Education Essay, Research Paper

Education is a learning process that determines a person s success in life. The more time spent and the more effort given toward getting an education, the more success that person will have. People who don t care about getting an education have a tough time finding success in their life. They aren t educated enough to get a good paying job, and don t have the ambition to go back to school. There have been a few bumps in the road in my education process, but there was one major bump that I almost didn t get over. It was my freshman year in high school. This was one of the toughest years of my life. It was my first year in a big school, and I was overwhelmed by its size. After the first couple of weeks I became good friends with a group of seniors who liked to party and have a good time. I got myself into a lot of trouble hanging out with kids who were four years older than me. While hanging out with guys, I got involved in some extra curricular activities that almost got me kick out of school. I got caught twice for these activities and got suspended from school for three days both times. I also had to sit out of four basketball games and a half a season of baseball for these activities. After the second time, my parents and I had a meeting with the principals of the school. During the meeting they told me three strikes and I m out. I was in deep over my head this time. Needless to say, my parents were extremely upset with me, and I felt like I was losing control of my life. At the same time all this was going on, I was skipping school all the time and I never did any homework. My grades became very bad, and I started to hate school more than ever. I had a huge decision to make. I could continue to be friends with these guys and probably fail out of school, or stay away and concentrate on straightening up my life and getting an education. Then came a day and a man that I will never forget. One day I was standing in front of the school waiting for my mom to pick me up from basketball practice. While I was standing out there I heard the door behind me open. I turned to see who it was. It was Mr. Williams, the head coach of the varsity football team. I didn t think he even knew who I was, so I turned back around to wait for my mom. As I was standing there I felt a hand come down onto my shoulder. I was so scared and afraid of what he was going to tell me; I just wanted to go crawl in a whole in the ground and hide.

He just stood there a stared at me forever, it was a very mean looking stare. I didn t know what to do. Finally, after a long moment of silence he spoke. I ll never forget the words he said. Who do you think you are and what are you trying to do. Basically he was saying you re only a freshman quit trying to act like a senior. As he continued to talk he said, You better think about what is more important to you, school or partying. Everything he said made me think and realize what I was doing to myself and my life. But the words that really made me realize I better straighten up before I lost every thing, were his last words as he walked away. He stated, If you get in trouble one more time for these activities you will never play one second of football here again. Football was very important to me and that was a contributing factor to my change. But the main reason was because of the words Mr. Williams said to me that day while I was waiting for a ride. He is now a good friend and I can t thank him enough for helping me when I needed it the most. After that first year of high school things went a lot better and I started to get the most important thing of all, a good education. After this incident with the school I realized how important my education really was. My life would have been long and boring if I would have continued on the same path towards dropping out of school. I know this because an education is really important within our society, and without an education it is hard to be successful. It is almost impossible to find any kind of career job with out a high school diploma, and even with just a diploma it is still very difficult to find a career job with no college education. I m glad that I made the choices I did or else I might not be writing this paper right now.