One big issue I had with my mom until my third year in high school was that she thought I prioritized playing video games over school work. I can see why this was her opinion; I never did my homework at home and I never brought any report cards home to show her my good grades. 
My mom's nagging pissed me off so much that I decided to give her all my electronics and I told her not to give it back to me for a whole month. After the month has passed, I would show her my report card. She was happy to agree. 
I wanted to make sure my mom would not try to link the good grades she would see on my report card with the absence of video games, so I printed out my last four report cards (my school allows access to them online). After my mom saw the good grades I had for the previous eight months, she admitted she was wrong and apologized. 

We all have different opinions and mindsets. It's what makes you YOU! But that doesn't mean we are wrong for the way we think. As long as you know the difference between right and wrong, you can never really be wrong. I was recently misunderstood due to conflicting mind sets. But was I wrong? Well I'll leave that for you guys to decide. 

I am a very calm person who really doesn't like to have problems or drama in my life. I try to keep myself out of trouble as much as I can. I believe as you grow up, the more mature you get, the more you need to get out of the "kid" mindset and into the "adult" mindset. I always tell my friends, especially my girls that I don't really follow the "girl code". In my opinion, I think that's very childish and stupid. I live my own life by my choices, my actions, MY codes; which is what is right and what is wrong.

I believe throughout my High School and College experience I was mostly misunderstood, in regards to my love for education. Simply stated I was always considered the “nerd” of the group and at times thought of as the teachers pet. I can’t explain why I love school and love to learn, but ever since I was a little girl reading and learning was always my passion. I would read books for leisure and study math when the rest of the kids my age were hanging out and getting into tons of trouble.

In all honesty being misunderstood about my love for education and learning did not affect me. I just looked at my friends as if they didn’t understand what they were missing. My theory is that everyone has to educate himself or herself, especially during High School and it would only make sense if you made the best of it. Why would want to go to school a majority of your life and not learn anything or not even bother to learn anything that your interested in? In addition, being misunderstood paid off especially when people were desperate to have me help them. It was funny how the “nerd” suddenly became important, when previously all jokes were on me.

Overall, being misunderstood isn’t the worst thing that can happen to you. In my opinion, so what if people don’t understand your motives or beliefs. As long as you are content and not harming anyone with the things you want to do, it doesn’t matter what other people say. Regardless, someone will always pass judgment, even if you’re right or wrong. The most important part is that you stand up for yourself and believe that you are doing the best thing for yourself. And if the people you consider your friends are giving you a hard time for not “fitting in” then they may not really be your friends. My final advice is that you have to accept yourself before anyone can understand you, and stand up for yourself before anyone can stand by you. Don’t be shy embrace all your quirks and let world know that it is okay to be misunderstood.  

In high school we all grow and work on discovering ourselves and finding out who we are. This makes it easy to be misunderstood by people that have known you your entire life, especially your parents. In high school, I always felt like they misunderstood me, as if they never went through being a teenager before. At times it felt like we were from two different worlds and we could never agree on anything. This put a strain on our relationship and caused many arguments. With time I realized how much I missed the relationship we had. I realized that they were only trying to do what they thought was best for me because they cared. Whenever I felt misunderstood I would calmly explain how I felt instead of getting angry. We started talking more instead of fighting which helped our relationship. As I look back I realize how many lessons they taught me and thank them for always looking out for me. 

In life in general, I feel that it is very easy for many people to be misunderstood.  Some people are quick to make judgments as well as assumptions about others based on their appearance or due to their own beliefs.  I can definitely say that I have been misunderstood plenty of times throughout high school as well as college whether it was from my own peers, my teachers, or even my family members/ parents.  Even now as a 21 year old senior in college, I am constantly misunderstood.  Working at Albany High School, teachers, staff members and the students always mistake me for a high school student.  They may talk to me or treat me as a younger individual, and that can definitely be extremely frustrating.  It’s not until I began to speak that they recognize the fact that I am not as young as I appear to be.  I feel that one way to get through that frustrating feeling of being misunderstood is to stay true to who you are and to communicate what you feel to others.  You should not be suppressing those feelings, but by expressing them and openly communicating them with others, you are allowing them to see your true feelings and who you truly are as an individual, and not just what they want to see. 

One thing I’ve learned at Albany, is how much room I have left to grow, so it’s all too easy to look back at high school and pick out things that I could have done better. I know that I hardly ever engaged my teachers outside of class which is something I kind of regret. The thought actually never occurred to me, probably because I was preoccupied with schoolwork and other concerns. In retrospect though, I think that they probably could have offered some insight to questions I had about what to pursue and how to go about that. Many of the teachers I had the privilege of learning from had travelled interesting paths to arrive at being teachers, and I’m sure there was much I could have learned from them.

There are some other things I would have liked to be different too. I think it would have beneficial for me in college if I was in the habit of reading more, and I definitely could have built up that habit on the commute instead of always listening to music. It would have probably been good to get a handle on my habit of procrastinating. I also know that I could have been more motivated, but I cut myself some slack because high school is exhausting and it’s unfair to ask too much. I guess the biggest thing I would have liked for myself back then is actually the same thing I want for myself right now:  to have continued to keep trying to grow and bring out my maximum effort. 

If I could go back in time and change anything about my high school years, it would be my level of confidence. I wouldn’t care so much about what people thought of me. I found myself being very self-conscious at times and considering other’s opinions about me more than my own. I wanted to be popular, which led me to not be true to myself, and trying to alter how I look and act for people to like me.

I also got easily caught up in high school drama by listening to rumors and gossip. If I could do anything differently it would be to put all of that energy into my schoolwork and less in trying to keep up with what others were doing and saying around me. I would have been myself the whole time and not what pleased everyone. I would’ve had more confidence in myself no matter how other people felt about me. I learned a lot from my experiences in high school and they made me who I am today.

             

Looking back at my high school career, it was one of the best times I’ve ever had. I loved mostly all of it but there are a few things that I would do differently. For starters, I would put more time and effort into my studies and get better grades. Although my grades were nowhere near bad, it just seems that I did not work up to my full potential. I loved basketball but the amount of time and dedication I put into it, I should have been putting into my homework and classes. The next most important thing I would change is all the times I missed school and skipped class. I felt because high school was so easy, I didn’t actually need to go. It’s not true, I missed so much information. It made school a lot harder and the classes I had 80’s in could have been 90’s and the classes I had 90’s in could have been 100’s.

If I could do it over, I would take advantage of full opportunities I had. Teachers were always there to help, there were no office hours, school was always open and you always had something to do whether it was study hall or not. And most importantly all the fun you could have while doing it. Working hard didn’t really take time away from your social life as college does, you still have plenty of time to be social, play basketball, get your work done and have good grades. 

Looking back at my high school years I remember being very quiet, many times overlooked and overpowered.  For a while, after I left high school, I felt like I wasted my high school years being shy, and missing out on so many friends and opportunities.  Now as all my peers are getting older and taking our place in society, we are also seeing the results of the actions we made while in high school.  

Looking back at my high school years , I don't think I would change much about it. I had a good high school experience. I was open to many ideas and tried to be the most well-rounded student I could be. I joined many extracurriculars; volleyball, tennis, Girls Inc., cooking club, etc. I talked to everybody that was around me, even all the teachers knew me and loved me. 

But, if I could change something, it would probably be my studying habits. I was a really good student but it wasn't because I studied. It was all out of luck. I always just winged it- tests, regents, etc. This "luck" streak didn't accompany me to college. I realized that here I had to study, I had to work hard and that my grades weren't just going to be great automatically. If I had began studying from high school, I wouldn't have too much of a struggle in studying in college.

I'm just six months out of high school, so all the memories are fresh. I think the most regrettable thing that I did was during my last year of high school. I was in an AP Calculus class and I didn't want to be there so I didn't try my hardest. I was upset that I was in a class that I didn't need to be in and it showed in my grades. I think I wasted my own time and my teacher's time because a student who really wanted to be there could have taken my place and did what they had to do. 

I think back to the whole year and I wish that I tried harder and paid attention in the math class because it could had helped me in the future. I now see that the class was essential, even though it wasn't required. I know I could have spent a lot more time reading the textbook and getting help from classmates who knew what they were doing, but I just sat around and didn't use my potential. I learned from that experience that I need to put my energy in everything I do because a lot could come in handy in the future. I will never waste my time or anyone else's time ever again. 


Janay Campbell

Honestly, looking back at my high school years, I would change the courses I took. I would have taken more advanced placement and challenging courses. I wish my school would have offered much more advanced placement courses. I know I didn’t reach my full potential in high school. But, I am making an effort to reach my full potential in college.

I would have done a lot of things differently in high school. If I can go back, I would be even more on top of my studies and school work. I would have networked and made more connections and made the most of the opportunities I had. 

Social media can have a variety of effects on today’s generation. The best advice I can give about social media is use it in moderation. It can be a great way of communicating as well as keeping you informed about the world around you but in a slight second it can turn into a major distraction and automatic addiction. While certain doses of social media can be informative, a vast majority is gossip or entertainment, so too much social media can cloud your mind. 

If I were in high school again, I would take advantage of the help that was offered. There were many offices in my high school that provided help with college applications, SAT prep, tutoring, and volunteer work. I never took advantage of that it because I thought it would be easier to do everything on my own. I did my college applications on my own time and studied for my exams on my own time. 

I realized I made it much more difficult on myself because if I would have gone to these offices, I would have saved time on these processes as well as received help with my college essays and my SAT prep. My advice would be to definitely value those people who are there to help you so that you can make it easier on yourself as well as build relationships with those people who are offering the help because it will benefit you in the long run.

If I could rewind back to my high school years, I would have spoken up more for myself. Growing up I was always that shy girl in the back of the class who never liked to raise her hand. Even in high school with my whole group of friends, I always tended to take on the shy role among my confident friends. I feel like I lost out on a lot of friendships and experiences because I stayed to myself and I wasn’t involved much in high school because of that fear. It wasn’t until my senior year of high school that I started branching out of my shell. Coming to college, I promised myself that I would speak up more and get involved, despite my fear. It’s hard to believe that the girl standing here now was once shy but in the end every flower blossoms. Some later than others.