Foundations for Academic Success

The foundation for academic success simply means the basics that one has to consider so that they excel in their studies. Regarding the fact that I am a high school student, this is ideal for me to pass all my exams to the final paper. I have to reflect to my first year performance and compare them to my second year performance since it’s only through improvement that I will excel. This means that the main objective is identifying my strengths and weaknesses so that I work on them. I will ensure that I put more effort to the areas that I am weak in so that I can improve myself, while maintaining or exceling more my strong areas.

This paper is on my personal reflection on my academics. The paper highlights my strengths and weaknesses and methods of evaluation.

The Personal Strengths

After going through the first year of learning, my results made me to reflect on my strengths and weaknesses so that I do better on my second year. Here are some of my strengths. Firstly, I have the capability of storing information in my head for a long time unlike other students. This simply means that I tend to understand well and remember the information of previous lessons for a long time. This is an ideal strength for me since it makes me capable to pass my exams with the information only taught in class. At the time of the examination this might be useful and then you fall ill, meaning that you would not be able to prepare for exam. However, this is different for me since even I fail to revise for the examination I might be able to tackle the papers because I grasp a lot during the lesson. This strength is achievable only when being concentrated during the lessons. Since this is one of the strengths, that helped me during my first year of studies, I plan to maintain it so that I perform better in my second year. Basically, my plan of maintaining the strength is through concentration and attending lessons.

In my second year, I will ensure that I concentrate more in class and I will also make short notes to make my revision easier for future. Additionally, I would ensure to attend all the lessons so that I do not miss any information from a teacher.

Secondly, I am good at the science subjects at school. Despite the fact that I do not perform well in the other subjects, I realized I have strength in the sciences and I score higher grades on them. My strength for the sciences comes from the love of nature and what is in it. This reflects clearly to the sciences since what they offer is just nature and our daily experiences. These sciences are biology, chemistry and physics. During my first year, my top three subjects were the above mentioned subjects. I managed to attain good grades for all three subjects and that is what boosted my performance. Notably, these three being my strengths, I plan to ensure that I score higher on them so that my average grade is boosted by them. On my second year, I will ensure that I give these subjects more time so that I revise more and be perfect on them since I have the capability for this. With more time for revision of these subjects, I will grasp more information that I did not know before. The information would help me to excel in my examination and thus boost my average grading even if I do not perform well in the other subjects.

Thirdly, my other strength is that I have good time management skills. In any learning institution, time is important for both, the teachers and students. This implies that both teachers and students must manage their time well so that the register good results. Personally, I am a good time manager and this helped me to perform well in my first year. The good time management system is whereby one is able to do the right thing at the right time without interfering with other activities. In my first year, I always woke up early to revise my work before going to classes. During the day, time management was also ideal. This means that I was always occupied and doing the right thing at the right time. For example, during class time I ensured that I concentrate so that I grasp all the things taught while I also attended all the extra-curricular activities for relaxation of the mind. On my second year, I would ensure that I maintain my good time management skills for higher scores during the examination. During this year, I plan to utilize the time set for every activity to the maximum so that I do not interfere with other programmes. This means that during class time, I must attend and concentrate so that I grasp the information from my teacher. Notably, this is ideal since I would not have to interfere with other programmes that are outside the classwork.

The Personal Weaknesses

Apart from the strengths, noted above, there are also weaknesses that affected my first year performance. Here are some of the weaknesses. Firstly, I am incapable to balance all scores of my subjects. A good student, who wants to have a high score in the final averaging, must ensure that all there subjects score balance. This implies that the subject scores must be on almost the same level. However, I lack this capability and it affects my general scores. Normally, I only excel in the sciences but the scores of the other subjects are not good. Despite the fact that I have scored high grades on the sciences, the final averaging of the subjects is not good since I did not manage to balance all the scores. With this information, I plan to improve on my ability to balance all the scores so that I score higher during the second year. This is achievable through equal distribution of time for revision of all the subjects. On the second year, I will ensure that I not only concentrate on the revision of the sciences but distribute my time well on the other subjects too. With equal distribution time for revision of all the subjects too, I would be able to have a balanced score for all the subjects during my second and an excellent performance generally. This simply means that the study plan for the second year would incorporate all the other subjects equally unlike the previous study plan.

Secondly, my other weakness is that I rarely practice what we learned in class outside. In academics, there is the rule that practise makes perfect. This rule is important since it enable students not to forget what they learned in class. However, I have a weakness on this matter and it affected my first year study. Usually, after the class, I rarely went out and practised what they taught us since I assumed that I grasped everything. There are subjects like mathematics that usually recommend to practice on a daily basis so that one does not forget. On my second year, I plan to tackle this weakness by practising all the things that we would be taught in a class everyday. Evidently, this practise would help me to remember all the information for examination.

Thirdly, my other weakness is that I fail to ask questions during class and this affects my understanding. Notably, during my first year of study, there were some basic things that I never understood during the lessons and still never asked the teachers for further explanations. This affected my understanding greatly and gave me hard time to tackle some issues during examination. However, I plan to change this during my second year. This year, I will always ask the teacher for further explanation if I don’t understand an aspect of something. I am sure that this would help me to make great steps during my second year since I would have better understanding of concepts.

In conclusion, foundation for academics success is ideal for all the students. Students must ensure that they have a plan of their study so that they improve and excel in their examinations. In order to achieve this, it is required that they understand the strengths and weaknesses. During my first year, I realised that one of my strength was the ability to manage time. This helped me to tackle issue in their right time. However, I also noted that my main weakness was the inability to balance my scores. On the second year, I plan to balance my study on all subjects so that the scores balance too.