INTRODUCTION
When I came to ACLC my freshman year of high school, I had to adapt to a completely new experience. I came from a large school in San Francisco called French American International School, a private school that was biased heavily on being lectured and taking notes. However at ACLC it was much more project oriented and seeing as it's a smaller school, I can always get help from my teachers. There were also many obstacles I had to overcome in terms of knowledge because: at Fais we learned by the french system, about a 75/25 percent french/english mix. I had to relearn a lot of things I had learned in french.
Personal Qualities
I feel that coming to ACLC was in my best interest, as I was not really happy on the course to the International Baccalaureate. However I found that it took a while to get use to having to do everything in imperial measurements and in english. But I have a really good work ethic and, put my mind to it. Finally now, in my senior year I get to look back and realize that I could have gotten better grades but I still feel that I worked hard and well. One thing that was especially hard was working on honesty because coming to ACLC it was much more self driven to do my homework, so I found myself wanting to just say I did the work to my parents. I feel this helped e be a better person however because it meant that I learned that honesty is the best policy.
New Basics
As I moved through my highschool career I found that I learned a lot from each of my classes. From english, of which I took all four years, and reading books such as All Quiet On The Western Front, and Farewell to Manzanar all the way to The Great Gatsby and A Brave New World. To science, one of my favorite classes, where we learned about how to turn potential energy into kinetic energy and how to neutralize bases. Overall though, I think I definitely had the most fun in math. I have enjoyed all four years of math, from algebra all the way to precalculus where I am now. I really do enjoy finding the hypotenuse and using law of sines, no one believes me when I say this, but I also enjoy more basic arithmetic too.
Thinking and Reasoning Skills
I think that the reason I love math so much is because it has something to do with reasoning, which I excel at. I love getting to look at problems from multiple angles and trying to solve them to the best of my abilities, guess that's why I want to be an engineer. Not only that but I also seem to get pretty good grades in math and other reasoning based classes, so thats a big plus. Finally I think that being here at ACLC has really helped me develop my thinking skills because, at Fais all the things you needed to learn were almost spoonfed to you, in lecture form. So being at a school where I had to think a lot for myself and I really had to get my own answers, not just tell the teacher what they told me, has really helped me.
Interpersonal Abilities
I have found that while at ACLC I also had the benefit of learning how to work well with others. After having gone to such a large school as Fais was I had a lot of problems working with others, mostly because raise was a very competitive school and so we didn't work in teams that often. I think that this will help me for a while to come as I am going to need to work with others for the rest of my life. Not only that cut it also taught me to be responsible and get my part done so that my whole group could turn in our work, and I even learned to take up the slack when necessary. This also taught me to be honest about how much work I did, and accept the consequences if I didn't do enough.
Technology
I think that one of the most important things that I learned at ACLC had to be to work with technology, both old and new. At Fais everyone had iPads and we all did our work on them, which is much easier for me, but we hardly ever had to use computers. That's one of the things that I love so much about ACLC. We always have the option to use a computer, or if we have a personal device such as an iPad wean use that. This has really furthered my education because I get to work with thing I would never have been able to on an iPad, mostly because they needed flash player.
Conclusion
I think that, throughout my highschool career I have done a good job of growing and adapting to a different school experience. After coming from a fairly large private school in SF I had a lot of things that I needed to learn how to survive in a smaller school. The hardest part was having to re-learn a fair amount of subjects that I had learned in a different language, as well as learning to go ask for help and not just struggle on my own. But in the end I feel as if it all works out for the better because I learned a lot about different things and had a much broader learning experience.
When I came to ACLC my freshman year of high school, I had to adapt to a completely new experience. I came from a large school in San Francisco called French American International School, a private school that was biased heavily on being lectured and taking notes. However at ACLC it was much more project oriented and seeing as it's a smaller school, I can always get help from my teachers. There were also many obstacles I had to overcome in terms of knowledge because: at Fais we learned by the french system, about a 75/25 percent french/english mix. I had to relearn a lot of things I had learned in french.
Personal Qualities
I feel that coming to ACLC was in my best interest, as I was not really happy on the course to the International Baccalaureate. However I found that it took a while to get use to having to do everything in imperial measurements and in english. But I have a really good work ethic and, put my mind to it. Finally now, in my senior year I get to look back and realize that I could have gotten better grades but I still feel that I worked hard and well. One thing that was especially hard was working on honesty because coming to ACLC it was much more self driven to do my homework, so I found myself wanting to just say I did the work to my parents. I feel this helped e be a better person however because it meant that I learned that honesty is the best policy.
New Basics
As I moved through my highschool career I found that I learned a lot from each of my classes. From english, of which I took all four years, and reading books such as All Quiet On The Western Front, and Farewell to Manzanar all the way to The Great Gatsby and A Brave New World. To science, one of my favorite classes, where we learned about how to turn potential energy into kinetic energy and how to neutralize bases. Overall though, I think I definitely had the most fun in math. I have enjoyed all four years of math, from algebra all the way to precalculus where I am now. I really do enjoy finding the hypotenuse and using law of sines, no one believes me when I say this, but I also enjoy more basic arithmetic too.
Thinking and Reasoning Skills
I think that the reason I love math so much is because it has something to do with reasoning, which I excel at. I love getting to look at problems from multiple angles and trying to solve them to the best of my abilities, guess that's why I want to be an engineer. Not only that but I also seem to get pretty good grades in math and other reasoning based classes, so thats a big plus. Finally I think that being here at ACLC has really helped me develop my thinking skills because, at Fais all the things you needed to learn were almost spoonfed to you, in lecture form. So being at a school where I had to think a lot for myself and I really had to get my own answers, not just tell the teacher what they told me, has really helped me.
Interpersonal Abilities
I have found that while at ACLC I also had the benefit of learning how to work well with others. After having gone to such a large school as Fais was I had a lot of problems working with others, mostly because raise was a very competitive school and so we didn't work in teams that often. I think that this will help me for a while to come as I am going to need to work with others for the rest of my life. Not only that cut it also taught me to be responsible and get my part done so that my whole group could turn in our work, and I even learned to take up the slack when necessary. This also taught me to be honest about how much work I did, and accept the consequences if I didn't do enough.
Technology
I think that one of the most important things that I learned at ACLC had to be to work with technology, both old and new. At Fais everyone had iPads and we all did our work on them, which is much easier for me, but we hardly ever had to use computers. That's one of the things that I love so much about ACLC. We always have the option to use a computer, or if we have a personal device such as an iPad wean use that. This has really furthered my education because I get to work with thing I would never have been able to on an iPad, mostly because they needed flash player.
Conclusion
I think that, throughout my highschool career I have done a good job of growing and adapting to a different school experience. After coming from a fairly large private school in SF I had a lot of things that I needed to learn how to survive in a smaller school. The hardest part was having to re-learn a fair amount of subjects that I had learned in a different language, as well as learning to go ask for help and not just struggle on my own. But in the end I feel as if it all works out for the better because I learned a lot about different things and had a much broader learning experience.