My most difficult problem academically was getting through my senior year in high school. During the school year, Monday through Friday, I had to get up for school at 5:20 a.m., and I usually would not leave school until 6:00 p.m.  My school, Covenant Christian Ministries Academy, is an excellent academic institution that not only gave me a quality education but also prepared me for life in general. I wanted to finish off my final year in high school strong, so I decided to take as many classes as I could handle, and I took a dual-enrollment class on Computers at Chattahoochee Technical College my second semester. I started the beginning of my senior year strongly, juggling a full schedule of classes while playing football for Grace Christian Academy. 

I was doing well in all my classes except for one, which was my Advanced Biology class. I studied hard in that class, but I was studying the wrong way, which caused me to miss getting a B in the class by one point. I found this very frustrating because I worked so hard and the outcome was not what I expected.  I changed the way I studied for that class by finding the best way I learned, which was through repetition and writing it out. This change caused my grade for Advanced Biology to take a turn for the better. However, a lot changed when I began my second semester.  I began to play spring season baseball in West Cobb as well as start my dual-enrollment class at Chattahoochee Technical College. My schedule went from full to hectic. My school was in Marietta, and the team I played for was located near Kennesaw Mountain high school, and our family only had one car at the moment, which made long and somewhat difficult for me to get around sometimes.  This situation taught me to work smarter and more efficiently, like working in the car during long drives. 

Another obstacle I had to overcome was my dual-enrollment. At first it was difficult because I was nervous about being in a college class for the first time, and felt the pressured that I could not fail this class, which caused me to put everything I had in this class. It became difficult for me to balance out playing baseball, taking a dual-enrollment class, and doing my high school work all at once. The normal time I would go to bed was between 1:30 and 2:00 in the morning, and, getting up at 5:30, I had to fight to stay awake in school. I began to question myself, asking if all this hard work was worth it. However, I recalled something someone had once told me: Those who suffer now shall reign later. This saying encouraged me to fight to do well for the rest of the school.   

My hard work payed off, earning myself a GPA of 3.62, being the Salutatorian of my class, and a spot at Georgia Southern University with my education mostly paid for. My parents made great sacrifices for me, and I decided it`s time for me to start returning the favor. The shortcomings I have faced so far had made me stronger and helped me to understand that I must push myself to make my dreams come true. The hardships I faced did not determine who I was, it was how I reacted to them, my decisions, and what I did from that point onward that changed my outcome.