Essay #2

The journey Ive been following has included both good and bad experiences. In the past
I have never been much of a great learner and student. I never took education seriously and
procrastinated a lot through my entire school year. In my eighth grade I ended up failing my
English class, my teacher was really disappointed in me and I was not able to attend the
promotion ceremony. So after the long nightmare, I was hoping the sun would rise up once again.
I got another chance to start over in high school. I studied hard and worked hard in every subject.
I paid more attention in my studying rather than fooling around. I was able to keep up my GPA
with a 3.5 and higher for four years in high school until I graduated. In other words, my life was
about good and bad experiences and whether or not I will learn from it.
The moment I stepped in America, it was difficult because everything had relations to the
English language. Without knowing how to read and write, I felt like there would be no hope. In
the story Superman and Me, by Sherman Alexie who described how he struggled and tried to
succeed in his non-Indian environment and refused to fail attitude led him to excel in being an
author. In a similar situation, I struggled through learning English. I tried hard to fit into the new
community and refused to fail in school to prove others wrong. But it was one of my biggest
nightmares learning how to write and read. I took ELD classes in elementary school and face the
most difficult part of English which is learning how to write. And when I started to talk,
everyone in class would give me weird looks, laugh behind my back and most of all look down
on me just because I pronounced words differently. But I never led myself down because I knew
I could become successful if I refused to fail. So I started to read books, I spoke out more
practicing the English language and ignored what people thought of me. Just like Alexie, he

looked past all the stereotypes and refused to fail. He did not care what others thought of him,
despite being constantly mocked and looked down upon.
My life has changed so much since the last 5 years. I was once a fixed mindset person
that is described in Dwecks essay The Perils and Promises of Praises. In the story, he talked
about two kinds of mindsets, fixed or growth mindset. The person with fixed mindset tends to
care about how theyll be judged and they reject opportunities to learn from their mistakes. They
are also afraid of effort because effort makes them look stupid. As you can imagine I was one of
the kind. Back to the day in middle school, I was once an ignorant and narrow minded person. I
wasnt able to open up to others because I was ashamed of my academic status. So, I took
education lightly, I treated it like a game. And when I lost the game, I gave up and the game was
over. Just like I had abandoned my English class in eighth grade, I accepted my defeat. And I
never tried to revive things nor stand up on my feet again. But when I got to high school, things
started to change. I started having a growth mindset in which Dweck mentioned in the story as a
second type of mindset. They cared about learning, when they faced failure they tend to look for
other learning strategies to overcome their obstacles. And they believed in effort as a positive
aspect that will help them to improve their intelligence. At that point, I started to work harder
and studied harder on each test. I asked questions when I got confused during a lesson. I seek for
help when I made mistakes on a test or quiz. I also took a challenging task as becoming a group
leader in projects. I worked hard altogether and put my best effort into the project and landed
second place.
Brad Benioff , is an essay that focuses on a memorable person called Rick, a water polo
coach. Who pushes the new member, John, to the limit and no matter how hard he worked, the
coach never seemed to be satisfied. But in the end he gained new understanding of the man.

All the harsh comments and physical torture was to bring out the fullest potential the boy had
within him. To me the most memorable thing I have is a story I had 5 years ago when I was
eighth grader in middle school. It was one of the mistakes I made that changed my life forever. I
still remember that time was probably the worst thing I ever went through. Things at school
didnt work out for me. I worked hard on my homework and studied hard on my tests, especially
essays, but I still ended up getting bad grades. And the teacher never seemed to be satisfied of
my work. So I gave up, I started to become ignorant. I stopped doing my homework and ignored
my teacher. And my teacher even requested to meet my mother to help me out but I knew there
would be no solution to the problem. So the day of the meeting, my mother and my English
teacher talked about my problem of terrible grammar mistakes and explained ways that could
help improve my grammar. But the result was the same, I didnt do any better. And I ended up
failing my English class, which was the class that I needed to pass in order to graduate. Everyone
was disappointed in me, especially my English teacher, who always tried to figure out ways to
help me out and motivate me. She gave me advices through the mistakes I made but I never took
any account of it.
As the story continued, the nightmare still bothered me every moment, every second of
my life. But I was granted another chance to make up for my mistakes. Like the story I Just
Wanna Be Average, by Mike Rose who was once a student who had no desire to learn and was
notorious for slacking off, partying and getting into fights. And through hard work and support
of McFarland, Rose ended up going to college while also discovering who he truly was. So my
opportunity that was granted to me was to get a new start in high school. From the very
beginning of school, I had set down a goal in mind that I would work hard and graduate from
high school as an honor student. In order to make my goal come true, I started to be diligent in

my work, studied for my tests and do all my homework thoroughly. I asked questions when I
made mistakes and made connections to my teachers for better learning and understanding of the
material in class. The four years in high school was tough and hard but I was able to learn a lot
through the struggles and challenges I faced. The happiest moment I had was in my senior year, I
was able to keep my GPA high and to keep the goal I had set from the very beginning. On my
graduation day, I walked down the aisle with my friends and together we were all headed toward
our future that we dreamed of. That was the moment I was truly content with; I smiled from deep
within my heart and understood my purpose of living.
In conclusion, life to me is about experiences and without it I will never learn. I started
off with a fixed mindset who faced the loss of a declined education that was constantly
deteriorating. I gave up my education because I was a coward who feared to learn from my own
mistakes. Also, I couldnt face the challenges ahead of me. So I ended up abandoning everything
including myself. But soon after, I realized that I could have a growth mindset. From that
moment on I felt like I had just hit a jackpot. I started to become a courageous girl, who was able
to set goals and make mistakes without feeling ashamed. And I scored high on my quizzes, tests
and held high GPA for the last four years in high school. I then finally graduated, it was all I ever
wished for.