"Do not think that I'm being rude if I do not sign my name for you to get into AP Calculus. If I think you are prepared for that class and have an A to B average in my class, I will sign it for you. But if not, do not take it to heart, it's for your own benefit." My math teacher said this to our class as we were choosing our electives, since he needed to sign off on our form. .
A million things were running through my mind when he said that to us. Am I prepared? Do I belong in an AP class? What are AP classes like? Will I feel like an outsider since I was never in an AP class? I doubted myself, so instead, I signed up for Introduction to Calculus. Then, I took the form to my teacher and he said to me "you are smarter than you think, you're close to an A average, you are one of the top students in my class, why don't you want to take AP Calculus? " I explained to him that I was feeling very insecure about taking a higher-level course and I was not sure if I was prepared for it. My teacher made me realize that what I was doing at the moment was only letting my fear hold me back because I had all the necessary tools to excel. He encouraged me to challenge myself by telling me that I should not belittle myself just because I was in a scholastic level and I never took an AP course.
My teacher was absolutely right. After having that conversation with my teacher, I realized that I was the only one holding myself back from achieving even more academically, and I was wrong. I have always done well in all my courses, therefore, I shouldn't have doubted myself, but I did. However, I stopped myself immediately and I signed up for several AP courses. .
This past year has been difficult, but I am pushing myself constantly to achieve. I'm probably one out of the three students in my AP course that started off freshman year with scholastic courses. In my AP courses, my teachers expected me to know things that the rest of the accelerated students already knew, and they still do.
