1. Tatianna BaileyEnglishNarrative Essay Graduation Everybody in high school looks forward to graduation day. I was looking forward tograduation myself, but I had a higher goal in mind. I wanted to be in the top 20% of mygraduating class. At the beginning I didn’t know how I was going to get there, but I knew that nogoal was ever too hard for me to accomplish. Failure wasn’t an option, so I kept my mind set onthe bigger picture. Hard work, dedication, and wise decision making helped me to accomplishmy graduation goal. Hard work just didn’t start my senior year, it actually started the first day I walked intomy freshman class. My teachers always told me that my freshman year would determine mysenior rank. I went above and beyond on all my work that was given. My whole freshman year Ireceived all A’s and two B’s. These grades weren’t just given to me, but I hard to work hard toaccomplish the goal that I had set myself. Dedication is sticking to a particular task and not stopping until the job at hand is done. Imade a choice that I was going to succeed, and I did just that. I couldn’t just do my best for oneyear and think the job was done; no this was a four year commitment. Don’t get me wrong myfour years in high school wasn’t always a piece of cake, but I couldn’t give up when the road gottuff. I dedicated my life to make sure my dreams would turn into reality.
2. There were so many decisions that I had to make while I was in school. Some were goodsome were bad, but I couldn’t let my bad decisions outweigh my good ones. I was in a four yearcollege prep class called AVID. (Advancement Via Individual Determination) Avid was a classthat helped me in many skills, but decision making was one topic that stood with me. My teachergave us many choices that we had to pick which one would benefit us in the long run. Takingthis class made me realize that doing my homework was more important that going out on aschool night. Nobody could do my work for me, so I knew if I wanted to make good grades I hadto put some things on the back burner that wasn’t as important. Decision making is by far one ofthe most impacts on me when it came to doing the right thing. May 31, 2012 finally came. I made it to graduation day. Ranked number thirty nine out ofthree hundred students was one of my biggest high school accomplishments. I was a Cum Laudegraduate, and my name was one of the first ones called. I could have easily taking the easy wayout and just graduated, but I wanted to be more than just a number. I wanted to look back overmy high school years and say that I gave 100% the whole way through. Lord knows hard work,dedication, and wise decision making were the top three things that help me achieve my fouryear goal towards graduation.