Being homeschooled is of assistance in many respects. I would not have learned near as much going through the public school system as I did learning myself. Being homeschooled allowed me to proceed at my own pace. If I already knew something, I could just skip it, or speed through it, and focus on the things that I needed work on. Also, instead of a classroom of thirty people, there was just myself and my sister. Which made for much more individual learning, and quicker through things. At a school, they probably would not have let me do preschool, kindergarten, and first grade all in one year. That gave me a head start.
I also took part in a math contest called MMSETS (Maine Mathematical Science and Engineering Talent Search), and I won my grade a few times, getting to work on fascinating math problems a lot, as well as getting to assist teaching at a junior engineering class, and meeting very interesting people along the way.
Sports were my major occupation besides homework, and as a result of having better coaches, I ended up playing baseball the most. In basketball, I did very well in the post, scoring the most points of anyone on either of the three teams for our town. But the coach of the all star team started his son who could not do anything, and did not like me, so he barely played me at all. The baseball coaches I had played everyone fairly, and actually tried to help the players improve their abilities.
I made three all star teams through little league, finishing fourth in the state once. Then, in Junior League, we reached the state championship game. In Senior League, we finished it off finally by winning the state tournament and heading to the regional tournament.
I also continued playing baseball into college. It is wonderful to have good coaches. These ones are the first coaches I have ever had that actually consider fielding important. That is why I started the majority of the season in the outfield. Most coaches at the little league level are managers, not coaches. These coaches on the college team actually try to teach and improve the players on the team. It is most definitely my favorite team that I have played on in any sport, considering that I started when I was eight.
I was 14 by the time I reached tenth grade, and I decided that I didn't really need to keep doing much more of this, so I started applying for college when I was fourteen. I was accepted and started classes just after I turned fifteen. I have enjoyed college greatly, starting off slow, with six credits in my first semester, then ten, then thirteen, then seventeen. For a while I had not really decided what I wanted to do, so I just took general courses and courses that I am interested in.
One field that always interested me was math. I have taken a math class every semester, and was taking Calculus II when I was sixteen. This will be my first semester without a math class, as Calculus III was cancelled.
I discovered a GIS class at one point. Geographic Information Systems fascinates me, with its manipulation of maps and data. The teacher was highly enthusiastic, and made the subject more interesting just because of how excited he was about it. He had wanted to teach GIS at EMCC for a while, but the software had been too expensive. He got a grant finally, and I was in at the first semester, and was in all of his classes, working on mapping Frenchman Bay for the MDI Biological Lab and the Frenchman Bay Conservancy in many respects, including mapping eelgrass change. Our class's poster on Frenchman Bay Eelgrass won a statewide GIS poster competition, beating out several other posters from other colleges.
English is the other thing which I have always liked. Reading is something that I have been devout about forever. I did not have as much experience with writing, but I enjoyed that as well. After a little difficulty with the accuplacer's english part, the writeplacer, I got into English 101 because of doing well on the essay part of the SATs.
I have taken an english class every semester since then, and this is the first semester I will take two english classes. The one thing I think that the semester lacks is time to read, so, I figured that if I took a class where reading books was required, then that would take care of it for me. So I am taking online True Crime this semester.
In terms of what I would like to do next, I want to pursue something in English and GIS. Online GIS programs are available at the University of Maine at Machias, so my idea would be to take those there, and at the same time to be getting a degree in English someplace else. Where that someplace else would be, I am not sure, but English and GIS are two things that I love to do, so what better to try to pursue than those?
Sports were my major occupation besides homework, and as a result of having better coaches, I ended up playing baseball the most. In basketball, I did very well in the post, scoring the most points of anyone on either of the three teams for our town. But the coach of the all star team started his son who could not do anything, and did not like me, so he barely played me at all. The baseball coaches I had played everyone fairly, and actually tried to help the players improve their abilities.
I made three all star teams through little league, finishing fourth in the state once. Then, in Junior League, we reached the state championship game. In Senior League, we finished it off finally by winning the state tournament and heading to the regional tournament.
I also continued playing baseball into college. It is wonderful to have good coaches. These ones are the first coaches I have ever had that actually consider fielding important. That is why I started the majority of the season in the outfield. Most coaches at the little league level are managers, not coaches. These coaches on the college team actually try to teach and improve the players on the team. It is most definitely my favorite team that I have played on in any sport, considering that I started when I was eight.
I was 14 by the time I reached tenth grade, and I decided that I didn't really need to keep doing much more of this, so I started applying for college when I was fourteen. I was accepted and started classes just after I turned fifteen. I have enjoyed college greatly, starting off slow, with six credits in my first semester, then ten, then thirteen, then seventeen. For a while I had not really decided what I wanted to do, so I just took general courses and courses that I am interested in.
One field that always interested me was math. I have taken a math class every semester, and was taking Calculus II when I was sixteen. This will be my first semester without a math class, as Calculus III was cancelled.
I discovered a GIS class at one point. Geographic Information Systems fascinates me, with its manipulation of maps and data. The teacher was highly enthusiastic, and made the subject more interesting just because of how excited he was about it. He had wanted to teach GIS at EMCC for a while, but the software had been too expensive. He got a grant finally, and I was in at the first semester, and was in all of his classes, working on mapping Frenchman Bay for the MDI Biological Lab and the Frenchman Bay Conservancy in many respects, including mapping eelgrass change. Our class's poster on Frenchman Bay Eelgrass won a statewide GIS poster competition, beating out several other posters from other colleges.
English is the other thing which I have always liked. Reading is something that I have been devout about forever. I did not have as much experience with writing, but I enjoyed that as well. After a little difficulty with the accuplacer's english part, the writeplacer, I got into English 101 because of doing well on the essay part of the SATs.
I have taken an english class every semester since then, and this is the first semester I will take two english classes. The one thing I think that the semester lacks is time to read, so, I figured that if I took a class where reading books was required, then that would take care of it for me. So I am taking online True Crime this semester.
In terms of what I would like to do next, I want to pursue something in English and GIS. Online GIS programs are available at the University of Maine at Machias, so my idea would be to take those there, and at the same time to be getting a degree in English someplace else. Where that someplace else would be, I am not sure, but English and GIS are two things that I love to do, so what better to try to pursue than those?
Some people get off on this assignment and write a tight little miniature and enjoy the compression. I don't think that's happened for you--you're coming at it from the outside and directly, and I think you're treating it like a math problem to be attacked and solved: stick in the right values, perform the correct operations, press the button, and voila!
ReplyDeleteThis is a lagniappe assignment, a throw-in, and I don't want you to put any more time into trying to introduce yourself to a teacher who has already had you twice before.