“In sophomore year I became super lazy and didn’t study at all, but junior year put me into shape, and I was more social and talked to more people and expanded my horizons. I changed a lot as a person from the start of 2019 to the end, because now I think I am more mature and better know how the world works and how to keep myself healthy, safe, and happy and know the range of my emotions. Academically, I learned how to study better, stay on task, and I’ve learned what I like to do more of I can go into activities [I enjoy] more than just doing random things. 

I felt like I could have utilized my time better because I wasted all of last summer doing nothing and I could have spent it doing something useful. Also, I could have done a lot more towards the classes and extracurricular classes I took, but I just wasted it a lot of time in activities such as YouTube, which is not really useful. I also realized that I can’t keep living this life where all I do is work. Before, I used to think high school [just consisted of] good grades, college etc, but [after] meeting older people who have gone through college, I realized that’s not the end of my life, and you need context even if you don’t go to a good college. I think last year especially I was getting out of my comfort zone and doing new things, like even if I would go somewhere I wouldn’t talk a lot, and would stray away from the crowds. A lot of the times, I would stick with my close friends but I think that is something I had to overcome, and I think slowly talking to people in classes kinda helped me overcome it. Also the mindset of me telling myself ‘you have to do it’ has helped me get out of that. Another challenge [I faced] was just doing things like for example, I was afraid to death about driving and things like that and I just didn’t want to [do it]. But over time, I realized that I need to learn [those skills] which helped me get over [my fear]. Also, I grew a lot more by doing activities such as Boy Scouts [which] has taught me a lot about survival, and since I like nature and adventure it has taught me a lot about those situations.

Overall, there was not [just] one memory that was a favorite but I guess like all the times I have gone with my friends to places over summer and breaks that we’ve literally never been to, like, for example, over the summer we used to bike a lot like we would bike to random places that were really far, so just that memory of spending three or four hours going to Irvington.”