Personal Statement

Throughout this past year, being in the Honors Program and coming to college has truly
changed me. In the beginning of college, I was so worried of having a perfect grade point
average and didn’t realize the true difficulties to acquire all straight A. I assumed that college
would be easier than it was and had to find my own real study habits to prepare me. I think
through taking such rigorous classes, I learned about my own capabilities, what I can handle at
one time and set realistic expectations for myself. Based on my first semester, I took pretty
difficult classes all at the same time while adjusting to life on campus. By second semester, I
learned the right classes for me, the best times for productivity and was not afraid to ask for help
from the many different resources I found.
In my original essay on why you wanted the Honors experience was to see my own self-
improvement and be a part of a program dedicated to continuous growth and knowledge. Being a
part of honors definitely had a huge impact because I was able to expand myself and try different
opportunities, I might not have thought to pursue. Going to different events such as Pasta and
Prof and being able to talk to my sophomore advisor if I needed anything helped tremendously in
immersing myself in college. In addition, through Honors I had the ability to dorm with many
other students going through the same experiences. With A&M being such a large campus, I was
intimidated to meet people however it was a lot easier to meet people in a smaller setting and
really get to know them. I wrote originally that success was not defined with the level of
difficulty of courses but it is defined with the experiences, outcomes and perspectives taken
away. Being a part of the Honors Program, has definitely given me many different opportunities
and experience.
The first year in Honors affected my college plans majorly because I was very unfamiliar
with all the requirements. Many of the honor requirements such as fulfilling a capstone project
and meeting a certain number of honors courses was very overwhelming. To combat this, I had
to immediately start planning my four-year plans. One thing I learned from college however is
that I am unsure exactly what my career plan looks like. I am certain of staying as a math major
because I enjoy it, but I wanted to follow a business math plan to lead me into a data analytics
field. This ultimately led me to choose a business minor. Honors introduced me to different
services A&M offers such as the Career Center in addition to pushing me to research different
career opportunities. With the prospect of different career opportunities, I learned to be more
flexible in my four-year plan and finish all my course requirements a semester early in case I
needed a little more time to jumpstart my career. Honors also showed me that many majors have
a wide amount of careers field to go into and it can change minute from minute.
As I mentioned before, first semester course work was very overwhelming for me and
difficult. I ended up with a lower GPA than I ever wanted and was very discouraged. Being a
part of Honors helped me see that everyone was struggling in the community and I wasn’t alone
in this issue. Coming out of first semester, I definitely narrowed down the best courses and study
methods for me which is improving my time management and my GPA currently. Furthermore,
Honors just showed so many possibilities and similarities in different career fields that I was
blind to about my major and career. I would never think that researching economies and doing
mathematical modeling could also read to becoming a journalist about these issues. It is amazing
how eye opening and how my perspective has changed about my major and future career.
Honors has also given me an insight into undergraduate research and other students
projects. It can range from assisting in a professor’s research and it can also have nothing to do
with your major. I would love to do a project in the future bettering the community and leaving
my mark at A&M like many of the former students. Overall, the Honors community and
program has made a tremendous amount of impact on my first year of college.
My plans moving forward at Texas A&M is to continue to use all my resources and
opportunities to me to enable me to do my best work. I believe it will be more beneficial to look
at my overall self-improvement and ask myself if I am putting all of my effort rather than to be
so stuck on the final grade. I have learned to continuously ask help and questions because being a
part of college can be overwhelming and gratefully there are an unlimited amount of resources. I
also want to immerse myself in different organizations around campus that can help me grow
and create a close support group around me. Being surrounded by Honors students has showed
me that many students take every opportunity and even create their own. I want to enable myself
to create opportunities for myself and other students that I find passionate.
Reflecting back and continuing forward, I would define a life well lived as one where I
am stable, happy and have a balance in my life. There are many career paths related to my major
that have a very high stress level job however has a very high salary. Even though I would
always love to earn more, I believe a life well lived is taking all the opportunities available to
me, knowing my limits and spending time with the people I love. There are also many fields that
have an accumulation of my interests of interests of business concepts, mathematics and
computer science. My major applied mathematics with an economics emphasis and business
minor gives me a perfect combination teaching me the skillset I would need to go into a field of
data analytics. To acquire a managerial position in the future, I plan to pursue my MBA before
settling down. This will give me a chance to grow in my career as well as create a balance in my
personal life.
I believe I will achieve my goals and my personal values and long-term goals are
reflected in my actions. To stay ahead of school work, I am enrolling in summer school and this
will also help keep stress levels down during the academic school year when life is a lot busier.
In addition, I always make it a priority to spend time with my family and friends and create that
balance between my personal life and college life. This will directly translate to when graduating
from A&M and starting a career. I will ensure that I will still have a balance in my life to keep
me happy.
Life becomes very busy however, this only means that I need to work harder on focusing
on my priorities. By being a part of the University Honor’s Program, in my 4 years I am
provided with research opportunities and capstone opportunities. This allows me with the
opportunity to provide my point of view on a topic and help expand people’s perspectives and
help fundamental values. I would like to take my project in college and dedicate it to helping the
A&M community and leaving a positive impact.
My academics, co-curricular involvement, and Capstone will help me to prepare for my
“life well-lived” because I am taking every opportunity and finding a balance between
everything. To be able to have so many different experiences will broaden my perspective and
overall make a better individual. Overall, the Honors program has helped me reach my full
potential in so many different aspects and will continue to help me grow as I continue at A&M.