Kirtan Subramaniam is a focused, curious, and resilient academic student. He is commented to school, and aspires to achieve in whatever he puts his mind to. When it comes to life, he is always up for a challenge and refuses to allow circumstances to bring him down. To attain this mindset, he tries to see every predicament as “a glass-half-full, not half-empty” (Subramaniam, 2021). This optimism encourages him to see and do his best in every situation. Kirtan believes that school has the ability to open up a world of curiosity. In one of our discussions, he said “I am the type of person to wonder about things that are taught to me even beyond the classroom…I’ve even spent hours upon hours being curious about random and trivial information” (Subramaniam, 2021). Based on his statement, learning was never a forced task but an opportunity to expand his understanding of valued topics. Within the classroom, Kirtan was able to found his passion, and outside the classroom, he continued to nurture it. Kirtan’s academic self can be condensed into those three words and as he pursues higher education, it continues to flourish.  

To appreciate Kirtan’s academic self, we should take the time to explore his academic journey. Kirtan started his academic career at Dunwoody Elementary School. He stayed there from kindergarten through 2^nd grade, until his family moved to Cumming, Georgia. In Cumming, Kirtan finished elementary school at Whitlow and continued to Vickery Creek Middle School. After middle school, he went to South Forsyth High School and graduated from there in 2020. He currently is attending Georgia State University and majoring in Computer Science. He entered that major in hopes of one day becoming a developer for cryptocurrency companies. This semester, he is taking Economics, Math 2212, CS 1302, and, of course, English 1102. Thus far in English 1102, his favorite reading was “Taking my Parent to College” by Jennine Capó Crucet. Being a child of immigrants and a “first generation” American, Kirtan found this piece relatable in prospect to his own life experiences. He connected with the fact that he also had to grow up watching his parents struggle to understand American customs and did his best to help them along the way. Kirtan not only got strength from his education but also from his family, to become the fierce academic student he is today.   

Before closing, I would like to share something that I think really sums up Kirtan’s character. When discussing issues such as the pandemic and online school he said, “I guess lockdown sort of made me more distracted, but two things I have fundamentally realized is that: You can either make excuses or succeed, and discipline is the key to everything” (Subramaniam 2021). We can all agree that the pandemic had major effects on our lives, but how are you responding to those effects? Are you making excuses or are you finding ways to succeed in your circumstances? Kirtan has been able to succeed by seeing the pandemic as “a glass half full and not empty” and being disciplined in the areas he needed the most. If Kirtan Subramaniam can do it, can you?

Source Cited:

Subramaniam, Kirtan. (2021) Questionnaire. Unpublished paper, Georgia State University.

Hello professor and fellow classmates,

      My task was to interview Solanlly Rijo Lake and learn more about her. I was to try and really get to know her true academic self. We had a zoom meeting on January 30, 2021 to introduce ourselves and get to really know each other. Then we had a second zoom meeting the following day to really discuss our academic selves. 

      My classmate who I had the honor of interviewing is actually from the Dominican Republic and has lived there her whole life. She attended Las Palmas Christian School from kindergarten through high school (Lake, 2021). She was very involved with different aspects of her school. She was a member of her high school volleyball team and she was student government president of her senior class. Something that was really interesting to me was that she was in the cyber security program at her school. 

      She was considered a scholar growing up, making sure to have her work done nice and on time. She’s also an overthinker which is good and bad. She will go out of her way to make sure that her assignment is done to the very best of her ability. She was named the valedictorian of her graduating class of 2020. After graduating high school, she decided to go straight to college and wanted to attend GSU. For some reason she wasn’t able to, so she decided to attend a college in the Dominican Republic so she wouldn’t be behind in her studies. She eventually got cleared and enrolled as a first year freshman at GSU in the Fall 2020 semester and left the other college. 

      Her major is in computer science, because she’s really into technology. When I asked her what her plans were for after college she told me something really impressive. Her response was “I wanted to get my masters in cyber security and start her own company. But my bigger picture includes advancing technology in the Dominican Republic. I feel that my country is too far behind other countries and I want that to change” (Lake, 2021). I personally feel that she could really do some marvelous things in the technological world. Usually when you’re talking about technology, you mention America and China, but she’s going to make it so they have to include the Dominican Republic in that conversation. 

      There was an essay from“Bad Ideas About Writing” that really stood out to her. It was titled “SOME PEOPLE ARE JUST BORN GOOD WRITERS” by Jill Parrott. She said “It completely changed my mindset about writing because I thought of writing as just a born quality and I never wanted to write cause I wanted to be perfect” (Lake, 2021). A lot of people think that people are born good writers and it’s just not true. Bad Ideas About Writing has a bunch of wonderful ideas that people think are true but aren’t. It’s just so informative and provides us so much knowledge about writing in general. 

      Just like every human being in this world, she has some academic bad habits. It’s very rare, but every once in a while she procrastinates and put things off just a little bit. She said “that even though I procrastinate, I make sure to get my assignments done on time” (Lake, 2021). Time management is a bit of an adjust because she’s used to hanging out with her friends and having fun. She’s had to adjust her social life in order to make her time management better. 

      Because we’re in an online class, we don’t really get to know our classmates. It was really cool getting to know Solanlly Rijo Lake and learn about her academic life. She was the valedictorian of her senior class and is really interested in technology specifically cyber security. She’s a very smart individual from the Dominican Republic who’s going to be very successful in her future. She’s going to change the world and advance her country technologically. Her profile leaves me with one question: what’s something that we can do to improve our country whether it’s technology, science, sports, etc.

Citations:

• Lake, Rio. Interview. Conducted by Kaleb Lynum, 30-31 January 2021
• Parrot, Jill. SOME PEOPLE ARE JUST BORN GOOD WRITERS. BAD IDEAS ABOUT WRITING. Edited by Cheryl E. Ball & Drew M. Loewe. 2017.
  

            Ezequiel (or Zeke) is a 17-year-old international student from the Dominican Republic. After conducting an interview and taking notes about Zeke, I have learned that he is a hard worker, who is determined at being the best student he could be. This is his second semester at Georgia State, and he has already established the fact that he is a responsible student, who works hard to achieve straight A’s every semester.

            Zeke attended Las Palmas Christian School from 6^th to 12^th grade. Las Palmas Christian School is a private bilingual school, where almost all of his classes were taught in English. This school is where he learned the majority of his English and is the reason why he can speak it so fluently. He still lives in the Dominican Republic and has to attend Georgia State online because of the Coronavirus, but he hopes that travel will be safer later this year so that he can attend school in person. He chose to attend Georgia State because he knew he wanted to go to college, but he wanted to study abroad so that he could get a better education. With a major in Computer Science, Zeke wants to work in the field of AI (artificial intelligence). Zeke says he wants to go into AI because he wants to “revolutionize technology”. He continues his explanation by saying “it’s an underdeveloped field, I want to help research and discover stuff to see how AI can be helpful in our lives.”

            With academic and career goals like Zeke, one needs to be very disciplined, determined, and hardworking. These three words accurately describe Zeke’s academic self. He is a responsible student and takes his classes very seriously. He works hard to achieve good grades and makes sure that he puts all of his effort into every assignment he has. He’s determined to do things right the first time and doesn’t let himself get too off-track when it comes to his schoolwork. One thing he takes pride in academically is that he was able to maintain excellent grades throughout high school which led to his acceptance at Georgia State.

            His parents and girlfriend are his biggest influences when it comes to doing well academically. Both his parents and his girlfriend want the best future for him and push him to be his best academic self. He is aware that his parents spent a lot of money for him to be able to go to school here, so he wants to achieve the best grades he possibly can. He knows how important an education is to him and his family. This connects to his favorite reading that we had in class so far which was the “Taking My Parents to College” article by Jennine Capó Cruce. When I asked him why this was his favorite reading, he said that in a way, he could relate to Jennine’s experience in college. Although he doesn’t attend college in person, he has parents who have never attended college in the United States, so he had to figure out the whole college application process by himself.

            With all of his academic and career goals, Zeke also mentioned that he wants to make enough money from his career so that he can help his country. He wants to improve the economy in his country and wants to make a business and provide jobs for people in the Dominican Republic. He has proved through his excellent grades, and his acceptance to Georgia State how disciplined, determined, and hardworking he is. I find it impressive that Zeke is so determined and goal-oriented when it comes to his schoolwork. As a 17-year-old myself, I still don’t know exactly what I want to do with my life after college, but Zeke has it all planned out and has proven that he is dedicated to his work and studies even though he’s in a different country, and I admire him for that.

Citations:

Acevedo, Ezequiel L. Personal Interview. 1 February 2021.

     Over the past week I was able to talk and get to know Lejla. I was definitely nervous to talk with someone through an online class. I’m very glad that I was able to get out of my comfort zone and learn about someone else and share things about myself. 

     Lejla and I decided to communicate over text messages because it would be easiest to have information about each other saved. This was extremely helpful because we were able to communicate at any time and if questions or ideas popped up, we could just share right away. 

    Lejla is a sophomore at GSU College Clarkston campus. She is planning to get an Associates Degree and then transfer to GSU downtown Atlanta to pursue a Bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education with a minor in American Sign Language. Right now, she is fully online and taking five classes this semester. Her favorite subject is Sociology because she was surprised about all the information that she learned during the class. 

     Lejla’s three academic words are: emotional, advocate and prepared. She told me that emotional was the first one that came to mind because she was born deaf with Profound Sensorineural Hearing loss. At 7, she underwent surgery to receive a cochlear implant on her right ear. Throughout grade school, she was delayed with speaking. Her parents are from Bosnia, so English was already difficult. Lejla had a speech therapist 4 times a week for 7 years and had a deaf and hard of hearing teacher one hour everyday. She expressed that it was emotional because school and being social is hard due to understanding others being difficult, or asking a teacher or fellow classmate to repeat themselves. She used advocate to describe her academic self because there have been numerous challenges thrown her way, but it keeps her being able to speak out for herself and to never be ashamed of asking for help. It has encouraged her to never give up and to stand up for herself. The last word was prepared because she feels like she does a great job staying on top of her assignments and she loves being able to get ahead on her work. 

    I learned that her favorite reading that we have done so far is the most recent one with the first generation college student. She really enjoyed this one because she related to it. She is actually the first generation from her family to continue her education at a collegiate level. Lejla being in college and on a pathway to graduate is a huge deal to her family because her parents lived in Bosnia. While her parents were in high school, there was a war. Her mom was a nurse and her dad was a soldier. They were never able to finish college. She told me how similar her story is to the one that we read. 

     I asked her if she had someone who was her biggest influence or mentor. Lejla told me that she had a few mentors. Her mentors are her mom, dad and Randi. Randi was someone who helped her parents understand the whole process of deaf situations. Randi is a second mom. Randi works for parents whose children are deaf. She understands the process of the difficulty being deaf and always tells Lejla how smart she is in her own way. Randi taught Lejla that it is okay to ask someone to describe or explain something and to ask someone to repeat what they said. Her main mentor is her mom who never gave up on her. Her mom is a kind, positive person who always provides advice and taught her how to stand up for herself. Seeing how much her mom has done for her shows Lejla how much she is cared about and that she will always make her mom proud. 

    The last thing we talked about was in-person versus online school. Lejla enjoyed being in person in high school because she was able to get involved in many activities. She was the co-captain of the volleyball team and chief editor of the yearbook. With school, she prefers online because she is able to pay attention and catch what the teacher is saying. In person she would have to ask several questions out loud in front of her classmates and ask for extra explanation, so that she could make sure she was understanding the material. With online, everything is on the computer. Online school allows for flexibility. Lejla is able to do school work, hang out and babysit to make money. 

    The conclusion from this discussion with Lejla is that every student is different. Her experiences throughout life are obviously different than mine, but gave me a different perspective on life. I complained about a lot of minor inconveniences that I had been challenged with in life, but after talking to and learning about Lejla she had to go through more challenges than I could have ever imagined. After talking to her, I realize how much of a strong person she is and I know that she will be able to accomplish anything she wants to in life. 

Mounica is an 18-year-old dual enrollment student and describes her academic self as visual, self-motivated, and engaging. She discovered the importance of her first academic self-word, visual, in elementary school. At her first school Crabapple Elementary, she realized she learned best with visual displays of information such as charts and graphs in front of her. Being able to see what she was learning while learning it, was something that helped her understand and retain information. She carried this learning style with her throughout her years in school.

In K-6th grade, Mounica was surrounded with familiar faces and friends until she moved to Piney Grove Middle School in 7th grade. She left behind her old friends and learned how to function in a new and unfamiliar environment. In her 5th-grade science class, she discovered her love for evolution. Although she did not quite understand it, she was eager to learn more, further sparking her interest in the sciences.

Mounica carried her love for science with her to high school and developed a passion for technology, specifically coding. She noticed a lot of girls at her school who were discouraged from taking computer science and coding classes at her school because they were male-dominated. Mounica became dedicated to making a safe space where they could enjoy the fascinating world of coding. She founded the Girls Who Code club at her school and became the president. She was the vice president of community service of the Red Cross organization and a member of FBLA and HOSA where she competed in regional and state events and honed her public speaking skills.

Mounica does not consider herself to be an extraordinary writer but she believes that with hard work and time she can be. That is why she decided to challenge herself by taking dual enrollment English this year through GSU. Mounica’s situation reminded me of the reading, “Some People Are Just Born Good Writers” by Jill Parrott. Where the author says, “Good writers are not born. They are learned.”

Growing up, Mounica’s biggest influence was her dad. When she moved to Denmark High School she was overwhelmed. It was a very competitive school, and all the students were taking AP’s and rigorous courses to bulk up their GPA. All though there was so much pressure to fall in with the crowd and take these classes Mounica remembered her fathers’ advice and it kept her grounded. Her father instilled in her at a young age that excelling academically was important, but she should also do things at her own pace and do things she enjoys. She spent her time in high school taking courses she enjoyed, including her favorite subject, biology.

Like many others, Mounica plans to go to college after high school. It is expected in her family and required for the career path she wants to pursue. Mounica plans to continue studying her interests by becoming a biochemistry major at her dream school, The University of Michigan. There she hopes to go the pre-med route or even go into medical law.

Through our interviews, I noticed how hardworking and self-motivated Mounica is. She is a student who puts lots of effort into learning about topics that interest her and even goes a step further to make something creative of them. I hope to stay connected with her in the future and wish her the best in continuing her academic journey.

Citations:

Parrott, Jill “Some People Are Just Born Good Writers”

Katragadda, Mounica Interview (2021)

Esohe Uhuangho is a 17 year old who is a senior at Alpharetta High School. She is taking this class as a dual enrollment student at GSU. The three words that describe her academic self are fast-learner, confident, and resourceful. 

From a young age, Esohe became fascinated with space. She loved dreaming about the world where stars and galaxies lived. This was the beginning of her curiosity. Wanting to learn more about space, she became resourceful with her supplies at home and created her own mini telescope to look through. As a student at Suwanee Elementary, Esohe’s curiosity began to grow outside of just space. In school, she became interested in math. As doing math formulas and step-by-step problems, she finds it fun as doing a puzzle. Being a fast-learner who is confident in her skills, she enjoyed her time in school. Additionally, she had a safe space at school with her childhood friends whom she knew she could always count on. However, like most people, Esohe was pushed out of her comfort zone when she moved to New Prospect Elementary School in fifth grade. Here she had to establish new friends in a new city. At first it was difficult since it took her some time to get used to her new surroundings, but eventually, using her confidence and resourcefulness, she found her new core group of friends.

At Webridge Middle School, Esohe set her own expectations in life such as to always keep As and stay active in her extracurriculars. This ideology was reinforced by her parents and friends, leading her to have a positive support network throughout her academic life. At Alpharetta High School, Esohe began to focus more on her social network. She became more outgoing and made new friends while staying in touch with her old ones. This social aspect led her to engaging in many after-school clubs such as BETA Club and Women in STEM. Inspired by the book The Hate U Give, Esohe even started a new club at school: Black Student Union. As the Vice President and a social activist, Esohe encouraged discussions in this club about current events in pop culture and modern day racism experienced in school. Throughout middle and high school, Esohe continued to reiterate her academic self words: fast-learner, confident, and resourceful. 

Since she was young, the biggest influence on her life has been her parents. Her parents instilled in her that education was important and pushed her to always try her best. Both her parents graduated college in Nigeria, therefore Esohe is new to the college application process in America. Similar to the main character’s dilemma in “Taking My Parents to College”, Esohe, who is a senior applying to college, found the process a little overwhelming. While her parents supported her endeavors and helped her strive for the best, they couldn’t help her with the process. Fortunately with the help of her friends, Esohe was able to successfully apply to her dream schools, including the University of Georgia.

Esohe is a hard-working individual who has undertaken many fun and inspirational projects throughout her life. As we talked throughout this interview, I saw her easy going nature and how dedicated she was to her future aspirations, whether that be a lab technician or PA. In the future, I hope to stay connected with her and see her journey progress.

Citations:

Taking My Parents to College by Jennine Capó Crucet

          First off, Ms.Ahn describes her academic self as consistent, persistent, and effective. She connected to the assigned reading, “Effective Learning strategy” by Dr.Chew. In the text, it states,” The most effective practice is to work a short time on each class every day. The total amount of time spent studying will be the same (or less) than one or two marathon library sessions, but you will learn the information more deeply and retain much more for the long term—which will help get you an A on the final.” It helped her come to the realization that she not only gets distracted easily, but it gave her strategies for even one who lacks time and patience. This information helped reconstruct her schedule into one that put all her focus onto each class for a short time every day. This is very helpful as Young is a full-time student and worker who lack time and sleep. This could explain why her academic self is easily distracted because some days she would lack sleep and be physically and mentally exhausted. This generally leads her to be stay long nights not only due to only the work due, but also her lack of concentration. With this being said, she becomes easily frustrated with the amount of time it takes to study for all her classes which I can easily relate with as I am the same way.

            Young is a night owl because of her experience in high school. In high school, Young was under plenty of pressure from her parents to learn how to get along with society structure. After graduation, she did not go directly to college because she simply was unsure of what she wanted to do for the rest of her life. She had to halt and think deeply about what her interests were, passion, goals, and aspirations in life. Through her self-discovery, Young first attend to GGC because of their great nursing program. However due to close distance, Young is attending GSU for a year and a half with a Computer Science major. She is still currently taking prerequisites. Young was drawn to this major because she believes that computers play a vital role in everyday life. Her biggest influence is her mother especially through her self-discovery because she was understanding, caring, and devoted to supporting Young in whatever path she chooses. Young used this as motivation to figure out what her path is. This reiterates her academic self as she describes it…persistent and consistent which explains her leadership and hard work qualities. Not only is she a full-time student, she also works 10-hour shifts leaving with little to no time to even relax. By the time she gets home, its dark and she is drained from her day, but she must stay up to complete her work and study. If this doesn’t prove her restlessness and persistence to succeed, then I do not know what does. She is very hot tempered and indecisive, but one thing she is not is a quitter. No matter how hard it is for her to deal with her daily endeavor or what comes her way, she will not quit she persevere and that is one the most important qualities of her academic self. For example, Young struggles with composition probably because her writing style is geared in creative writing. She likes to create a story or narrative that does not exist and use her endless imagination. She finds it weird how she able to only create stories but make deep connections, narratives, and relationships. I call it a unique gift as some individuals struggle to master creative writing as it requires a sense of imagination. This relentlessness helps drive for higher success or broaden the horizon.

       Furthermore, Young Ahn’s academic self is far more extensive than being persistent, consistent, and effective. She is over achiever, master of imagination, hot tempered, impatient, indecisive, restless, and hard working. She may not be perfect, but her goal is clear which is to be the best she can be and never give up on what she believes in. So in conclusion, her academic self can not be defined in merely three words. Her academic self is complex with positive and negative characteristics. Young is working on improving her academic self as she gets more and more exposure especially in education.