College Essay Draft #2

From the age of 8 to 10 I moved from New York to Alabama to Florida. Since I was in elementary school, every single year I was always on the honor roll, which was also challenging considering I moved from New York when I was 8 to Alabama and then to Florida when I was 9. In a matter of two years I experienced different educating experiences especially since Alabama and Florida has very strict and different education systems. Even going through these challenges I still continued to do well and excel more than other students. I realize that Manhattan Hunter Science High School really slapped me in the face and taught me a lesson or 7 about myself. Before I attended Manhattan Hunter I thought of myself as being an above average student but once I stepped into this high school I encountered an automatic challenge. Coming to Manhattan Hunter made me question my smartness and made me think about if maybe I wasn’t smart but the schools I went to were simply not high-quality. But then I started to realize that when I went to the high school, after freshman year I stopped trying. As the work kept on exceeding into more difficult materials I didn’t grow with what was going on but I stood in my own ways. I also started to become more into friends, Aim and MySpace. During that time of slacking off my dad always used to tell me “get on the right track Natalie, always put your books before everything else. This world is getting worse and worse and you don’t want be stuck out there with nothing.” When he told me this I would always progress for a while but then stop again. I now realize that that wasn’t a smart thing to do because now my grade point average is mediocre for not wanting to take responsibilities and listen to advise given to me by someone who knows the real world. Even though having mediocre grades isn’t the worst that could’ve happened but I could have always pushed harder to achieve something higher. It was also a good experience because it did teach me responsibility and now I know to put my studies before anything else. What I also learned about responsibilities was I needed to take part in my community and help people in need. Freshman and sophomore I didn’t think it was important to be active in my community but Junior year I realized it was important. I began going to animal shelters, helping out in my step-moms nursing home and helping in my grandmother’s church. This also helped me with my communicating skills by helping me to be more sociable with people. As a kid and a young teenager I was always timid and not active with friends and school activities. Moving a lot and having to make new friends was hard for me and in some ways it made me even more shy to always be around new people but it also helped me not to be so nervous going into new environments. But I really grew to like doing things in school and not rushing out once the last school bell rang and I learned how to communicate and begin grow strong friendships with my classmates and teachers. I think if I would have picked any other school to go I would I have never grown as much as I did educationally and sociably.