Math Was Hard by Jonathan

Math Was Hard by Jonathan - April 2019 Scholarship Essay

I’ve always had decent grades. A’s and B’s were the normal thing, and by my family’s standards, that qualified as “pretty good”. I was one of those kids that wouldn’t work very hard in school – the “smart” kids that didn’t need to study to achieve their desired scores. I put out the minimum effort required to get the grades I wanted. Little did I know that I was in for a rude awakening when I came to college. People would always be complaining to me about how much studying and hard work they had to do in college. My rationale after finishing high school but before entering college was that I wouldn’t need to do those things – after all, people complained about high school classes, and those were a breeze. So I eventually arrived at the wonderful University of Central Florida, ready to conquer the world as a math major and be the best version of myself that I could be…while still only using the minimum effort required. In hindsight, this view seems very ill-informed and short-sighted, but at the time I believed that this was achievable.
The result of this predetermined apathetic mindset was a marked decrease in my academic output. Funnily enough, I was surprised by this. Apparently, I hadn’t realized one of the fundamental principles of life – hard work begets success. So here I am at the end of the first semester, reflecting on the past few months, and trying desperately to figure out what went wrong. After my musings, I made up my mind that I would do better next semester. This is where the struggle truly began. Being academically gifted in middle school and high school was both a blessing and a problem, simply because I never learned how to study and work hard to get the grades I wanted. I had to teach myself the value of taking a break from the endless stream of YouTube videos to do some practice problems or read a chapter from the textbook. This might not be the typical academic struggle, but it was (and still is) a struggle, nonetheless. I’ve been watching videos and reading articles about how to study better. I’ve been researching life improvement tips. I’ve been talking to mentors and advisors in different organizations on campus – and it’s been working. This semester’s grades are a little better than the grades I got in my first semester as a college student. Math seems easier now that I know how to prepare for it. Going through this has helped me immensely. Having a heightened understand of how the world works has allowed me to better appreciate the work people have put in to get to the positions they fill now. I’m going to continue improving my work ethic as I continue this college journey, but I’ll make sure to educate future generations on the value of industriousness.