Topic: An incident or experience that impacted your thinking or development.
Please let me know if I answered the prompt correctly. Also please check for all the usual grammar, style, etc. Thanks!
How I Learned my Strength
I walked through the doors and up the crowded stairs to my first class at Georgia Perimeter College as a dual enrollment student. I was so nervous, but I knew this is the only way to prove to colleges that I can survive a college level class and that my grades from the previous year didn't reflect my true potential. When I look back at what led me to this day, I know this is my last chance to prove I belong in a top rank university. I felt like a new person because while all my other fellow classmates were back at my high school hanging on every word of the latest gossip, I was becoming a college student. My priorities were in order and I knew what was truly important in life. After my medical scare the previous year, that left me missing my entire junior year in high school, I learned that even if something seems hopeless now that there is always a way to turn it around if you work at it hard enough. I learned to be strong.
My junior year, as you can guess, was not so normal. I traded my high school events and social life for doctor appointments and hospital visits. So while other teens were at bonfires and football games, I was getting HIDA scans and bone scans. When they experienced all the wonders that come with prom, I experienced days of no eating and cleaning myself out to prep for scopes. While they were dancing with their prom dates, I had a date surrounded by doctors while lying on a cold metal table waiting to fall asleep and have an endoscopy and colonoscopy performed. During my junior year I felt like I had no life at all. I rarely talked to friends and spent most of my time doing homework or with doctors. Missing such a vital year was extremely tough. Although in reality, I may have missed buying an overpriced dress that I would probably wear once in my life in exchange for my health. I learned my health and wellbeing is more important than any over glorified high school event. Therefore, I came to the conclusion that all those little things that most teenagers were stressing about where not really all that important. Boys and football games are not important when compared to your health and living. My lack of a normal high school social life wasn't the only thing depressing me at the time.
I was a perfectionist and always worried about my grades. That's why my junior year, I enrolled in many rigorous courses to try to make myself stand out to colleges my senior year. I continued to be involved in more extracurricular activities, such as Spanish Club, Friends Club, and Art Club. My goal was to work as hard as possible my junior year to ensure my chances of getting into top rank schools. I thought nothing could distract me from my goal, until I started missing more school days than I was attending. I was becoming frustrated with myself because my plan of raising my GPA and glorifying my future college applications was hanging by a thread. I was drowning in the work I had to accomplish and my GPA was suffering to. It was difficult to do because I wasn't in class. I even failed a semester of Spanish three and a semester of honors American literature.
Failing my first class in my entire life that first semester I was sick is one thing I can never forget. I was so upset because Spanish had always been a semi easy subject for me because I am have Puerto Rican and have many Spanish speaking friends, but my Spanish abilities weren't the problem. My teacher, who barely speaks English well, would not come up with an assignment regime for me and stick to it. I was already trying to juggle AP United States history and Honors literature and Spanish three just fell behind. At first I was devastated, but instead of pitying myself and stressing myself out even more I decided to talked to my high school counselor about making up the class so I could prove to colleges that I don't give up. I also decided that I would prove that I knew the Spanish three materials by passing the second semester with flying colors, which I did. I was determined to prove to colleges that I was not the girl who gave up when the going got tough. I wanted to prove that if I fail at something, that I am going to get back up and try again until I succeed.
I learned my hard working motto not just from my own painful experiences, but the time I spent around other patients when I was in the Children's Hospital of Atlanta. I had met so many children and teens that spent months at a time in the brightly painted hospital, while I spent a mere week, tops. These children had been through so many rigorous tests and procedures, but when looking in their eyes you wouldn't know it because they always stayed positive and strong. There is one boy in particular that I remember who had no hair left on his body due to his chemo therapy. It wasn't his severity of his disease that I remembered most, but how he handled it and how he always smiled. As a matter of fact, I never saw him not smile. He never gave up when a treatment or surgery failed to get rid of his cancer, but got back up and tried again. I knew this boy was not going down without a fight and neither was I. I figured if he can fight cancer without giving up, then I could fight my spiraling GPA. That boy will always be a motivational symbol for me and I will never forget him or any of the strong and determined patients I came across while I was at the Children's Hospital.
I am eternally thankful, for my health scare because I would have never seen what true bravery or strength looks like if I had never had my health scare. Spending my junior year around the wonderful patients at the Children's Hospital of Atlanta is something I would never trade for anything. I wouldn't have learned to be strong and overcome my failures if I hadn't met these children and I wouldn't be here at Georgia Perimeter College today. My health scare truly changed my way of thinking and development.
