I Need to Make the Right Decisions – Kevin Giron Final Narrative

I’ve always found myself thinking of my future, whether it be my future car, my future career, my future family. I want my future to consist of success, and happiness, but how do I get there? I have certain goals I want to come to fruition, but how do I make them happen? There’s a certain level I want to reach in my life, but how do I reach that height? It’s honestly a simple answer, Decisions. Not only any decisions, the correct decisions. However in my life I have had many instances where I don’t make the right decisions and it puts me in a place where I’m not at peace with myself. At that moment, I understand that I need to make a change. In order to make that change, you guessed it, I need to make new and better decisions. 

I know it can be tough for many to choose and understand what they must do. Take my first experience for example. During my final year in middle school, I had to decide on what high school I wanted to go to in order to receive a good education. There were only two options for me. On one hand it was a school that seemed like an easy ride. All of my friends were choosing to go to that school. I was certain that’s also where I wanted to go. However, I remembered the goal I had set for myself. I wanted to be an architect and that one school didn’t have the program I was looking for. This decision became very difficult for me. Deadlines were approaching, meaning I had to make a decision quick. I began to think of my future and what I needed to do in order to achieve the goal I had set for myself. At the end, it was a tough decision but I ended up choosing the school where none of my friends went, but had the architecture program I wanted to attend. Overall it’s a decision I don’t regret as I was able to make friends there and have a great high school experience. At times making decisions can be difficult. There will be times when you have to make a decision you don’t like but you know you must make. Nevertheless, believe me when I tell you it will ultimately benefit you in your future.

Not only have I had to make tough decisions, but I have also made the wrong decisions in my education as well. During my senior year I began to procrastinate a lot. Senioritis began to kick in. My GPA was great and I had already earned all my credits in order to graduate. I thought that my senior year would be an easy ride. I especially began to slack in my Calculus class. There were times where I would hand in work late. There were also times where I didn’t understand what was being taught. I didn’t study to try and understand, instead I would let it be. This resulted in my test scores coming out very low. I also did not participate a lot and that is also very important towards your grade. All these were definitely the wrong decisions that could have ultimately affected my GPA or even have had colleges not interested in me. I knew I needed to change my mindset and as I mentioned before, the way to do this is by making new better decisions. For starters, I began participating in my calculus class a lot more. My participation consisted of me answering questions to demonstrate my understanding to the teacher, and also asking questions when I didn’t understand something the teacher was going over. Studying also became important to me as I knew I needed my test grades to go up, allowing my average and GPA to go up and maintain a steady grade. This is a great example of how you can turn a wrong decision into a beneficial, correct decision. 

On the same topic of my senior year, it was a very stressful final year in high school. As the year began I needed to start applications for colleges and financial aid. I began to leave all my applications until the last minute. This had to do with my procrastination but also a fear of having to worry about completing and submitting applications. I would look at the applications and would be intimidated by them and would decide to save them for another day. The next day would come and I would continue to leave it for the following day. This is something I didn’t want to think about, even though I had to prioritize. I kind of felt alone in the process of doing all my applications. The stress began to weigh down on me and it kind of affected my mental health, but not in an extreme way. However, I take responsibility for this in the way that there were always resources available, just that I didn’t use them. There were college advisors but I didn’t like asking questions. I didn’t like the idea of losing my break time to go and ask for assistance. I also felt it would take a long time to resolve any questions I had. Deadlines for applications and financial aid began to get closer and closer and I began to get more and more stressed. I knew I needed to get everything done so I decided to attend an after school session where all students that went got help with their applications. I was able to finish a few applications and had less things to do. When I wouldn’t understand something I would go to the college office anytime I was free and ask for help. Deciding to ask for help was very beneficial as I started to understand more and do more things on time. Instead of addressing a problem at a later date, I would try and fix it on the same day.

  One of my most recent decisions was to attend City Tech. This was a great decision so far as I’m really enjoying being a City Tech student, despite attending from home. I have learned so much already and am appreciative of all the knowledge city tech has provided me with so far. I know that the decision to attend city tech will ultimately lead to a great future that I have planned. 

Links to earlier Drafts

Reflection Questions

• What did you learn about yourself as a student? as a learner? as a writer? as a reviser, as a collaborator?

Writing this narrative allowed me to learn things about myself. As a student I learned that I was able to study examples of Education Narratives and write one of my own, sharing my experiences and what I’ve learned. I didn’t think I was capable of writing a Education Narrative but I learned as a writer that I was able to understand it and write one that is effective. Finally, I learned that I shared similar experiences with my peers and similar opinions.

• What do you want to do with your narrative?

I want my narrative to be shared with my peers, just to remind them that they may not be the only ones struggling and that there are solutions for many things. I shared what I did to fix my problems, making better decisions, and I know it could help someone out.

• What do you want help with as you revise it for your final portfolio for the end of the semester?

I may just want to revise the structure of my Narrative. I just want to make sure that no sentence was out of place and that they all related to the sentence prior or after it.

• What can I do to help you achieve your goals and mine for Project #1?

I would say just to revise my Narrative and to continue giving me great advise on how to improve as you have already done so.