High school is an important chapter in everyone’s life. During this time, some prioritize academics and strive for straight A’s. Others focus on their social lives and spend their time partying, and others take it as a time of self discovery, expanding on who they are as individuals.
Wherever your attention might be, we can all agree these years are very crucial to who we are as adults. One of the ways high school is key is through who we establish relationships with. We grow up with these people. We have the great blessing to call a small fraction of these people friends, while the rest are either acquaintances or complete strangers. We go through high school, whether it is directly or indirectly, consciously or subconsciously, with the thought that we will be walking in line with them for graduation. It’s really a crazy thought.
I started my high school career at Seaside High School. It’s a school next to the beach with an astonishing view of the ocean and a good selection of stores and restaurants right across the street.
School there was great. My friend group consisted of a bunch of Hispanics whom I met in middle school and stuck with. Hanging out with them was fun. We’d mess around during classes, we’d ditch school to go to Sand City or sneak into the gym to play football with the PE class. We wouldn’t have a care in the world over our academics.
While I was enjoying myself, my mentality toward school work was poor. I would be very distracted during class time or at home when I was supposed to be doing homework. I would get into fusses with my teachers over stupid little things like not putting my phone away during class. Nonetheless, I was having “fun” . My grades were a reflection of that “fun” I was having. For the most part I was passing all my classes except physical science. The trend of having to retake classes would become more common my sophomore year.
At the end of my sophomore year, my grades had come in the mail. Seven C’s and one A in math. When my parents saw this, they decided to sit me down and have a talk with me about what was going on. They told me they were disappointed in my grades. They were also reminding me of all my absences. They really did get me in trouble.
While they told me all these things, I was simply quiet and attentive to what they said. My father alluded to the fact that I needed to fix this my junior year. There needed to be a change.
I took that conversation with my parents and reflected on it. I was set on the fact that I needed a change. During that summer, I became a Christian,, which added onto the importance of needing a change. At the beginning of my junior year, it came to my attention that there was an online school program in my school. I told my parents about it and how I wanted to do it, and so they supported me. This was my way of bringing out the so needed change.
At first, I enjoyed online school because it was much simpler than traditional school. The main drawback I came to feel the weight of later on was that of not having a social life. Online school had made me cut myself off from my friends.
In spite of my grades being better, online school wasn’t doing my mental health any good. That’s why I made the decision to go back to traditional school in January of the following year. Some key things changed this time I was back in school. Chiefly, what I was striving for, which was to do good in school and to be a different person than the person I was before that last summer. I had reduced my friend group to about 4-7 people. I had more freedom to manage my time and schedule. That semester, my GPA was a 3.0.
At the end of my junior year I was told by my parents that I was going to be switched schools because we were moving to Salinas. At first I didn’t react as much (or tried not to react as much), but later on I took it in and reflected. Was this beneficial to me in the long run? If so, how did it benefit me? How did it push me towards being the person I aspire to be? To me, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to grow up as a person, to become an adult. Of course, this meant that I was not going to graduate side by side with those who I grew up with.
Nonetheless, if it meant changing and growing up to become the person I aspire to be, then so be it, I was willing to sacrifice it. My parents gave me the choice to choose between Alisal and Alvarez, which I obviously chose Alisal for its reputation as one of the best schools in the county and because I had two pretty close friends here. So far it has shown to have been the best possible choice.
While Seaside High has many of its good things, Alisal is better for me. On a personal level, I enjoy having six periods in one day, instead of 4 in a block schedule, because it gives me more class time to finish assignments. I have found myself surrounded by fewer people who add onto who I want to be as a person. I am doing better academically. I find myself managing my time better and having less time off for procrastination. My grades are better than they were in those two years. I find myself being a product of positive change.
While I aspire to make my goals a reality now in my time here, I can’t deny that to get to where I am at, a process had to take place. I recognized there was a change needed. Through my experiences in online school and moving to Alisal, I have learned to make the best of the opportunities I am given to change myself for the better.
