reflection

Over the past 3 years, I've grown in many more ways than I expected. Academically, I've grown to become a better learner, but I've also learned to not beat myself down so hard because of my academics. I've grown to appreciate the time that I have in high school and to take it easy. I will say, as a result of learning to relax more, my work ethic has grown to be tremendously intense in all other aspects of my life.

Since freshman year, my perception about math has fluctuated extremely. In freshman year, learning math was a chore and learning was somewhat stressful. If I didn't understand a topic right away, I'd start to build anxiety which, naturally, I correlated with math which gave it a bad connotation. Year 2 was no different. In fact, it was hard, but I was determined to stick it through and it paid off. Year 3, math is fun and enjoyable. If I don't understand a concept, I'm not stressed. Math has become one of my favorite classes. Additionally, I think it's a result of me realizing that the world keeps moving.

With science, I freshman year and sophomore year, I was indifferent about science. I learned the content that I had to and just had the class for the grade. Even still, I'm indifferent to biology and chemistry somewhat, but physics is fun. With physics it's more understanding the concepts and less memorization. Since freshman year, I've learned that science can be fun, I just have to find the right one for me. My perceptions on engineering have been the same. If anything, I'm more excited about engineering. From STEM, to out of school mentors and experieces, my understanding of engineering has deepened and shown me that it's not all fun and games. It's shown me to think on a different level, to consider every perspective, and taught me that professionalism and the way you carry yourself is everything.

Overall, the difference from my freshman year to now is my outlook on life and I it's a result of my maturity over my 3 years in STEM.

Something I'll take away from the program is the communication and people skills that I've acquired over the past 3 years. After with people I wanted to and didn't want to, I've learned that the best people to work with are people you get along with and have similar goals to you. Working with friends isn't ideal in a lot of cases. Due to the chaos and lack of organization, communication skills became highly valuable in a group member. I'm realizing that in industry, communication skills are one of the best skills I could have, and I thank STEM very much for helping me develop that. Something that surprised me is the variation in motivation and academic goals across STEM. Coming into the program, I thought I would be placed with people almost exactly like me. Having the variance in goals, with people wanting to go into dentistry to people wanting to go into law, it was actually best for the program. Having the variance was one of the best parts of STEM because every project, you'd have someone with fresh perspectives, skills, and ideas to contribute.

Something that challenged me was staying motivated to do projects and work that I didn't want to do. Throughout the 3 years, there were many projects that were not in my interest. In non-STEM classes, I was easy to get the work over with and move on, but in GSCP, the project was somewhat long-term which made it kind of depressing and torturous. But I'm happy I got over it and tried to make the best of the projects and did my best to contribute to my group's work. Looking back, there's a lot of work that I could have easily done but chose not to. Going forward, I'll know how to overcome this sloth and laziness and how to make the best of my classes.

STEM is not fun and games. Do not mess around with your GPA and for the next 2 years you have to be on point with everything you do in this program (trust me I know it's not what you wanted or expected). Year 1 is limbo. It's an acclimation year and its a year for you to anchor down your GPA before your next 3 years of HS. Sophomore year mentally is hard to push through, but academically you'll be fine, and junior year is heaven (somewhat). What I just said sounds kind of serious and intimidating, but take care of your work so you can take care of yourself. Along the way, see what interests you and what you might want to study or work as after high school. If you find it hard to do that, take what you like to do, such as playing games, drawing, etc., and try to fit that into your future. Also, don't let your phone be a hindrance to your goals. If you're on it for more than 4 hours, you gotta fix something. I know from personal experience because I reached upwards of 10 hours a day on average. Please, don't let your socials, brainrot, and skibidi toilet ruin your life.