Brian Lum, Period 7, 3/11/22

 At this current point in time, what specific goal(s) do you have for yourself? Why?

Ever since the second semester of high school started, senioritis has been hitting me hard: I am feeling generally unmotivated and lethargic in most of my classes. Therefore, while I believe my feelings towards wanting to move on from Staten Island Tech and discovering a new scenery at university are justifiable, my goal at this moment is to overcome, or at least lessen the impact of, my senioritis in order to get good grades in my classes. I do not believe I would easily let myself get so carried away that I fail a class, but I understand that if I do not keep up the grades that I achieved in previous years - or at least close to them - universities I have already applied to may deny me key scholarships.

How do you demonstrate resilience towards achieving this goal? (or these goals?)

I think I developed a negative perception of group work in 9th grade because although only some of the group projects I worked on had a member that would not even try, those bad experiences were the only ones I remembered. Now, I realize that it was foolish of me to generalize group work like that because in classes such as AP Biology, I find the workload much more manageable when I collaborate with someone I know will pull their own weight. Additionally, most of my teachers allot some of their time after school towards explaining concepts to students, which is especially helpful when I start feeling unmotivated or distracted during class. Both of these methods allow me to improve my grades and ease my workload, which lessens the impact that senioritis has on my grades.

How does the world around you affect your perception of this goal?

My teachers are generally supportive of my goal, and I believe that I am able to talk to most of them about where I need to improve in terms of schoolwork. However, it seems that a lot of my peers and almost all of my friends are generally apathetic towards school already, which makes me lose track of my goal frequently. Even certain weather influences how bad senioritis is: wherever it is overcast or rainy I have found that I am apathetic even more so than usual. In spite of these factors, I am still committed to achieving my goal.