Who I am Essay examples

Submitted By starrmarie_13
Words: 1461
Pages: 6

Starr Sanchez
White
UH Pre-AP English
12 November 2013
Who I Am. Teenagers have many responsibilities. Some of us work, play sports, and choose to focus on being a full time student. All of our responsibilities go into making our identity as a student. Some may call me a brain, a jock, a dedicated student or just a regular teenage student. To me, being a brain means that you are smart. Taking advanced classes and being in a highly promoted school is a telltale sign of being intelligent. So being in University High most likely portrays me as an intelligent individual. My schedule in this prestigious program means me taking rigorous courses such as Pre-AP English, AP World History, Pre-Calculus, and Advanced Chemistry. Taking these courses means having a heavier workload than a regular high school student. Regular high school students often have more time on their hands than me; homework takes up 4-6 hours of my time every night. There is hardly any time for myself. My schedule for the day usually consists of me going school and to tutoring, coming home, quickly eating anything that takes away the hollow feeling inside me and then being stuck in my room completing mountains of homework. There is absolutely no social life for me! Majority of the time it does not bother me because I have been in advanced classes since my fourth grade year. This leads me to an old conversation with my dad about me taking advanced courses; it always stays in the back of my mind:
“Since you’re smart enough to be in advanced classes, I expect no slacking, no failing, and no excuses. Do what you have to do.” “I know.” “Good.” “Yeah.”
That is exactly what was done. Even though people considered me smart, I did not always believe that myself. Things that took most of my peers a day to understand would take me two or three days to understand especially in my math classes; however, no one knew that though. Keeping to myself, I would pretended to understand everything in class and then go home and study for hours just to perfect whatever it was that was being taught to me. For example during my freshman year we were learning a very rigorous math concept. It took me almost an entire week to figure it out; we only spent two days going over it in class. My own time had to be used to perfect those specific skills. Being in advanced classes classified me as the “smart kid”. My identity was created for me just like that labels were fixed and assumptions were made. Not that being considered smart is atrocious, it is actually a blessing in this day and age. It is said that many people believe that if you are not “smart” then you cannot be prosperous. Being the “smart kid” is great, but there is so much more that goes into my identity.
Playing a different sport for every season makes me a jock. Fall is volleyball, winter is wrestling, and spring is track and/or softball. With so many sports and all my classes; my schedule is always overflowing with things that need to been done. Being in sports really means having no social life; my volleyball coach is almost always telling each one of her athletes that every day at practice.
“If you try out and make the team, your life revolves around school and volleyball. Eat, sleep, study, and volleyball. No time for boys. You have no social life. You are a student. Then you are an athlete.” She constantly drilled that into us; repeating herself over and over until she was absolutely sure we understood. Coach may have barely been reaching five feet tall, but she was five feet of fury; with hair longer than her waist and eyes so attentive that make you have to look away. Coach is a force to be reckoned with, and it does not make it better that she is always right! Between all my classwork and practices, there’s no time for anything. There is barely anytime for myself. A regular day for me consists of me waking up at six o’clock in the morning, getting ready for the day, catching the bus at seven fifteen