Reflection

The assignment that I am most proud of in my high school career was my

Freedom vs Safety ​essay that I wrote for my AP English Language and Composition

course back in sophomore year. The prompt asked whether humans innately prefer

freedom or safety, to which I promptly responded freedom. My evidence included the

Women’s march that had just taken place, the Parisian response to the terrorist attacks

on Charlie Hebdo HQ where thousands walked and protested in solidarity, the Syrian

refugee crisis, and North Korean defectors. I’m very proud of this essay because I feel

that I made a compelling argument, backed up by solid and varied evidence paired with

insightful analysis. The topic of the essay was also quite profound and meaningful, as

this exact debate has taken place among legitimate philosophers and intellectuals, but

now, high school me could have my say. I scored a nine out of nine on the essay, which

was the first one I received all year. It was also important to me because it was

indicative of the massive progress that I made as a writer over the course of the year,

as my first essay was a four, and by January I had managed to write this essay which

was a nine. It gave me the confidence that I needed to perform at a high level in the

class and on the exam, where I scored a five overall.

I’ve spent a considerable amount of my time in high school stressing over my

grades, but now that it is all coming to an end, I am able to look back and evaluate my

successes and failures year by year, semester by semester. I noticed that my freshman

year grades were among my strongest in high school. I had straight A’s both semesters,
and I can still recall the immense feeling of pride that enveloped me after seeing my

achievements. I clearly recall that my sophomore year was much more of a journey. I

had more coursework because I now was enrolled in 2 AP classes. I undoubtedly

struggled in both classes, receiving a B in my first semester of AP English Language. In

the second semester of my sophomore year, I finally struck a balance between my

coursework and my extracurriculars to the point where I was able to get an A in both of

my AP classes. Although I did receive a B in my second semester of chemistry, I will

concede that I am naturally quite poor in the sciences, and I did not seek enough help

from my teacher while I was struggling with the syllabus. I carried the habits and work

ethic that I had developed in my sophomore year with me into my junior year. I was able

to maintain straight A’s in both semesters of my first year in the IB Program, which of

course gave me a great sense of pride and confidence in my ability as a student.

Although I did receive a B in IB Biology SL this past semester, I still believe that my

achievements thus far have been quite commendable.

I believe that I have significant room for improvements in the sciences because

those have been my weakest grades throughout high school. However, I do not think

that this is supremely pertinent, as I have no intentions of dealing with the sciences in

my higher education. I am completely aware of the fact that many of the concepts that

are taught in these subjects are useful and applicable to my life, but the courses that I

have struggled in are the far more complex fields of science in Chemistry, and a

high-intensity IB science class in IB Biology. With respect to my English grades, my

grade reflections from sophomore year AP English Language and Composition and
those from my senior year IB HL English Year 2 Classes (these are the only ones that I

could find), it seems that my Reading and Presentation sections were rather weak for

these respective classes. For AP Lang, I’m not surprised, as the multiple choice grades

were placed in the reading section, and that was always one of my weakest areas in the

class. They were very difficult, and although with the seemingly endless practice that we

did throughout the year, it seemed that I could never quite master the multiple choice. I

could have improved this by doing more Multiple Choice protocols beyond those

assigned to us in class so that I could better understand the style and format of the

questions. For IB English, my presentation score being somewhat low is not surprising

either, as this is where most of the grades for the socratic seminars were put in, and I

can recall that in the first semester of this year, I was not correctly preparing for the

Socratrics, and I tended to ramble too often, both mistakes which I feel I have

somewhat fixed in this semester.

I would like to think that Great Oak High School has prepared me for my higher

education and beyond in many of ways. Firstly, going to a school of this size has helped

me adapt to the climate of a large public school, similar to my future college, UC

Berkeley. Had I continued to attend a small school such as my middle school, I would

undoubtedly be overwhelmed by the grandiosity and scope of a place like UC Berkeley,

but Great Oak High School had helped me adapt. Moreover, the rigor of the classes I

took and the independence and time management abilities that I developed as a result

are largely a result of the environment at Great Oak. Unlike my previous schools, more

responsibility is placed on the student in determining their success.The teachers here

are also absolutely brilliant, and have helped shape me into an independent-minded

student. We are encouraged to have and share our own individual thoughts, for which I

am ever-grateful.