I’ve spent six years at ACLC. When I first came here I was eleven, having just graduated from elementary school. Now I’m almost eighteen, registering to vote in the upcoming election. In a sense I’m still the same kid, wanting the same things for myself or maybe even more now. But in another sense, I’ve changed, grown in this school and because of the challenges that I have faced here. Nonetheless, it can be frustrating. Challenges are called challenges for a reason and in the end that’s why they’re rewarding. To be pushed, to be forced to adapt and confront the limitations of your capabilities is not something that we’d do without being forced to do it. In the end, one may find weaknesses that were once hidden, a newfound strength or a certainty in oneself. Now, I realize what I was working towards all these years, how what I’ve learned here has shaped me and helped me understand what I needed to know.
Personal Qualities, Work Habits And Attitudes
One of the most important skills a person can have is self-management, simply knowing yourself and knowing what you need to do well. Managing yourself effectively means you know your own capabilities, what drives you, when to push yourself further and when to hold yourself back. Work can actually feel fulfilling when you understand that it’s not just another box to be checked off. I like setting personal goals for myself, whether it’s something academic or something completely different. To me, it just makes sense. To feel good, people have to feel like they’re progressing their lives in some way. It doesn’t mean they have to get a job promotion every few months or anything like that. Just do the things that are important to you and even when you don’t know that somehow this busy work makes you that much closer to wherever you want to go. An example of when I use self-management is during long term projects for the ACLC science fair. Last year for the science fair I explored if mindfulness of one’s heart rate would allow one to have an enhanced ability to lower it. This project had a lot of different moving parts because I had to coordinate with my human subjects and in order for everything to run smoothly I had to monitor the progress of my experiment carefully. All in all, it was a very rewarding experience which I now value greatly.
New Basics
Words have always fascinated me because they convey so much with so little; there’s often many intended and unintended hidden meanings and subtext, whether from a book, a movie, or a lecture. As I’ve grown older, I value words even more because I’ve developed a deeper understanding of their importance in the world and in communication. I believe the writing I’ve done at Aclc has helped me improve a great deal. In Molly’s class, I learned what good writing is and how it’s structured though the close study of texts and a myriad of annotations. In addition, we did writing logs on many of the texts we studied. Before even beginning to write introductions, we’d write out our thesis statement. This helped me understand how to clearly convey my ideas, whether they were simple ones or very complex ones. In addition, I’ve learned the value of notetaking, not because it helps me remember what I’ve seen (because it doesn’t), but because it’s a good tool to be able to accurately record what you’ve experienced. When note taking in a Socratic seminar, you don’t just copy what someone writes on a board, but instead take note of what someone is saying and its relationship to what other people say. You pull the main ideas out, process and paraphrase them, and afterwards, you can look back on that and understand the value of what they were saying. This is important, especially because we often change things in our minds as time passes. Writing notes down of what we’ve experienced, whether it’s in the classroom or outside of it, is like a factual report of the truth.
Thinking Skills And Reasoning
The learning process is individual. Everyone learns in their own way and all those different ways can vary greatly. Recently I realized I learn through careful observation, by being in a situation and also being able to displace myself from it, to think objectively. I learn experientially, by seeing and listening. Consequently, I develop my own ideas by talking and discussing. Knowing how you learn is crucial to understanding yourself and how your brain functions and processes information. I express myself creatively, which is something ACLC has definitely fostered with the many, many projects. These projects allow me to cut loose and be myself in a way that I might not otherwise be able to in other places. One of the most enjoyable projects I ever did was the roller-coaster project when learning the laws of physics in Randy’s class. My team’s roller-coaster theme was set in the world of Totoro, a popular animated film. While it was a lot of fun, the project itself was not easy. Perfectly shaping wire to the size of a marble with curves and loops turned out to be quite frustrating. On top of that I was determined to create extravagant decorations, complete with scenes from the movie, a wooden replica of a house, and a hand sewn plushie of Totoro. The point is, I would’ve never done this, or even anything like this, without the nudge from my school, so, thank you.
Interpersonal Abilities
Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about collaboration, how different minds come together to make a coherent piece. This is one of the reasons why I’m interested in majoring in film production, because of the ways people in completely different departments collaborate on a project to enact a single vision. Similarly, for my own senior project, a friend and I have been collaborating to make the best ever candy grams. Shoving candy into bags may sound like a relatively simple task but it actually becomes quite the feat when you consider the scope of the project. My friend and I have been scouring the internet and various stores for good deals on cheap, yet high quality candy. We ran into a bit of a speed bump when we realized we both had very different ideas on how we wanted the project to be. And of course we were both very passionate about this project so neither of us were willing to budge. In the end, we negotiated and were able to find common ground that benefited the project the most and now, we continue to collaborate even more effectively than when we first began. My point is, collaboration on projects that matter, projects that people care about (even the simple school tradition of giving out candy), is valuable and even though it’s difficult, it's worth it.
Technology
Google docs is something I use all the time to access my work, organize it, and share it with others. One of it’s most helpful features is its ability to allow multiple people to work on the same document at the same time, which definitely comes in handy when working with other people on group projects. An example of this is a group presentation I made with my classmates in calculus class about coal in the United States. On google slides we were able to edit the presentation all at the same time and give each other feedback on the slides we were working on. This way we were able to focus on specific parts of the presentation while also being able to see the big picture and make sure everything flowed. The final product was a presentation chalk full of information that we were all well versed in. Other examples of my use of technology during my time at ACLC can be seen from many of the video projects I’ve done. Through these projects I learned basic shooting techniques, how to import videos into imovie, and how to edit. Now, I have expanded on what I’ve learned and edit my own personal videos for fun. All in all, the only way to learn the whole process and how to make a good video was to go out and do it and make mistakes.
In conclusion, my years at ACLC have shaped me in ways that I still don’t completely understand, however, I appreciate every single one of them. Writing this essay has taken me on a trip down memory lane and I realize how much of a different person I was back when all of this first started. I remember in elementary school thinking about when my friends and I would go to middle school and how great it all was going to be, how much of a better experience I would have there. Well, after a few years my friends left ACLC and I made new ones that I am so lucky to have. And I think that’s the best thing ACLC has given me: A sense of community, people who I’ll stay connected to even when I go off to college.
Personal Qualities, Work Habits And Attitudes
One of the most important skills a person can have is self-management, simply knowing yourself and knowing what you need to do well. Managing yourself effectively means you know your own capabilities, what drives you, when to push yourself further and when to hold yourself back. Work can actually feel fulfilling when you understand that it’s not just another box to be checked off. I like setting personal goals for myself, whether it’s something academic or something completely different. To me, it just makes sense. To feel good, people have to feel like they’re progressing their lives in some way. It doesn’t mean they have to get a job promotion every few months or anything like that. Just do the things that are important to you and even when you don’t know that somehow this busy work makes you that much closer to wherever you want to go. An example of when I use self-management is during long term projects for the ACLC science fair. Last year for the science fair I explored if mindfulness of one’s heart rate would allow one to have an enhanced ability to lower it. This project had a lot of different moving parts because I had to coordinate with my human subjects and in order for everything to run smoothly I had to monitor the progress of my experiment carefully. All in all, it was a very rewarding experience which I now value greatly.
New Basics
Words have always fascinated me because they convey so much with so little; there’s often many intended and unintended hidden meanings and subtext, whether from a book, a movie, or a lecture. As I’ve grown older, I value words even more because I’ve developed a deeper understanding of their importance in the world and in communication. I believe the writing I’ve done at Aclc has helped me improve a great deal. In Molly’s class, I learned what good writing is and how it’s structured though the close study of texts and a myriad of annotations. In addition, we did writing logs on many of the texts we studied. Before even beginning to write introductions, we’d write out our thesis statement. This helped me understand how to clearly convey my ideas, whether they were simple ones or very complex ones. In addition, I’ve learned the value of notetaking, not because it helps me remember what I’ve seen (because it doesn’t), but because it’s a good tool to be able to accurately record what you’ve experienced. When note taking in a Socratic seminar, you don’t just copy what someone writes on a board, but instead take note of what someone is saying and its relationship to what other people say. You pull the main ideas out, process and paraphrase them, and afterwards, you can look back on that and understand the value of what they were saying. This is important, especially because we often change things in our minds as time passes. Writing notes down of what we’ve experienced, whether it’s in the classroom or outside of it, is like a factual report of the truth.
Thinking Skills And Reasoning
The learning process is individual. Everyone learns in their own way and all those different ways can vary greatly. Recently I realized I learn through careful observation, by being in a situation and also being able to displace myself from it, to think objectively. I learn experientially, by seeing and listening. Consequently, I develop my own ideas by talking and discussing. Knowing how you learn is crucial to understanding yourself and how your brain functions and processes information. I express myself creatively, which is something ACLC has definitely fostered with the many, many projects. These projects allow me to cut loose and be myself in a way that I might not otherwise be able to in other places. One of the most enjoyable projects I ever did was the roller-coaster project when learning the laws of physics in Randy’s class. My team’s roller-coaster theme was set in the world of Totoro, a popular animated film. While it was a lot of fun, the project itself was not easy. Perfectly shaping wire to the size of a marble with curves and loops turned out to be quite frustrating. On top of that I was determined to create extravagant decorations, complete with scenes from the movie, a wooden replica of a house, and a hand sewn plushie of Totoro. The point is, I would’ve never done this, or even anything like this, without the nudge from my school, so, thank you.
Interpersonal Abilities
Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about collaboration, how different minds come together to make a coherent piece. This is one of the reasons why I’m interested in majoring in film production, because of the ways people in completely different departments collaborate on a project to enact a single vision. Similarly, for my own senior project, a friend and I have been collaborating to make the best ever candy grams. Shoving candy into bags may sound like a relatively simple task but it actually becomes quite the feat when you consider the scope of the project. My friend and I have been scouring the internet and various stores for good deals on cheap, yet high quality candy. We ran into a bit of a speed bump when we realized we both had very different ideas on how we wanted the project to be. And of course we were both very passionate about this project so neither of us were willing to budge. In the end, we negotiated and were able to find common ground that benefited the project the most and now, we continue to collaborate even more effectively than when we first began. My point is, collaboration on projects that matter, projects that people care about (even the simple school tradition of giving out candy), is valuable and even though it’s difficult, it's worth it.
Technology
Google docs is something I use all the time to access my work, organize it, and share it with others. One of it’s most helpful features is its ability to allow multiple people to work on the same document at the same time, which definitely comes in handy when working with other people on group projects. An example of this is a group presentation I made with my classmates in calculus class about coal in the United States. On google slides we were able to edit the presentation all at the same time and give each other feedback on the slides we were working on. This way we were able to focus on specific parts of the presentation while also being able to see the big picture and make sure everything flowed. The final product was a presentation chalk full of information that we were all well versed in. Other examples of my use of technology during my time at ACLC can be seen from many of the video projects I’ve done. Through these projects I learned basic shooting techniques, how to import videos into imovie, and how to edit. Now, I have expanded on what I’ve learned and edit my own personal videos for fun. All in all, the only way to learn the whole process and how to make a good video was to go out and do it and make mistakes.
In conclusion, my years at ACLC have shaped me in ways that I still don’t completely understand, however, I appreciate every single one of them. Writing this essay has taken me on a trip down memory lane and I realize how much of a different person I was back when all of this first started. I remember in elementary school thinking about when my friends and I would go to middle school and how great it all was going to be, how much of a better experience I would have there. Well, after a few years my friends left ACLC and I made new ones that I am so lucky to have. And I think that’s the best thing ACLC has given me: A sense of community, people who I’ll stay connected to even when I go off to college.