Challenging academic experience by Alexia

Challenging academic experience by Alexia - December 2024 Scholarship Essay

Something that has always been difficult for me going through school is asking for help. I was getting through in my classes but still ended up never really understanding the material. Even now I realize how it impacts my learning because I have been having to go back and relearn stuff that I just looked over at the time. After going through many personal nonacademic struggles at a young age, I grew up afraid to ask for help or worried about how teachers would respond. This led me to never really enjoy any subjects I was learning and not being motivated to understand and learn new things. Overcoming this depended a lot on my environment. Once I began high school at Design Science Middle College, I was expecting to struggle a lot more considering we all take college classes. Over the first semester, I felt the encouragement of my teachers and counselors to ask for help. My math teacher specifically was the one who worked with me and made me feel more comfortable asking for help. Once I began asking for help I realized how interesting and satisfying math is. I enjoyed learning it and working with others and this also moved into my other classes like English. Later when I took trig I not only was more comfortable asking help from my teacher but I also made time to go to tutoring in our college library. I overcame this struggle because of the environment I was in and because I had to push myself to want to get help; when I needed it.