggest “life changers” I have ever experienced is college. You get to experience a whole new atmosphere, meet tons of new people, and you get to live a new life. Going into college, most of the time, kids are nervous and scared for what their future. I was one of those students. Going into college I was quite nervous and I didn’t know what to expect. Often, I would hear how difficult college is and how much different it is than high school. I was not prepared to constantly be studying or doing homework because I was not used to doing those things in high school. I wasn’t too fond of being away from my home and my family as well, which is another reason I was skeptical about going off to college. From move in day to now, college has been such a pleasant surprise for me and I am loving it. My college writing course, General Studies Writing, or GSW, has also helped me learn quite a bit, but it could also be improved to help students learn even more than before. Overall, my college experience has been a great one and I couldn’t ask for a better start to a new life.
The thought of being 16 and pregnancy has always weighted down on me growing up. I was scared of my family history trying my best not to repeat the life of my mother. In 2001 I was so happy I made it. I accomplish what no one in my family was able to accomplish. I finished high school and even enrolled in college. By this point I had already set a goal for myself. Right before the fall semester was starting my plan was put on hold due to my family, leaving our land to move to the city. This was a tremendous change for someone that lived on 10 acres of land and the nearest neighbor was miles away. By the end of the year I was pregnant with my first child. I remember feeling like my life was over. Like I am fresh