Michael Shanahan

Mrs. Scharf

ERWC

25 February 2019

Reflection

My Best Writing

I think that one piece of writing that I’m pretty proud of is my Into The Wild essay.

When I came into high school, my writing was not as good as I knew it could be, as I had a kind

of a difficult time articulating my words into complex, well thought out sentences when put

under time constraints and on topics that I didn’t find interesting to me. This piece of writing is

very exemplary of my progress over my 4 years in high school and demonstrates my better

capabilities to utilize and integrate higher level vocabulary and insight into my analyses in my

writing now as opposed to when I was entering high school. The essay on the book “Into The

Wild” is a book that discusses the long and complex journey of Chris McCandless, as he tries to

find a meaning and happiness in his life that he couldn’t seem to find satisfaction in at home. In

this essay, I delve into the difficult topic of McCandless’ home life and what could have possibly

drove him to act so dramatically and out of character that would lead him to being found dead in

a hunting bus in the remote Alaskan wilderness. The topics discussed in this book are intricate

and sensitive topics, that take a lot of insight to fully grasp and understand, and I think the way I

tackled these challenges is a fantastic representation of the leaps and bounds of progress I have

made in my writing and the way I articulate my thoughts and feelings into these assignments.

My Improvements
 I think the most obvious improvement I have made throughout is in my GPA. This last

semester, I made a concerted effort to improve my grades all the way across the board, and it

paid off. I got a 4.2 last year, as opposed to my cumulative GPA up until this point of 3.5. This

was a result of me not caring to study for tests, as well as a hatred of doing homework that really

cost me over time in the grand scheme of my classes, and I realized that the one assignment here

and there that I didn’t complete added up and would cost me several percentage points off of my

final grades, enough that it would even be the difference between a letter grade in some cases. I

noticed this and made a conscious effort to work on improving in these areas. This effort paid off

and was very revealing that it really did not take as much work to raise all of my grades as I had

thought, and I think realizing this will be very helpful moving forward, and taught me an

important lesson.

Where I still need to improve

I think that one of the best places for me to improve on in my schoolwork is still going to

be my homework completion. Although I have made great strides in turning all of it in more

often than I had previously, I still struggle, mainly in math, due to my busy schedule after school

and the lack of motivation I have in math, as the topics we cover now in Advanced Placement

Calculus are a lot more arduous and conceptual, which makes them much harder to grasp and

visualize, and as a result, I have a lot less desire to work on these problems. However, if I am

able to pass the AP exam for Calculus BC this year, I won’t have to take any more math classes

like this, which helps give me the push to work harder.

My Future
 I think that Great Oak has given me a fantastic platform and push to get me to where I

want to go in life through college, and I am going to attend Cal State San Marcos next year to

play baseball and major in software engineering, which I am happy to say, is a fantastic sector

and job market to be entering into in the near future with the high demand and pay it offers.

Great Oak has given me the education and steps to get me to this place, including classes like

Architectural Design and Computer Science that have helped guide me to find what I enjoy and

would like to do as a job after college. These opportunities aren’t available to a lot of schools,

and it’s a fantastic privilege to have access to these valuable resources.