Exhibit: Attendance Record
Benchmark: Personal Management Skills: P101: Have a good attendance record at school, work, and/or extracurricular activities P107: Be self-motivated in taking responsibility Getting up for school every week day is harder than it sounds. On top of that I maintain a 3.8 GPA is nearly brain incinerating. As bad as I want to stay at home and sleep in for another hour, I almost always get to school on time. My attendance record shows great consistency on how I usually show up to school on time. I am a big guy for learning, so showing up to school and getting grades is very important to me. Since freshman year I have always had trouble getting up in the morning. No matter how hard it was, I always managed to roll out of bed and get to school on time. Throughout my high school years I have dedicated a surmountable amount of time to school. Keeping a high GPA and play two sports takes a lot of responsibility. I would get to school at 7:40am and I wouldn’t get to home till around 5:30pm because of my practices. The thing that motivates me every day is that knowing all of this hard work will pay off in the end. The amount of dedication I’ve had toward school makes me excited for the future and what I’ll be able to do. What I have done in school has made me the person I am today. It has created responsibility and great work ethic in my adolescents. I have always shown up on time to school ready to learn. At Western Michigan University I will show up to class on time due to this natural habit. Engineers need to show up to work on time along with all of their other responsibilities. All of the hard work I have done up until this point shows I will be fully dedicated to the field of Engineering. |
Bryce Walker
Exhibit: Driver’s license Benchmark: Personal Management Skill: P102: Demonstrate safety and self-control requiring minimum direction and supervision Getting a driver’s license can tell a person’s true maturity. It may be the biggest part of growing up. At this stage in life, many teenagers are getting a sense of freedom. How they manage and utilize it will express how much more they get. On my driver’s license, I have zero points on it and I do not have a single driving/parking violation. Not abusing this privilege was an absolute priority. I will never forget the day I obtained my license. Although I was very excited and anxious to go basically wherever I want, I knew due to my inexperience I had to be more cautious than other drivers that were on the road. That very day made me into a bigger person. I now had a car to maintain and a license at hand. I regularly clean and update my car on all deadlines. Along with the license came a lot of responsibilities. A few of the errands that were my parents’ responsibility were now mine and I had to be sure to do them. Running my brother and sister around for two years was not fun, but I got through it and it helped me become the person I am today. As I approach college, self-control and safety are going to be very important. I will be practically living on my own and I will have to know situations I have to be careful in. My careful, persistent driving will help me as I creep up on this point in my young adulthood. In engineering you must have great self-control and safety capabilities. One could be working with a dangerous machine and safety and self-control at a point like that would be a priority. |
Exhibit: Scholarship list
Benchmark: Personal Management Skill: P103: Meet School and/or work requirements P105: Use timelines, document steps you take, and evaluate you results in a problem solving process. When attending any next level education, you will need scholarships to help pay for your schooling. Applying for them can be a long and confusing task. Every single scholarship has different requirements and deadlines that one must meet in order to apply. In the Ruth Creps scholarship you must be a senior at Hanover-Horton in order to apply which wouldn’t be a requirement in some other scholarships. The list of scholarships offered for Hanover-Horton High School seniors is nearly endless. But, figuring out which ones you can qualify for and possibly get is a different story. If you don’t fit a single certain requirement or turn it in before the deadline, your application won’t be accepted. Each and every application usually starts out the same by having you fill in your name and basic information. Then, the application will ask you questions that pertain to its needs. I started getting behind in the scholarship process, so I filled out a reachable timeline of doing an application every Monday and Thursday to fit the required dates. So far this has worked out for me and I haven’t missed a date yet. While growing up I have always made deadlines whether it was for work, school or sports. It has become second nature for me and will help me significantly in the future. I always meet my deadlines for homework and projects. As a future engineer problem solving and meeting deadlines are a huge part of the job. I must know how to figure out a conflict if brought to me and respond in a reasonable amount of time. I feel like I have done this my entire life so this task won’t be very hard. |
Exhibit: Money Jar
Benchmark: Personal Management Skills: P104: Find new and creative ways to solve problems Figuring out how I’m going to pay for college is something that has pondered my mind for awhile now. Beyond scholarships and financial aid, you need to find quick and easy ways to save money for college. I keep a jar of change in my room that I empty when full at the Coinstar in Walmart. Every time I go I get around $80-$90 dollars that goes straight into my bank account. A few months back I had to have a sit down discussion with my parents about college. As I made my final decision to attend Western Michigan University I needed to find ways to save money I could attend this four year university. Of course I am filling out scholarship and financial aid documents but I needed instant money in my bank account. Then, I noticed how much change my car collects over a short amount of time. So any change I’d gather that day I throw it into my change jar. At first I thought that this was a stupid idea, but after three months I have already saved $250. Being able to solve problems like this has only helped me in my young adulthood. I have also found new and improved ways to manage my laundry, clean my car and wash my dishes as well. An engineer needs to be able to solve problems. That is usually what they are hired to do. Sometimes solutions to conflicts need to be solved in a timely manner, I feel like that is what I did in this situation. |
Exhibit: Picture of planner
Benchmark: Personal Management Skill: P106: Use charts, graphs, or graphic organizers to demonstrate organizational skills Organization is very important throughout daily life. Knowing what lies ahead of me that day helps me out a great deal. A planner can be a reminder of any things that need to be accomplished that day. My personal planner has my day laid out in front of me; along with my routine and activities I do. Many people now-a-days use their phones for these things. I prefer to write it out so it is remembered easier. Senior year is the most nerve pinching and exciting year of high school and being organized helps relieve the stress a great amount. At the beginning of the year, I was starting to lose track of all the documents I was getting such as scholarship forms, financial aid information and senior announcement handouts. Right then I knew I had to keep track of everything I got along with deadlines I had to meet, so I started to keep a planner. I realized a planner also keeps track of what you are doing that day as well. For school purposes, I write down my schedule and anything pertaining to those classes; this includes homework and/or test dates. A planner has done nothing but help me. Being organized is not something I have been good at my entire life. But due to recent matters, I have had to change in this certain area. The planner I use will help me keep track of my course work in college in my future young adulthood. Engineers need to be very organized. They could be working on multiple projects at once and they would need to keep track of what they are doing. |
Exhibit: Mlive Article
Benchmark: Personal Management Skill: P108: Go beyond what is asked to improve personal, educational, or work-related projects If a person was to do a high school sport, it would take a lot more than expected. The amount of time and dedication it takes is extraordinary. I am very proud of my athletic accomplishments. In the article it explains how the Hanover-Horton basketball team has had extreme consistency over the past decade with 13 straight district titles and back to back Cascades Conference championships. The grueling hours of practice are very tough, but the reward is all worth it. When I was first introduced at Hanover-Horton as kindergartener is when I first heard about the athletics it had to offer. They had an improving basketball program that got a new head coach and a football program that could not seem to catch a spark. Over the years, I watched each program gradually improve and I wanted to eventually help the programs out myself. I made both varsity teams my sophomore year and at that certain time both needed a period of rebuilding. The football team went 3-6 which was below our average win/loss ratio in the past. Although the basketball team kept the district streak alive, we lost the conference title to East Jackson. My teammates and I worked countless hours to improve all of our games. By my senior year, we achieved the best record in Hanover-Horton history at 8-2 and we won conference two years running in basketball. In my young adulthood, I believe the hard work I put in for sports will be applied elsewhere to improve my self-being. This principle has been applied to my school work. In fact, it already has; I maintain a 3.8 GPA here at Hanover-Horton and I plan to keep or improve that GPA in college. I will improve it by staying on top of things and working extra hard. Working hard is an engineer’s priority. A conflict may need to be solved as soon as possible and you may have to put in the extra hours to figure it out. Hard work and effort you put you where you want to be in life. |
Exhibit: Calculus assignment
Benchmark: Personal Management Skill: P109: Recognize a need or opportunity and take appropriate action I have always been one to look toward the future. Whether it be studying in the gym after a practice or spending countess hours on homework, I spend a lot of time on classes that pertain to my future. My calculus book represents the many problems I have solved in a college level class that is very challenging. However, these are the types of classes I will have to take in college in order to get my engineering degree. When I walked down the halls of my current high school for the first time, I had no idea what I was going to be. So, during my freshman year I took a wide variety of classes so I could get an idea of what I like. As the years went on, I started to discover my interest in science and math. As a result, my junior and senior year I took some very challenging courses such as Chemistry, Physics and Calculus. I started to look into jobs that involved my interests and engineering came up. Through research and job shadowing, I decided that it was the career I wanted to pursue. I have thoroughly gone through all the careers that relate to math and science and engineering was the best candidate. Doing good in challenging classes will help me in my future. This will help me in tough college courses that I will go through in my young adulthood. It could maybe put me ahead of other people pursuing engineering. In the engineering profession, you need a huge experience in math and science. This push for me in courses of this sort will only help in getting my degree and getting an engineering job. |
Exhibit: Varsity Basketball Jersey
Benchmark: Personal Management Skill: P110: Accept new and changing responsibilities Sports have been major part of my life throughout high school. I have been a two sport athlete for all four years. Being a great student and athlete is a very big responsibility. Making the change from JV basketball to Varsity basketball was a very hard adjustment to make. You go from playing mediocre freshman and sophomores to playing the best athletes in the state. It was a very memorable change. During my one year of JV basketball I had a lot of fun and I had a successful year. Our overall record was 18-1 along with winning a conference championship. That next year was a different story. I made the Varsity basketball team and I wasn’t sure what to expect at first. It had many differences compared to JV, but the main one was the pace of how the game is played. My sophomore year was a year of adjustment and fundamental work due to my limited playing time. That year made it all worth it for the next two years. During my junior and senior year we won back-to-back conference championships. Along with that we won a district title and we’re about to win another one this year. Throughout my high school career I have been able to expect and adjust to changing responsibilities. When my father moved into a new house in 2011 I had a whole new list of responsibilities. As I grew up, I handled them correctly and everything turned out alright. When I move into my new school, I will be able to adjust to things around me more easily. In the Engineering field, you are likely to have more than one employer. Responsibilities change and I must be able to change with them. I am used to this kind of thing and it shouldn’t be that hard for me. |