Growth Trajectory

In my early years of high school, I lacked many things that I needed in order to
be successful in the future. For starters, the trait that I displayed at the beginning of my
high school years was being unmotivated. I was unmotivated because I had no goal
that could kept me going and it lead me to not turn in the assignments that I was given.
It also lead me to fail most of my classes. While I did make up some classes through
summer school, I failed more classes than I could make up. It became a huge problem
by 11th grade because my counselor had to talk to my mom about the risk of not being
able to graduate on time and have to go to adult school to finish. Despite all that, it
wasn’t enough to give me a reason to improve and I was ready to give up until a few
events happened in my life. The first one was that my mom reminded me that if I did
not want to continue school or find a job, I would have to go out of the house and collect
bottles in order to pull my weight in providing for my family because my mom doesn’t
have the means to support a lazy lifestyle, also because of the fact that she was unable
to finish high school and doesn’t want the same for me. The second reason is that I
recently discovered a passion for cooking and have been looking for new recipes and
techniques during my free time. Discovering this passion helped me find what college I
want to attend. The last reason is that I have a fighting chance to graduate. At the end
of my 11th grade year, my counselor told me that the classes that I managed to pass
ended up giving me a small chance to graduate. It took me three reasons to motivate
me and become dedicated to do better at school. I am dedicated by turning in my
assignments and raising my grades to avoid failing. I am making up my classes through
Edgenuity. Currently I need one more class before I am on track to graduate.

One of the important skills that lacked as a ninth grader was being a willing
collaborator. The reason why I was not a willing collaborator at the beginning of high
school was because during my middle school years I was not very cooperative and let
my team down. I tried to change halfway through middle school, but was denied the
chance to change and do better and the lack of being a willing colaborator carried over
to the beginning of high school. I kept repeating the same mistakes and forced myself
to work alone at times so I won’t let anyone else down, but myself. I was able to
improve the skill of collaboration through the interdisciplinary projects (IDPs). While at
first I had trouble being a willing collaborator in the first few IDPs, but I was able to
improve that skill through later projects and IDPs because it was easier to get the
assignment done in a group instead of doing it alone. Now that I am a willing
collaborator I help my teammates out through parts they are having trouble with. I am
able to explain the work to my teammates when they are having trouble understanding
their part. I hold my team accountable when we are falling behind and when the
assignment is past due. With this skill I have developed I will use it when I am a chef
because I need to work as a team to get the food out and if I don’t work effectively as a
teammate we could fall behind on orders and lose customers.

The behavior I displayed at the beginning of my high school years was that I was
asocial. During my early years at high school I would avoid others during lunch and sit
alone to not bother anyone. Most of the times when I was depressed someone would
come up and ask me what was wrong and I didn’t respond to them, not out of rudeness,
but because I couldn’t trust them. Many of my former friends just used me and because
of that I did not want that to happen again. I changed all that during my eleventh grade
year in Ms. Dev’s poetry class. I was reading a few poems where the poet was able to
be open with their problems to strangers and it moved me to be more open not only in
my poems but socially too. I was more open to talk about my problems and joined
peers on fun activities such as the fair, going to the parks, and parties. By being social
it also helped me improve my communication skills because I use to give short
responses. Now I engage in conversations like talking about the latest movie or how is
this event impacting us. Being social will help me with my job as a chef because I must
be able to interact with others and communicate with others. If we don’t communicate
with each other then the food would be cold and we would have to do a refire and we
would fall behind on orders.