So to understand plebe year academics in my life fully you need to know what my academic career looked like before. I was homeschooled from the start to the end until I graduated from high school. I had some problems starting out. I did not learn to read until I was 11 years old. My mom tried everything she could think of, every curriculum and she and my dad even took me to several doctors and physiologists to make sure there was not something wrong with me. Instead of reading science and math were my friends. I could explain the principles of lift and aerodynamics before I was 8. I started and finished an entire algebra 2 course in a month and a half period.
When I was a junior in high school i was kicked out of the house in regards to math because I had out stripped the stuff my dad had time to teach me. So I started taking college algebra at a junior college and by the end of my senior year I had finished calculus 2. At the same time I was taking calculus 1 and 2 my senior year I was taking physics at a different junior college.
Being home schooled made my very self-motivated and self-driven. I wanted to excel and I understood that my focus at the academy was academics. That was why I was there. I was there to be a student and to learn about leadership on to have fun.
However all you need to do is call my mom to know how hard academics and academy life was on me. I called her every day with some problem some worry all of them were about reading and writing classes. Western civilization was the worst class plebe year. I could not do the reading to keep up and I could not remember what I needed to pass the tests. So my mom devised a plan to help me survive. She ordered my history books and had paid a friend of ours to read the lessons into a digital recorder and email them to me where I would religiously sit down and listen to him read the books to me taking notes and trying to make it all stick.
This was the story of all four years for me at the academy. I always had a class that was for me a matter of survival for me. Do not get me wrong I never settled for anything but my absolute best but sometimes my best was only passing.
That was something that defined my academic career at West Point. I never settled for anything but my best. My mom once told me when I called her about how nervous I was before a test she would say before you take the test sit down and ask yourself could I have done any more? Was there any wasted time; was there anything I could have done to improve my score? If the answer was I did all I could, I could be happy with whatever grade I received because it was my absolute best.
There is so much more to tell about plebe year academics. All the times God pulled me from the edge of absolute disaster. All the times I was able to help others. All the great experiences I had working on projects with partners. I know everyone hates group projects but maybe I was just luck or maybe I was smarter in picking my partners but I do not every remember having a bad partner in any class.
Well that is all for know about academics…however there may be a plebe year part 3.1 – academics
See you around the play ground
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