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Mikah Watkins

Mrs. Cramer

Composition l

6 March 2019

College Application Narrative

Despite her absence from my life for the past few years, the years my mother was present

greatly impacted me. My mother taught me an immense amount of morals, manners, and skills.

Personally, I believe that I am a respectable person because of all I learned from my mother;

being respectful was an important quality to her. My coaches and my adoptive sister, Autumn,

have played a great role in shaping my disposition. My sister, Autumn, has always reminded me

of how proud she is of me and that I will become a person that I can be proud of. My coaches

have always pushed me to do better and strive to be the best. I have learned to be more

determined and more optimistic about what the future may hold because of my coaches and

sister. They both have pushed me to strive harder, while always reminding me that they are

proud of my accomplishments.

To begin, there have been two significant times in the past when I have experienced

failure. Both incidents occurred during my sophomore year in high school. I have experienced

several outside of school issues that I have never let affect my performance in school. However,

my sophomore year was different, and I found it difficult to get my grades up. My grades did not

drop a remarkable amount, although I had to work much harder to maintain honor roll. I worked

hard every day and put in extra time to keep my grades at an acceptable level. Later that year, in

the spring, I began my second year of Track and Field. I ran into a slump and would not make
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the times that I did the previous year. Being slower than before was stressful and hard on me

emotionally, due to the joy and positive self-esteem I experienced when I did well. I soon got fed

up with my inability to perform equivalent or better than the previous year. I informed my coach

about my frustration and together we worked to resolve the issue. I made sure to do workouts on

my own, during the periods that we had breaks from practice. At practice, I would do harder and

separate workouts than my teammates, so that I could get better conditioned to my events. After

the extra time put in and hard work, I soon found myself to be improving. My times were faster,

and my stamina had increased. By the end of the season, at district, my 4x4 team and myself

nearly broke the school record; we were only one second off. Then later, we went on to states

where I hit a personal record. Overall, I overcame both incidents by striving harder to do my

best.

On that note, the track is an environment where I am perfectly content. When I am at

practice or meets with my team, I feel comfortable and experience peace. Some of my best

memories come from being on the track team. Big moments when the meet is close enough that

it comes down to the last race and we win, are the most passionate experiences I have ever had.

Knowing that the team wants the win badly and that we have worked hard to get there, makes a

win feel greatly rewarding. My teammates are beyond meaningful to me and being with them

and making memories is when I'm most content. I have been influenced in shaped by my mother,

sister, coaches, and my experiences on the track team. Overall, I look forward to what the future

holds for me and what I can learn along the way.