Psych

Dom Paiotti English 14.017 Paiotti 1
September 13, 2014
Draft #1

Success and Failure Challenges of Student Life

Over the course of my educational history there have been many good and bad experiences I have dealt with. The experiences molded me into the student I am today. All of the teachers that I have had taught me different things. Some teachers have taught me life lessons that I will never forget. Every teacher has a different style, some better than others. The way a teacher presents the course to me has an important role on my success level for the class. I have had many good experiences in my past education. One experience in particular was achieving at least second honors in every marking period over my middle school years. Second honors is achieving at least an 83 in every class. There were 4 marking periods a year in my middle school. There were always classes I found easy and difficult. Math and English always were difficult for me. Science and social studies came easy to me. I remember in 8th grade I always scored one of the highest grades on every science test. It wasn’t because I was smarter than everyone, it was because I studied harder and smarter than everyone. We would take notes Monday through Thursday and have a test every Friday. The key to doing well on the tests was to take diligent notes and study them every night leading up to the

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Friday test. I studied the notes every night and was very successful in the class. The teacher knew I studied the material every night because of my results in the class.
I have had many bad experiences in my past education. During my senior year of high school I struggled in my math course. As I previously mentioned I am not good in math and my senior year of high school reflects that. I started off the year well, but it soon went downhill. As the material became more advanced I did worse. Although I struggled, I worked hard and the teacher noticed. He worked with me after school and I kept my head above the water. I had to work twice as hard as my classmates just to maintain a decent grade. The whole year was a struggle and grind, but I pushed myself through it. The teacher was very accommodating and helped me out greatly. I learned a lot in the class and I believe it helped me for my future. The class taught me to persevere through challenging classes. Over the years of my academic history, I have learned to only like reading and writing about sports. Sports interest me tremendously and by reading and writing I gain more knowledge about them. I love to read newspaper articles about teams and athletes. I struggle when reading about material that does not interest me. I become distracted very easily and tend to fall behind. I feel extremely confident when reading and writing about sports, but not as confident when reading

Paiotti 3 and writing about other topics. When writing, I tend to daze off and become distracted very easily.
Humans need to have autonomy to be successful. In my opinion, autonomy means to have freedom. As stated in Drive by Daniel H. Pink, “people need autonomy over task (what they do), time (when they do it), team (who they do it with), and technique (how they do it). To be successful in a school environment a lot of things have to go right. Study habits and time management are two of the most important factors for being successful in the classroom. Students need to have autonomy and do what makes them successful. Some teachers make there students study a particular way. I believe that if a teacher makes a student study a particular way the student will struggle. Students have better mastery in some subjects rather than others. “And the pursuit of mastery, an important but often dormant part of our third drive, has become essential to making one’s work turns out to be the single most motivating aspect of many jobs.” Clearly the pursuit of mastery is an important factor in becoming successful. If we have a particular skill we should pursue it and make a career out of it. My mastery is in the business department. I am very interested in the in and outs of the field.

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There is a difference between doing something just to do it and doing something with a purpose. Doing something with a purpose means that you have a plan. Doing something just to do it means that your just winging it. “Humans, by their nature, seek purpose-to make a contribution and to be part of a cause greater and more enduring than themselves.” Humans seek a purpose to pour their effort into a particular job. Seeking a purpose ensures that the effort a person makes will result in successful earnings. For example, a business major in college most likely will enter the business world. They are seeking a purpose by majoring in a field that they will use later in life. I would like to gain more knowledge of English over the course of this semester. I would love to be able to read and write about sports. I’m excited to better my skills in English in this class.