Andrew+W

My High School Years Andrew Wang

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Samuel Butler once said that life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on. In some instances, my life has demonstrated that; in others, I have put the violin down altogether in light of new pursuits.

Entering Green Hope High School as a freshman was a refreshing experience for me, as I had been in private and magnet schools for the previous 5 years. I wasn’t used to both the large class sizes //and// order, as my previous two schools had one or the other, but never both. During my freshman year, my parents got divorced and I began to live with my father, though this didn’t have a great impact on my life since I still saw my sister and mother often. That year was my tenth year of playing the violin, but a major discontinuation from my previous life came when I quit playing in the Triangle Youth Philharmonic- and eventually simply quit playing at all- in order to play on the Varsity lacrosse team at Green Hope. Making the Varsity team as a freshman was an exciting experience, and I was sure I would play all four years of high school. Though I didn’t know it at the time, I would come to learn that I have very bad predicting skills.

The summer after my sophomore year of high school, I attended Summer Ventures, a program sponsored by the NC state legislature. I spent a month at East Carolina with other rising juniors and seniors from around the state, supposedly learning about math and doing basic biomedical research, but I left with a much greater understanding of people in general. This was one of the most important experiences in my life because I was in a thriving environment surrounded by the smartest people I have ever met.

Junior year marked a change in my high school career because I was suddenly and constantly bombarded with copious amounts of work. Two years prior I had stopped playing the violin in order to make the time commitment for lacrosse, and that year I had to stop playing lacrosse in order to make time to study.

Thankfully, I survived that year and spent 6 weeks of the following summer at Governor’s School, another state-supported program. I was reunited with some of my Summer Ventures friends, and made a lot more friends as well. There I also rediscovered the passion that accompanies the gaining of knowledge.

During my high school years, and prior to that, I made some amazing friends in my school, church, and a number from all over North Carolina. Not all of my friends shared my interests, but we certainly shared laughs and good times. While it would be naïve to say that I will keep all of them for the rest of my life, I do believe I will be able to stay in touch with many. While I have been mostly self-dependent in my thoughts and decisions, one person has been very influential during my high school years- my girlfriend, Annie. I’ll just say that being with her is and has been amazing, and I’ll leave it at that.

Looking back, admittedly after college applications, I’ve had a numerous opportunities for recognition. I am a National Merit Scholar, hold positions as the President of Green Hope’s Amnesty chapter and the Treasurer of Key Club, and have a variety of other certificates and letters to note my progress. My high school experience has been so much more than what is written on paper, however. It consists of the people I’ve met, the good times I’ve had, the knowledge I’ve gained, and the way I’ve grown. As far as the future is concerned, next year I will be attending Duke University and majoring in Economics, but I can’t predict much further beyond that. I might develop new interests to devote my time to. Or I might even pick my violin back up, learning about life as I go along.