Troy Austin

Austin 1
Professor Campbell
2/2/16
University Writing 1103

How The Penn Shaped Me

In my life, I have spent a lot of time growing up. The meaning of
growing up is different for me than it is for most. Looking back at my
childhood, I can remember very clearly that my use of language early on
developed at a very quick rate when compared to that of the kids around
me. I came from a family where, although we lived in more rural parts, both
of my parents went to college and had degrees. I always paid close attention
to the way they said things and acted early on learning a lot of things that
the kids growing up around me never had the opportunities to learn.
I can remember very clearly how this affected me as a young child.
Instead of the positive effects you might expect this to have on a child of my
age, it had the opposite effect. I still recall the moments where I would look
around so perplexed by what was going on around me, everyone seemed to
struggle with work that I could comprehend with hardly any effort. In order to
try and fit in with the kids around me as well as lash out against my family,
who at the time were having a lot of problems at home with the household
and their marriage, I stopped trying on homework and in class. I sort of just
gave up and felt that as long as I was just staying afloat more like everyone
else, no one would notice that I was missing the things that a normal kid my
age should know. Things like how to throw a baseball or how to dance, things

Troy Austin
Austin 1
Professor Campbell
2/2/16
University Writing 1103

normal kids were taught by their families but things that my family did not
have the time for. This worked out for a while, at least until about second
grade. I really did start to feel like I belonged. I started learning things that I
felt a normal kid should know from the people I knew around me, my grades
seemed average so I felt less distant from the class around me.
Looking back now I can see just how stupid of a solution this was to my
problem, but hindsight is twenty-twenty and to a kid like me it was so much
better to be an average kid then to be one of the smart kids. Really I would
have kept this going on for who knows how long had my situation at home
not changed. See, my home-life changed for the worse my father and
mothers arguments escalated to the point where leaving was my fathers
only choice. He moved out without saying goodbye leaving my mother with
four children and a list of problems at least a mile long. As you can imagine
for a kid barely even in the second grade, this was a lot. Now that I am in a
better place, I can see that leaving for my father was what he felt was the
best decision that he could do for both us and also for him and He still did a
lot for us. But back then I was not in a good place like I am now, my father
leaving really caused a chain reaction for my mother causing her own
problems to seemingly spiral out of her control. This really affected me in
class I stopped paying attention at all and with no one to motivate me to do
my homework I gave up on it. My thoughts back then changed from I do not
want to do this to why should I have to do this? I blamed my father, I

Troy Austin
Austin 1
Professor Campbell
2/2/16
University Writing 1103

blamed my teachers for not being able to help me, and I blamed my
classmates for having a happy home. As if this was not enough at the time
my mother could not afford to keep the house and wished to get away from
my father so she moved us far away to an area I did not know. by the third
grade I had already grown to have a deep hate of education and of the
situation I was put in.
Although I was not the most social or outgoing kid at the school I was
at before I still had close friends and family that could be there for me, but
when I arrived at this school I changed things. I stopped trying in class and
the gap in my education caused by switching schools never was really filled,
something I would not notice until later on in life. Something like that to
someone who has not experienced it cannot fully comprehend how difficult
this can makethings. I did not teach myself to divide until halfway through
the fourth grade, I did not learn long-division until I was already in the tenth
grade. With my anger and frustration coming out a lot more, I really lashed
out and got in a lot of fights. Now although by this point I had fallen behind in
my formal education that did not mean I was not intelligent. I never once got
caught for fighting or any of the things that I did at this time. Teachers in this
area never really paid attention to things unless they got bad to a point that
was too far. Even if they ever wanted to contact my parents about things it
was practically impossible as my dad was two hours away and my mother
was practically unreachable. At this point in my life my problems with

Troy Austin
Austin 1
Professor Campbell
2/2/16
University Writing 1103

education worked their way into a worse and worse state. looking back now I
realize I most likely suffered from attention deficit disorder which is a
problem in my family and I needed glasses. I have also recently discovered I
suffer from migraines which seem to increase the more I stress, a problem I
have just learned to deal with throughout my life. Back then though to my
teachers and the adults around me, I was just a kid from a bad environment
lashing out and refusing to pay attention. I know now that I can blame this a
lot on the way that I had chosen to deal with things in the past. During this
time when things were looking so dark, a time where many nights my family
and I did notq even have food on the table I began to look at education as a
way out, I saw how education might be the only escape that I have from the
life that I was living. By this point though I saw no way in which I could catch
up as I had already fallen so far behind.
My life stayed in this state for a very long time as I grew up a lot
quicker noticing the state of the people living around me. In the fourth grade
I was hearing adults from the area around me preaching how the only real
ways to live past age eighteen in life were to either sell drugs or to enter into
the military. Although I wanted to believe that there was a light at the end of
the tunnel and that education was still the way out I could not find the
evidence to prove that I was right, I thought that I had already taken a step
down a path that once you stepped onto there was no escape to be found.
Really I stayed like this for a while until things took a turn for what at the

Troy Austin
Austin 1
Professor Campbell
2/2/16
University Writing 1103

time I thought was the worse. My mother lost the house we had been living
in after not being able to afford to pay for it. Forced to move back to where
we were originally from the high-point/Thomasville area, we moved back in
with my Grandmother, a very strict woman already in her seventies by this
point. My dad started to have a larger affect in my life as he lived twenty
minutes away now as opposed to the two hours he lived before. Now by this
point I was an aggressive kid with an accent moving back to go to school in
the worse parts of the city of High-Point. To avoid the bullying that my family
thought would come with this change my mother got us into an academy.
Although this change could be seen as a positive change back then I felt it
was much worse. I was forced to realize at this time the difference that ones
family having money can have, this was also the time that teachers paid
attention enough to notice that my education was seriously lacking in a lot of
areas. The teachers at the school worked with me to help me address these
issues so although I hated my classmates and how they treated me I grew to
love the help I received from the teachers and it was at this point I stopped
acting out as much. I still had problems at home but with my dad being
closer my mother was forced to handle herself in a better fashion. We had
our very low lows still but there were also some positives mixed in now.
The next big point that really changed my life the most and the thing
that led to me turning my whole life around also happened to be one of the
closest to death moments I have ever experienced. My mother got really

Troy Austin
Austin 1
Professor Campbell
2/2/16
University Writing 1103

frustrated at a lot of things one day and had too much to drink and drove to
pick me and my little sister up. She picked us up and took us to the park like
she normally did but something about her was off compared to how bad
things normally were. As a kid I was never really properly explained what the
effects of Alcohol really were and only learned bits and pieces while my
mother was under the influence herself. As a kid who was used to my
mothers oddities I ignored it and did what I normally did and let my mother
sleep until it was time to pick up my older sister, I woke her and we set off
from the park towards the entrance which led out onto a major road luckily
we never made it their as my mother hit a light pole as we were gaining
speed after she passed out at the wheel. I still think about what could have
happened had we kept accelerating out onto the major road. This experience
changed my life forever because I moved In with my Father away from my
Mother and started over in a lot of ways at a new school, Penn-Griffin school
for the Arts.
The single place that has changed me the most and shaped me the
most into the man that I am today would be The Penn, Moving in with my
father trying and learning was no longer optional, it was required. I also
began to make changes in my growth on my own, I really realized my own
potential and made an effort to challenge myself. This is also the first time
that I used my anger in a productive fashion, I can remember one very
particular memory in my mind, It was halfway through my sixth grade and I

Troy Austin
Austin 1
Professor Campbell
2/2/16
University Writing 1103

had yet to fully apply myself, I was walking past a cracked door and heard
two teachers who I had classes with mention my name. as I listened to the
conversation I captured the gist of it. One teacher was telling the other how I
had hopes of entering the high school at Penn, a highly competitive school
for college preparation, and also mentioned how I had hopes of entering a
major university. The other teacher simply laughed harshly and I can still
remember the exact words that she used till this day, that kid? There is no
way a kid like that could ever do that, he is just too Stupid. Both laughed
for a while and then stopped discussing. I can remember this is the moment
that everything for me really changed, my mindset changed.
I grew to have a chip on my shoulder and channeled my anger towards
my education. I worked harder over the next three years than I had my entire
life. Where before I was an average kid when not applying himself I was
different when I made the decision to apply myself. I moved over the course
of these next three years from the average or slightly below average class all
the way up to the advanced learning class. I was admitted into the HighSchool and from there I sort of relaxed, It was not until my junior year that I
really shifted my aim towards college again. I graduated High-School Cum
Laude, I was accepted into the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, I can
say that now education really has changed my entire life. I made it out of so
many different situations barely and stuck to my books until I was able to
make it away from the family I thought I would end up becoming. I have

Troy Austin
Austin 1
Professor Campbell
2/2/16
University Writing 1103

serious plans in the future of being an Accountant. I really do say and mean
that education saved my life and kept me away from the things that the
people I grew up with ended up doing. Most of the people I grew up with
either now survive off illegal activity, are in the military, or are dead. If I had
not changed my direction and attended Penn-Griffin it is possible I would be
doing the same right now.