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Erandy Jimenez

Senior Portfolio

24 April 2019

Growth Trajectory

When you transition from middle to school to high school, you do not know what to

expect. Your traits, skills, and behavior follow you to high school, but it is up to you to perfect

them or to build new ones. When I entered Marquez I had low self-esteem issues because

throughout middle school I got bullied. In eighth grade, I was getting bullied by the”popular”

kids, my math teacher included. During this time I was really sad that it got to the point where I

started hating myself. I did not care about the comments being said about me by these group of

people; what got to me were the teachers comments about myself. One thing about me is that

math is my favorite subject, and I am pretty good at it so when this teacher started to name call

me I lost myself. I started feeling stupid in my math class that my grade dropped from an A to an

F. I stopped doing homework, I had really bad scores on my tests but because “they were always

missing”. I lost that confidence within myself that math was no longer my “go to subject”. When

it was time to answer questions, I would pray that I did not get chosen, but some way somehow I

always did. I was scared to participate in answering questions because although I knew the

answers, I was always paying attention to what was being said about me that I would freeze and

rather say “I don’t know”. And in high school, I brought that energy with me. I was too shy to

talk to new people and make new friendships because of my past experiences. Fast forward to

twelfth grade I became confident within myself. Middle school Erandy would have never tried

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out for the varsity cheer team. I joined the varsity cheer team which exposed me to be more open

and “loud” about things. Through cheer, I started to love myself because I felt accepted and

comfortable in the team. I joined Key Club where I started to be involved with my community by

community service, like for example park clean ups at Salt Lake park, and the Walnut Park fair.

Being involved with my community got me out of my “nut shell” that I enjoyed helping out and I

ended up being very involved with my church doing other types of community service in

Huntington Park. During my summer vacations, every year I went out of my way to take college

classes at ELAC, which made me feel very smart and proud of myself because I was capable to

handle college level classes and courses. As a sophomore I took two math classes, them being

Geometry and Algebra 2. As a junior, I was able to take Precalculus and now as a Senior I am

taking AP Statistics. Being able to take two math classes at the same time was challenging but it

I proved to myself that whatever that teacher was saying about me in eighth grade was not true

and I was actually smart in math. In my new path, I am going to be outgoing in college to meet

new people and build relationships in my new environment.

As a freshman, I hated presenting because I am afraid to speak in public. I get really

nervous and stress myself out because I feel like if I am going to get made fun of while being up

there. In ninth grade I did have poor communication skills. Working in IDPs with teammates and

class projects overall, were always hard for me because I did not how to effectively communicate

with my teammates. But working on IDPs all this time at HPIAM has helped me communicate

ideas writtenly verbally to the people whom I am working with. My 12th grade skill is that my

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communication skills improved. I started to believing in myself and that no one was going to

judge me while being up there. This skill did not just improve verbally through power point

presentations, but otherwise like in essays. I have been able to communicate assertions and

defend my positions as to what I believe. This skill has and will be continuing to help me when I

go to college because I am still going to have to work as a group with team members and the

importance of being able to communicate will open new relations with me.

One behavior that I had at HPIAM for a while, was that I was a procrastinator. I would

always leave my homework assignments to the end because I would prefer to take four hour naps

after school rather than do my priorities (which is school). I wouldn’t study for my tests because

I didn’t have the need to do so, but this behavior affected me in junior year. I saw this behavior

affect me in my junior year because it caused me to stress more than I needed too, meaning that I

couldn’t handle the work because on top of that I had cheer. Procrastinating all of my sophomore

I saw my grades shift. I have always been one to keep good grades but this year I was just giving

up because of how lazy I was. I saw my AP World History shift from an A to a C real quick, and

what bothers me now more is that I really didn’t care until the end of the year. Procrastinating

caused me too stress and that stress caused me to be mad and annoyed at school for every little

thing. Someone would just talk to me, and I’d be annoyed because I had a lot of work to catch up

on and all that was in my mind was my undone work. My sleeping schedule was really messed

up because I stayed late finishing my homework at night, and I would wake up exhausted the

next day because I’d stay up till like 2 in the morning finishing school work. I was physically

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and emotionally tired all this year, but I was at fault. Realizing how this affected me, I decided to

change that behavior.. I started to become more organized and my study habits improved my

senior year. I bought myself a really cute planner to organize my schedule and I started jotting

down what I needed to do accordingly to my week. What really helped me about keeping a

planner was that I was able to write down important dates such as when college applications

opened, when they closed, FAFSA, and college related dates. Keeping a planner helped me calm

down because I wasn’t getting that stressed because I was able to study for my upcoming tests

earlier than the night before, which helped me get better test grades. In my new path which

would be college, I will be more prepared to face challenges. This new and improved behavior

will follow me to college because it’ll help me stay driven and focused when I face these

challenges, and I won’t stress as much as I did before.