Overcoming Many Challenges by Melody Rei

Overcoming Many Challenges by Melody Rei - April 2019 Scholarship Essay

In the final months of my junior year of high school, I began to have mental health issues. I had high anxiety, depression and bad panic attacks that prevented me from attending school; and whenever I was able to attend class I would be confused on what was going on. After barely completing my junior year with D's, I moved onto my final year of high school, and my condition still continued to prevent me from learning.

In the beginning, I talked with my school counselor about ways I can continue to be on the right track to graduate from my current school and to avoid moving schools, I also wanted to continue the PLTW Engineering program I was in. We tried out different options, the one being the most effective was to only focus on the classes I needed in order to graduate, which was a credit in English and a credit in Physical Education. I was going to work on those classes online at home, and go to my school campus for my Engineering course.

Around a month into this, I discovered that even going to my campus for one class was too much for me, and I was still struggling with anxiety around people. In the end, I had to give up on the program all together, even though it was the one thing in school that I loved and looked forward to the most. In order for me to graduate, I would have to put my needed classes first, and couldn't balance the classes I needed and the class that I wanted.

Once I began my online courses, I completed a whole years worth of English in two months and half a Physical Education credit in three months. Right now I am more than half way through my final Physical Education class and will be finished in around two weeks.

With this, through both my academic and health struggles, I had to put my health first above something that I loved. Even though I won't be gaining any credit for the program, I will be graduating high school and going to a community college. I don't plan on letting my disabilities prevent me from my academics and from a bright future.