Personal Decision Essay

The smartest thing that I've ever decided to do was to take control and not settle for second best. Being a young Latino male, I have faced a lot of hurdles that were presented to me that would set me up to not succeed in my life. Whether it was the stereotypes that people thought of when I met them, or the stereotypes that I had chosen to believe in myself, for most of my young adult life I chose to do all of the bad things that were put in front of me from drugs and alcohol to partying and committing illegal activities. And while I chose to partake in all of these success denying activities, I had squandered every opportunity to succeed in life that was given to me through hard work, like sports and academics. My belief at the point in my life when I started high school was that I would do whatever I could to make as much money and have as much fun as I possibly could before I either die or get locked up in prison. However, a pivotal event happened to me during my Freshman year of high school, which changed my paradigm and what I wanted to do with my life. Consequently, every opportunity that I've gotten since that point, I've capitalized on; even opportunities that I've had to create for myself through school and hard work. Since I have returned from being expelled from school, I have tried even harder to catch on any credits that I missed out on getting, by taking extra classes during the summer, and completing retrieval packets from my school so that I could catch up. I have also put a lot of focus back into football for my school because I was trying to do the best I could with the allowed time that I was given, even though I had to overcome academics sports suspension from my early delinquency. I've also talked to the Freshman AVID class, as a guest speaker, about some life experiences and knowledge that I have gained while attending high school. I feel that if I hadn't gotten expelled from my school, I never would have grown and matured in the way that I did to know that I am ready to attend Central Washington University.

My past experiences have certainly influenced my academic records. At first, I never wanted to go to school at all I would always leave and go hang out and party with friends because during my Freshman year, it didn't matter to me whether or not I graduated from high school. But now that I have buckled down and focused on doing something positive with my life, I have been doing my best to excel in my classes. For the past three years, I have been going to summer school classes to make up any credits that I'm missing. And since I've been attending Sober Support meetings, I have heightened my seen higher ability for cognitive thinking. These meetings help keep me sober, so that I'm able focus on school and be able to succeed. I've also been taking regular treatment classes, so that I can better prepare myself to have a clean and sober lifestyle for