School over friends? by Ashley

School over friends? by Ashley - December 2024 Scholarship Essay

During my second semester as a senior in high school, it is required for seniors to take a U.S. government class in order to be able to graduate in the warm summery May. In the month of February, our fun history teacher Mr. West handed us a project that was debating which U.S. president was the best one of them all. Students were to pair up in groups of two to three for this exciting debate. Luckily for me, someone who isn't comfortable talking with other students, I had my best friend in sitting in front of me asking me to be in her team. I happily agreed.

During those few days that we were doing our debating project, me and my friend got into a couple of conflicts that caused anger between us. Regardless of our disputes, we needed to continue on with our project since it was a 25% worth of our final grade for our government class. My friend never really cared about the project and just wanted to pair with me to have "fun" when I really wanted to take this debate seriously, that was my fault. Doing research, creating outlines, notecards, and our final presentation for this debate was all mainly done by me, and my friend never helped out because she couldn't set our differences side.

She was aware of how much my grades, my test scores, and school in general meant to me and she couldn't even try to put effort into our project because I was her friend. The so-called fun debating project became into a long dreading assignment that took me hours to complete. After I have finished putting everything together for this presidential debate, I gave my friend the notecards to read off from when the actual debating part were to happen. The day of the debate, she had lost the cards and left me alone for a debate that was not for one person to handle but for a group to handle. My teacher pitied my performance due to the fact that I was in a state of sadness and anger that my friend couldn't do a simple thing where I've put all the work and effort into and left me there on my own. We are no longer friends because of personal conflicts including the presidential debate, but after time had gone by, I'm realizing that I possibly am the problem and let a good friend fade into a memory.

I let my academic goals and accomplishments get in the away of a great friendship I once had, even if half of the conflicts weren't caused by me, but I still could have been more of an understanding friend. Now, I am more careful to not let personal life get mixed with my educational life because regardless of the great amount of time and effort I put into that little debate project, I could have been a better friend.