Throughout my experience at HPIAM High School, I have seen growth in myself in several

areas. During my freshman year, an academic trait that I had was that I was a procrastinator. My

lack of concentration limited me because I didn’t focus on work in my classes. I spent more time

playing around with my friends and talking about other things. This affected me too much and

affected my grade report. In addition, I never did my work in class. An experience that made me

notice this problem was when my counselor told me that I needed to focus in order to graduate.

My new path is to pay attention in class and do my work so that will make me be more

responsible with the assignments I will get in college. Now, in my 12th grade year of high

school, I am able to focus more on my work, I turn in my homework and assignments on time

and I attended tutoring and ask questions if I don’t understand something. In conclusion, I am

able to effectively communicate with my teachers. This has helped me a lot because my grades

have improved.

A skill I grew in since my freshman year is my English speaking skills. I couldn’t

understand when someone was talking to me. My grammar was at a low level and I couldn’t

speak English. Since English is my second language it made me have more difficulties in my

classes. An experience that made me want to speak English better was when I visited my cousins

for the first time and they started speaking to me in perfect English and I couldn’t understand

them. I felt so bad that it made me practice speaking English with them and also with the

teachers. Because I was practicing, I was able to reach my goal of learning more English by the

12th grade. I am proficient in English because I am able to effectively communication with

others and my grammar is better when writing essays.

 Lasly, a behavior that I had my freshman year was being careless. This problem didn’t let

me be sociable. I was shy which limited me from talking to other people. I also was not

organized with my things for school and I didn’t take things seriously during that year. A

personal experience that made me realize that I was doing bad was my grades were too low and

my parents talked to me about being more serious in school. Now, my new path is to follow my

parents’ advice and I started to focus more on my classes, take things seriously and be more self-

confident and organized. In my 12th grade year of high school, I have more self-confidence and I

am more social with the people I meet. I plan to continue improving in my grades and in my

personality by trying my best in my academic courses in college.