The most difficult assignment I ever had was during my freshman year of high school - my science fair project. It was the typical science project every freshman student half-asses for extra credit. In my case, however, it was required.
I went to a private school up until the end of 8th grade and the transition to public school was extremely hard. My private school lacked a certain amount of rules and standards that my high school prided themselves in. School was a joke. Learning the bare minimum always resulted in an A+. On top of all of that, middle school didn't matter- at least the learning aspect didn't. Now that I was in high school, grades suddenly mattered, the classes I took would make or break my resume, the clubs I participated in expressed who I was; that is a lot of pressure for a freshman. My parents dreamed of me being the top model student, of being a doctor. Which doctor kid didn't take science classes, specifically doubling up in honors science classes their freshmen year? I ended up with the most hated teacher in our school, my biology teacher. She was the worst of the worst. When it came time to talk about the science fair, she was a monster.
You would think that the science fair would be easy, right? All you had to do was Google a first place project from an upper-level class the night before, find some pictures that look similar to the project, slap your name on someone else's paper, cut and paste things onto the board, and turn it in the next morning. I thought it would be a piece of cake.
My biology walked into class one morning and handed all of us a 10-page packet filled with multiple rubrics, guidelines, due dates, and extra information. After the lecture, she ended the class with "I can't wait to see the projects you all come up with". It was September. Projects were due the next semester in late February. In my head, I thought that I could wait until the very end to finish the project, but we always had something due each week relating to the project.
As each week passed, the work from other classes continued to pile. It was hard. The teacher would always nit-pick the most the most obscure, minute details, like where a post-it note tab was placed or how the font style didn't suit her taste. But over the course of time, I was slowly able to manage the workload. I made sure that I scheduled an hour each day to work on the project and that the post-it note was up to her standards. If something felt nearly impossible, I went to my teacher for help. If I didn't have the time to do it that day, I made sure to complete it during the weekend. It was extremely hard. But after working on the project for nearly 5 months, I finally managed to turn it in and received first place in both the district and county fairs.
I learned multiple things after completing this project. I realized that high school was going to be rough and my "studying habits" had to change drastically if I wanted good grades. I learned that if I wanted to be successful in anything, I had to dedicate many hours of hard work. It's something I still struggle with now, but I've experienced and understand what hard work can do for a person. I've also learned that I need to do my research on a teacher before I sign up for a class, that way I won't have to hear another 10-minute lecture on which post-it tabs would be more aesthetically pleasing for the judges to feel and look at.
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