In the beginning of the year, I had many different expectations for how my senior year

was going to go. I was always someone who was so sure of myself and knew what I was doing.

Junior year, I had planned everything out. However, I wasn’t being super realistic. Once actually

taking Capstone class in the first semester, I realized I had a lot of obstacles that I had to

overcome in order to be successful. Things don’t get done for you and you have to make things

happen yourself.

Seeing the seniors last year, I believed I was going to be better. I’ve been going to Sports

Medical and Sciences Academy since sixth grade and I always thought the seniors were being

dramatic about Capstone. I didn’t understand how hard it was going to be. Coming up with ideas,

getting hours, being professional, it’s all something I never thought I would struggle with and it

really humbled me.

I was so used to having someone or something to fall back on. I feel like I was taking

things as seriously as I should have and because of this I didn’t have a support system ready for

when things failed. Because of this, it became extremely hard to get things done. When certain

people become overwhelmed and put under pressure, they tend to work harder, and I did too. But

I was struggling so bad that I found ways to ignore how hard I was struggling. I swept everything

under the rug and took multiple breaks which in turn prevented me from tutoring or helping

classes as often as I would’ve liked to.

In the beginning of the year, I had a completely different idea of what I wanted to do. I

wanted to create a little library where people could donate books and have children decorate it.

Then I was going to put it in front of their school when it was finished. However, I realized that I

had a lot of restrictions in terms of the places I could go, the times I could go, and the things I

could do.
 Creating a little library would have cost a lot of money, and having children in a school

decorate it would have cost even more. As well as I wouldn’t have had a ride to go over and

bring the materials everywhere or get there on time.

I really needed help and needed to find something to do that I still would’ve enjoyed

quickly, so my sister helped me find something to do at her old school she attended. This helped

me extremely and I was comforted by the help form her and my mentor. They were both

extremely supportive and have helped me a tremendous amount my entire Capstone.

Since I started it earlier in the year, I’ve learned so much that I couldn’t have learned if I

didn’t have a Capstone to do. I learned how to communicate with people and students, how to

become helpful in situations in ways that I didn’t know I was even capable of, and the most

important thing; I learned how to become a responsible adult.

I’ve grown mentally and physically this year, I learned more about myself and my

ambitions and priorities in ways that have changed my complete outlook on life. There are so

many things I could’ve done differently in terms of procrastination and getting my priorities

straight, but I believe everything I’ve gone through this year has helped my development into

who I am today.