Learning -- A Blessing and a Life Saver

   This article is addressed towards the Activia Training Scholarship Competition, and is going to be revolved around the question, "Why is learning important to you and how has it impacted your life?"



   Learning has always been such an important aspect of my life and has led me to where I am today as a student. Being able to learn new things has crucially impacted my life, and is extremely important to the development of my being. Something as simple as learning has impacted my life so drastically, in fact, that I could easily say it saved my life.

    Growing up was a difficult process, having struggled with mental disabilities for such a long period of my life. These disabilities include Major Depressive Disorder, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder--two disabilities that can halt one's life in a matter of seconds if they lose themselves amidst the ominous, thick fog that shrouds one's mind when suffering from them. Having come from a home laced with poverty and past abuse, depression and PTSD has heavily effected my life and my ability to push myself to success. However, school truly saved my life and my desire to succeed in my life. Being able to leave a home that I never wanted to be at and to arrive in a classroom where the point of being there was to learn and understand new things was therapeutic for somebody like myself. I was often told while growing up that I was stupid, understood nothing, and that I would fail in my life. Every day, I would go to school, determined to learn everything I could despite the disabilities that tried to hold me back and slowly but surely succeeding. Learning taught me that I was enough, that I was capable, and that there were endless possibilities to live life. I learned that I could study animals, plants, people, or the vast mysteriousness of space around us. The opportunities were limitless, even if my brain tried to tell me that they were not. Over time, I finally took a introductory class to Psychology in high school that introduced me into the idea of studying such a broad subject. Due to it being an introductory class, it dipped into many different subjects of psychology, but didn't get too specific into any of them. This being said, I was still terribly fascinated by anything surrounding mental health. This led me into the desire of wanting to help other people who suffer from mental disorders. This decision ultimately saved my life helped me realize the purpose of my existence was something I truly wanted.

   I have always been high functioning for somebody who struggles with my mental disorders and have never let them pull me away from what I want in life, no matter how bad it could get. Due to being so high functioning, I want to learn how to help other people that also struggle with mental disorders who are having a hard time succeeding and pushing through the hard times. As a Sophomore who is about to graduate with a psychology degree before transferring to a 4 year University, I have been itching to dive deeper into the counseling aspects of psychology so that I can change other people's lives as soon as I possibly can. If all goes the way I intend it to, I hope to get a Bachelors degree in Psychology before applying for a Masters Counselling program offered at the University of Wyoming. I know that counseling is the career path for me, and I hope to learn specifically about how to help mentally ill LGBTQ+ community members and be a support that they may need while figuring out their paths in life and be able to help and support them in any way that I could.

   Without learning, without the ability to explore a wide variety of different paths of study, I know that I would have struggle to find what I wanted to do with my life. Learning how to help those struggling with similar problems in their lives as my own has helped me resolve many of my issues and learn that I am capable and destined to help others as others helped me, such as my teachers, my counselors, and my friends. Learning can truly leave a huge mark on a person's life, and I am so happy that it did so on mine.

20% Final Post

    My project had to do with posting a question up on a poster and placing it in the lunch room, or writing it on a white board and seeing the answers written about it. Although I don't have pictures, there are a couple examples I could share.

   My first example would be that I posted the question, "What makes somebody a good person?" This question was given the most answers, where some people answered that they had to be honest people, to always be there for them, to have integrity, and more. I also posted one that asked students, "Where do you want to go before you die?" This received some responses as well, such as Hawaii, Italy, Speech Nationals, etc. The last one I posted received only one answer. The question had been, "What do you want to do before you die?" The answer to this was, "Be happy."
   
    The point of my project was to give people a place to write down their thoughts and what they thought when certain questions were open for them to answer. There had been a couple people that joked around with the questions, but it was the minority. Overall, I think my 20% project was successful for as much as I was able to do. Due to some depression and anxiety, it had been difficult to get started and figure out what to do in the first place.

    As for an evaluation, I don't think I deserve a high A. The reasons for this is because I don't believe this project was very hard at all, and it took me a very long time to actually start. However, I do think I deserve a low A or a high B due to the fact that it wasn't me being lazy, but having a hard time coming up with a fixed solution. I had started writing a book for a long while, but it wasn't coming out the way I intended. This had to be stopped, then I had to find a new project, this being it. I do think I deserve this high of a score since I was able to recover in the end, no matter the troubles going on in and out of school.

20% Project (Month Three?)

I finally was able to start my actual project. I was able to set up and tape the poster with my question on the wall during lunch and I got quite a lot of responses (most of which were serious). There were a couple immature answers, but that's alright. Now I'm planning on placing another one up soon so that I can get more responses. The purpose for this is to be able to see people open up and post their own true opinions and be able to think for themselves. This month has been successful so far and I'm happy I actually was able to get the project started.

Ashton Kutcher

I really enjoyed the video and what Chris Ashton Kutcher had to say about it. My favorite line of his was when he stated "Don't live your life, build it". This comment had an impact on me, who just lives her day to day life without thinking much about how I should build my life and live inside the world I built instead of living day by day with no hope in my life.

20% Month Two

This month I've finally figured out what I'm going to be doing for my twenty percent project. I have a question written out on a piece of large paper that I will hang out in the lunch room soon. There are a few answers on it already to help people be willing to answer as well. I haven't quite gotten it up because it's been pretty busy and wacky for the past couple weeks. The point of this is to let teenagers open up their own independent thoughts and think about the questions before answering them.

Blackjack=Stocks?

Blackjack is similar to stocks because it's sort of a risky game. If you place more into a stock, there's a chance that you'll win big money or lose a lot of money depending on the luck of the stock. It also has to do with teamwork, because owning stocks isn't about competition with other people that have that stock, but you want to work together and make sure everyone is getting fair game.

The top two would be the wizards and the barbarians. Wizards were ranked as a manager and the barbarians were labled as the laborers. Wizards were placed as a manager because they have a little bit of housing space, but they walk behind and do a lot of damage. Barbarians were placed as laborers because they do a lot of work and are often in front.