“I wish you would apply yourself more. Not just in my class, but in everything. You are capable of doing great things.” — Ms. Glass, history teacher
It was a week before winter break in my Junior year of High School. I had handed in my midterm assignment for my History class a few days before, An essay on the Confederation Period. I checked online to see my grade but in the place where the grade should be displayed sat a red exclamation point with the comment “see me after class”. My heart sank. The period after The Revolutionary War interested me heavily and I had worked harder on that essay than anything else I had been assigned that year. I walked into Ms. Glass’ History class the next day nervous, hoping she would have forgotten. But as soon as I took my seat, she told me to see her at the end of the period. When class ended I walked up to her desk, she pulled my essay out of her desk and asked “Why haven’t you given me more work like this?” I was confused so I asked what she meant. She continued “If you are capable of writing so well, why haven’t your other assignments been completed as well as this one” I felt my face turn red and I was unsure how I should respond. This is when she said something to me that has stuck with me to this day. She said “I wish you would apply yourself more. Not just in my class, but in everything. You are capable of doing great things.”.
She had said to me what I needed to hear. Sure, in the past I had been called an underachiever but it never clicked in my brain till then. I took her advice and gradually started to apply myself in school . I showed up early to classes, participated until my classmates got annoyed, worked harder on assignments and handed them in on time. I even started studying for exams for the first time in my life. I started to look for after school activities to do. I looked on the schools website, asked teachers about clubs they could recommend and even signed up for community service. It turned out, Ms. Glass was right. My grades in the classes I decided to start applying myself in steadily rose. My English teacher, Ms. D had noticed the improvements I was making and said “see what happens when you apply yourself?!”. I talked to Ms. D about trying to find a club to join and she asked me if I liked computers and technology. I wasn’t too interested in them at the time. The only time I did anything tech related was when I was helping a family member with their phone or internet. Making me a genius in their eyes. I was struggling to find something I enjoyed, So I said I was interested. She met me after school, walked me into the tech office and introduced me to Andrew, the head IT repair guy for the building. From that day forward, everyday during my lunch period and a few days a week after school, I was repairing laptops for the school. I learned to uninstall computer parts, install new ones, create OS images and the ways the parts of computers communicate with each other. At the end of the school year, I was approached by Andrew who offered me a job over the summer working in the tech department. I accepted and spent my summer setting up the new tech lab for the school.
