When I first came to New York from Bangladesh at the age of seven, adapting to the new environment and meeting new people was very difficult for me. As I began school here in third grade, I was the quiet student. Everyone knew me as the quiet kid, and sometimes the teacher would forget my name. There was a time when the teacher called on me to answer a question, but she didn’t call me by my name, she just chose me to answer the question. There were few times when this would happen and she would ask me “what was your name again?” I was too shy and uncomfortable to speak in front of the whole classroom. Even my classmates who are active in class barely knew my name.

As you can see adapting to the new school life here was not easy for me, while trying to fit in. The educational system between Bangladesh and here in New York is very different, which had a huge impact in my life. As I already know how to speak in my language, but I forgot how to read and write, because ever since I started third grade here, I only practiced my English as I was trying to adapt within the people in my school. I started going to the library to become a better reader, and back then I used to watch a lot of cartoons, which also improved my English as well. As I began reading more books and practiced my writing, I started to become more comfortable to speak in class and started making a lot of friends.