TAMIU GEAR UP IV 2015 Essay Contest

Humans are naturally lazy. That's just the way they are; people generally look for the easiest way to do something, as opposed to the most beneficial route. But it's not just a matter of "lazy" and "not lazy;" there's a spectrum. On one end are the overachievers, for whom I have so much respect. On the other end of the scale are a group of sloth-like individuals who are colloquially called the "Lazy Extremists." And while GEAR UP helped me boost my academic performance, prepare for the future, and inspire me to run my own business, there's something about me that would never be obvious at first sight; I used to be one of those "Lazy Extremists." As one of these "Lazy Extremists," would always put things off, copy everything, and groan at the mere mention of work. Procrastination was my absolute worst problem; someone could kidnap my mom and give me seven weeks to save her, and I would only even begin to consider going at the six-week mark. I had over seven months to write a book report over some memoir for one of my history classes and then spent a couple of nights rushing through the book; stressed out beyond what any human being could conceive. I had over a year to annotate a book for an English class and spent a single night encased in a cold shell, reading about Iranians in Disneyland and simultaneously emanating anxiety from every bodily orifice. Even after managing to recollect my sanity from these biblical escapades, I still wouldn't do most of my work in class. In the aforementioned history class, we would occasionally fill an entire chart with trivial information about some culture or other. Did I ever consider doing them on my own? Of course I did; I'm a hardworking valuable student! Did I ever actually do them on my own? Not a chance. I would pester my classroom companions for pictures of their charts, and fill mine in. What did that course of action result in? An entire semester of confusion and mutilated test grades. Speaking of mutilated grades, I never really had a problem in Algebra-aside from my problematic procrastination, of course. Algebra mainly consisted of waves of homework, sequentially raining down on a sea of horrified students. More often than not, I wouldn't do the work, as I had a queue of much more important events taking place after school such as observing the local ants or focusing on my cereal. So, being me, I would simply ask the incredulous individual sitting to my left for his homework. My fondest memories of Algebra involve copying this kid's homework. The Algebra teacher rarely showed the students their grades. We got report cards about every six weeks, but other than that, ethereal silence prevailed. During the last six weeks of the year, my faithful friend moved to another district, leaving me with a much less enlightened entity to my left. I copied from this kid for the rest of the year, but it soon became apparent just how severe of an abhorrent choice that was when I received a solid 49 for the six-week average. After several arduous makeup assignments, I had brought up my average to an 86; a token of being overcome by a trenchant plague known only as Laziness. This grotesque student behavior continued for quite a while until my freshman year of high school, when I was introduced to GEAR UP. I attended a few of their mandatory seminars, reluctant and unamused. Ultimately, I was surprised by what they had to offer. Most other education programs seemed like a shill for money; indifferent to the needs of students. But not GEAR UP. They seemed to genuinely care about each student as an individual; providing all the necessary information and resources for one to successfully make their way into the college of their choice. They kept mentioning things about college and not giving up; the usual "college" lecture. But once again, this was different. They truly wanted us to succeed. I looked back on all that I'd done throughout school, and felt unimpressed by the actions I chose. It was in that moment that I decided I'd actually make a serious attempt to change my habits around. First of all, cramming homework in the three hours before its respective class was really taking a toll on my health, so that had to go. I began spreading assignments evenly over the days I had to do them, so as not to overload myself anymore. I keep these schedules in an application on my phone. As mentioned before, procrastination was a major hindrance to my academic performance; I needed to get rid of it. The obvious and easiest solution was to force myself to do work before leisure activities, so that's what I did. To this day, whenever I get home, I force myself to trudge through the sinister abyss of homework before I arrive at the empty paradise of leisure time. While initially thinking that the time I did my homework didn't matter, the method has far and beyond proved itself on my report cards. I was able to get over my hurdle of laziness, thanks to the GEAR UP seminars.