Many words could be used to describe the first semester of Sophomore year. However, the most accurate, by far, would be: challenging.
These
challenges came in personal and academic forms. Sometimes even a mixture of
both. While personal growth is a life-long experience, which can never be truly
overcome, only improved on, I am glad to report that my academic challenges, if
not overcome, have at least yielded satisfactory results.
After the Freshmen excitement of finally being in High School wears off, Sophomore year hits you with responsibilities, tests, PSATs and homework. You finally start feeling the pressure your teachers talked about the previous year, and the SAT and IB start coming up frequently. The ungodly amount of homework prevented us from our sacred time away from school, making staring at the void a better alternative to working more often than I would care to admit.I am, however, grateful for these challenges, since they allowed me to grow and learn about my work, my strengths, and weaknesses.
My greatest weakness would be, undoubtedly, my switched priorities. I value learning above all else in my life, at least in a psychological level. In a practical, daily level, however, my books and music suddenly become more important, and I often procrastinate on my work, preferring to read or listen to music for consecutive hours. This results in a high quantity of last-minute work, in spite of all my weekly plans. Despite being aware of this particular weakness, I have not put as much effort into overcoming it as I should have. This is one of my main goals this semester, and I am sure my overall academic performance will greatly improve if I succeed. I am only glad to note that my results have not been as affected by this as they could have been, and my grades remain mostly on the A range.
The sciences and math are another problem to be dealt with. Math has always been my weakest subject, and my right-sided brain cannot cope with matrices, moles and functions. The theoretical part of the sciences is easy, and even interesting, but when combined with math or other practical approaches, I can feel my brain turning itself off. Since these are the subjects I find the most tedious, I avoid practicing them industriously, like ironically, I should. Therefore, I have taken this as my other main academic goal for the second half of 10th grade.
Fortunately, I am not made of weaknesses, and the last semester also exposed my strengths. My English performance has made me proud, yet I recognize ideally it is not where I wished it would be. Being a non-native speaker is frustrating at times, since my longed-for dream of becoming an author gets more challenging.
Surprisingly, time management and planning is a valuable skill I have developed over the years, of which I take full advantage. I always take time to plan my week, which proved essential for my academic success. Even though I might not always follow it thoroughly, carefully scheduling my work helps me keep track of all the assignments and assessments, and the amount of procrastination my work can endure without major interferences.
In conclusion, I am satisfied with last semester's academic performance, especially in the humanities. The challenges posed by the first half of Sophomore year were essential for the recognition of my weaknesses and the solutions for them. My goals for the second half are: work harder on math and the sciences, and actually follow my weekly plan. Two simplistic solutions that I hope will help me achieve an even better performance and conquer my weaknesses in the upcoming semester.
