Students and Leap Years

| From School to Shining School | Joshua Bombard | | MWF 9:30 | 9/20/2012 |

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Growing up can be a confusing and difficult thing to do. Everyone is nervous for the next big step, and no one wants to make a mistake. There are many things in life that people will know they will have to experience just from getting older. The list goes on and on but here are a few things that some people may have to deal with just from growing up: Permit test, Driver’s test, going to a new school, playing higher- aged sports, and even a job.
There have been many experiences in my life where I knew I would have to accept the fact that I was getting older, and that I would have to grow up and quit being nervous. The moments that stand out in my life are wrestling higher age groups, football in high school, moving to new schools (elementary to middle was the scariest), and my driving test, but the worst was the transfer to college.
Sports were a scary thing to deal with when I was little, but I realized that in my age group I tended to be a large-sized kid. After realizing that I was a larger kid in my age group, I found sports more fun and less frightening. Foot and wrestling came easy to me and I had no problem with dealing with the growing up part in sports. Wrestling had helped me a lot. In wrestling you must be respectful, mature, and obedient. This sport alone has helped me grow up a lot due to the fact that you must be very self-obedient by not eating and always working out to keep your weight down.
My scariest growing up moment was always moving to a new school. The first time I had to move to a new school was when I graduated the 4th grade. I was about 10 years old at the time. Now moving to the other school was so frightening because at the time the older kids from that school had to always walk up from their school to mine just to eat lunch. This had given me the fear of getting lost or not knowing where to go! I was only 10 years old and life was starting to get scary!
I remember that on the first day of school I hurried to find my best friends, so I wouldn’t be the only person lost. After getting my schedule and going through orientation, I found out that our class did not have to walk up to the elementary school for lunch anymore. This took some fear away, but I was still frightened about the fact of having to move from classroom to classroom. Eventually, a few weeks went by and I adapted to the new situation I was placed in.
Another major growing up moment in my life that had me frightened was the next transfer of schools. The HUGE high school was my next step. My fears were mostly aroused due to misleading information told to me from other kids. I heard a lot of stories about being mistreated and how hard school was going to get from teachers. With high school the classes were not the only fearful thing. Sports were also terrifying as the kids started to become not only the same size, but even bigger!

Sure enough I eventually conquered my fear of moving to a new school and became situated with the new transfer. The classes were not as nearly difficult as described to me by teachers in middle school, and the sports were all up to you and the hard work you put in. I ended up having a great time in high school and I loved it. I finished with a 4.45 gpa and had an excellent football and wrestling career.
So far my latest school transfer has been from high school to Fairmont State University. This was one of the most confusing and nerve racking moments. The entire last semester of my high school career I was always dealing with scholarships and colleges. It was becoming a job just to get into a college.
Before even applying to Fairmont State, I had the image of every classroom being filled with 200 students in a big room. So this was a bit intimidating for me. I was always used to the 20-30 student class with help from teachers one-on-one. I was also scared of a large campus and always getting lost in between classes. The last and probably scariest factors of college were exams. Exams and finals, those were the two words that made my teeth cringe. I had never had an exam or final before, and hearing about them didn’t help.
So after receiving my acceptance letter for Fairmont State University, it was time for me to prepare and schedule classes. Scheduling classes was a difficult time for me because I was never told exactly word for word of what I had to take as a freshman, and orientation did not help me at all. The students and staff bounced around from newcomer to newcomer and half the time did not have the answers to the questions asked. I ended up having a good schedule, but I had to make a few calls and emails to get placed in some of the classes.
My first day of college I was a nervous wreck. I woke up nervous and stayed nervous all day. The only thing that really helped me a lot was my brother whom I have two classes with. He knew the campus fairly well, and I had no problem with getting from classroom to classroom. I also become adapted fast to the schedule I had since all my classes are only three days a week, one of many perks to college. As I continued through the first week of school, which is syllabus week, the classes started to get harder. As the classes got harder, I knew I had to get stricter on my schedule and studying. So far I have had no problems with college and I could not be happier with the movement from high school to college.