High School Essay, Research Paper

During the adolescent years of high school, one learns many valuable lessons and gains important knowledge to lay a foundation for the rest of one s life. Many of these lessons are learned through direct experience and can be real tough on an individual. During this time of learning, many teenagers are confused and in search of their own identity which can lead to distractions with the process of gaining vital knowledge. As for myself, high school has taught me three major lessons without many of the distractions: how to work with other students, how to manage my time, and how to develop and maintain a good work ethic. Interaction with fellow students makes up a large part of the high school experience. With best friend s aside, high school mandates an individual to be able to coexist and work together with total strangers and people that an individual would not associate with normally. My own experiences with this issue came during my junior year in science class. The class would be assigned to perform many labs with a different partner each time. I was forced to work with many strange and different people with a common goal in mind. At the time it was not enjoyable, yet I learned a lot of skills and techniques necessary to accomplish tasks with other people as a team. High school takes up much of one s free time to do things they often used to do before high school. Time especially becomes a huge problem if one is involved extraneously in sports, theatre, band, etc. I have been involved with football and track since my freshman year. At first, it was a shock to be able to balance both school and sports. To somehow muster enough energy to do homework after a four hour practice was extremely difficult. Although, as the season progressed, balancing the two became easier and easier by managing my time correctly and efficiently. This lesson was one of the tougher ones to learn but it came with time and discipline.

The last major lesson I learned came from experiences in the participation of high school football. Football taught me the same lesson it teaches every other kid who goes for the high school team: nothing can be accomplished without hard work. During the freshman year especially, the coaches emphasize hard work and good grades in the classroom. If anyone is caught slacking or taking it easy in practice, the whole team is punished for not understanding what it is to actually work hard. If an individual does not perform in the classroom by doing his work and getting the grade, he will not play. Many of the kids who come out are not able to handle the idea of working hard. Yet, those who do make it through the program now have the knowledge of what hard work really is. I have had many valuable experiences throughout high school. Many of these experiences were not that pleasant, but they taught me an important lesson in the end. I now firmly believe I possess an advantage over many of my competitors in the workforce because of some of the experiences and lessons I have had. I am very fortunate to have parents that supported me through it all. I am assured the lessons I have learned will be the reason I will have success once I graduate.