From the warm-hued leaves, to the smell of desserts baking in the oven, and a new chill in the air, fall has always been my favorite season. I see it as a magical time; it meant that the summer heat was coming to an end, and the winter holidays were fast approaching. The fall Starbucks drinks are an essential part of the season in my opinion. Their flavors taste just like how the season felt when I was growing up, bringing back nostalgia and happy memories with my family. I enjoy almost all of the fall drinks, but my favorite has to be the iced pumpkin cream chai latte. When I first tried this drink in high school, it definitely was not my favorite. It was a lot spicier than I was originally expecting, which was not something I was really looking for in a drink at the time! But when I started college last year, I started getting Starbucks much more often, usually before going to the library to study or to spend time with friends, and I started trying out different drinks rather than just getting my go-to, a blonde vanilla latte, every time. The fall version of the chai latte quickly became my favorite out of all of the seasonal drinks. Its taste is like what many people have called it, "fall in a cup". For me, it brings back fond memories of Thanksgiving with my family; watching football and spending time with my cousins, the mouth-watering scents of sweet potatoes and turkey for dinner, and a big slice of pumpkin pie for dessert. It makes me think of the leaves changing color all over my college's campus, creating a beautiful autumn wonderland that is perfect for a walk around the ponds. Ever since I started college last year, I have been trying to appreciate the little things more in my life, like getting a Starbucks drink before going to my favorite spot in my school's library to do some homework, or appreciating nature and each season that comes to pass. Fall is definitely my favorite season to do this because the landscape is very picturesque and the weather is usually nice enough to sit outside and enjoy the fresh air. My favorite reward for a long study session or doing well on an exam was to grab a pumpkin chai and take a walk around campus either alone or with friends. It has been very good for my mental health, and has also helped me stay more focused on doing well in school and working towards my goal of graduating with high honors. I am very grateful that I can utilize my college meal plan to get Starbucks frequently throughout the semester. It greatly enhanced the experience of my first year at university, and I hope I will continue to be able to enjoy this throughout my four years and beyond. I am also very excited for the fall menu to come back soon, and will be trying all of the drinks again over the course of the semester!

In my freshman year of high school, things were going very well for me. After the initial adjustment from middle school to high school classes and participating in two fall sports at the same time, I was doing well in school, I had made new friends, and I was looking forward to joining a spring club at the end of March. But on Friday the 13th of March 2020, everything changed. Instead of socializing with friends and peers and learning in-person every day, we were suddenly thrown into a completely new learning environment: remote learning. I remember being overjoyed that we didn’t have to go to school for the rest of the year, and classwork assigned by our teachers could not even negatively affect our grades. I was disappointed, however, that all sports and other activities were canceled and I would not get to see my friends every day. Something I didn’t think about, though, was how much doing online school would be different from in-person school. I had to stay at home all day every day to try and stay healthy, but I still needed to wake up early every day to join class Google Meetings. And, after sitting in front of a computer screen for 8 hours straight, often sitting in the same spot in my room, I still had hours of homework afterward. This was an entirely new system that was initially hard for me to adjust to. I would have trouble focusing in class, sometimes even falling asleep at my desk because I had spent all night doing homework and studying, and it was very hard to stay on task while doing homework because of all the distractions at home that are not usually at school. For a while, I was struggling with this new way of learning. But then I slowly got into a routine. I would consistently use a planner, try to get a lot of my assignments done during class time so I would have less homework after school, and focus on monitoring myself so that I would stay focused because no one else would do that for me. Once I started getting the hang of remote learning, I started doing better in my classes and completed almost all my assignments on time, and I even had some time after school to relax and unwind from the long day of classes. At the end of my sophomore year, I had successfully mastered self-disciplining and had satisfactory grades by the end of the semester. The skill of self-discipline is vital for being successfully independent, and this is a key component for excelling in college. No one is monitoring you to make sure you get your work done other than you, you are the one that is working towards furthering your education, not anyone else. I know I will do very well in college because I have already experienced firsthand what it takes to be successful with time management, tuning out distractions, and just overall being able to motivate myself to complete all my schoolwork on time, without the help of or pressure from anyone else. I think that these skills are not only essential for college, they are essential to being successful in a career, and becoming an adult and an independent person for a lifetime.

In my freshman year of high school, things were going very well for me. After the initial adjustment from middle school to high school classes and participating in two fall sports at the same time, I was doing well in school, I had made new friends, and I was looking forward to joining a spring club at the end of March. But on Friday the 13th of March 2020, everything changed. Instead of socializing with friends and peers and learning in-person every day, we were suddenly thrown into a completely new learning environment: remote learning. I remember being overjoyed that we didn’t have to go to school for the rest of the year, and classwork assigned by our teachers could not even negatively affect our grades. I was disappointed, however, that all sports and other activities were canceled and I would not get to see my friends every day. Something I didn’t think about, though, was how much doing online school would be different from in-person school. I had to stay at home all day every day to try and stay healthy, but I still needed to wake up early every day to join class Google Meetings. And, after sitting in front of a computer screen for 8 hours straight, often sitting in the same spot in my room, I still had hours of homework afterward. This was an entirely new system that was initially hard for me to adjust to. I would have trouble focusing in class, sometimes even falling asleep at my desk because I had spent all night doing homework and studying, and it was very hard to stay on task while doing homework because of all the distractions at home that are not usually at school. For a while, I was struggling with this new way of learning. But then I slowly got into a routine. I would consistently use a planner, try to get a lot of my assignments done during class time so I would have less homework after school, and focus on monitoring myself so that I would stay focused because no one else would do that for me. Once I started getting the hang of remote learning, I started doing better in my classes and completed almost all my assignments on time, and I even had some time after school to relax and unwind from the long day of classes. At the end of my sophomore year, I had successfully mastered self-disciplining and had satisfactory grades by the end of the semester. The skill of self-discipline is vital for being successfully independent, and this is a key component for excelling in college. No one is monitoring you to make sure you get your work done other than you, you are the one that is working towards furthering your education, not anyone else. I know I will do very well in college because I have already experienced firsthand what it takes to be successful with time management, tuning out distractions, and just overall being able to motivate myself to complete all my schoolwork on time, without the help of or pressure from anyone else. I think that these skills are not only essential for college, they are essential to being successful in a career, and becoming an adult and an independent person for a lifetime.

Golf has always been an important part of my life in many aspects. I have been playing this sport for as long as I can remember. My dad first taught my younger brother and I how to golf at very young ages. I can still remember putting down the hallway of my house with foam golf balls when I was around 4 years old. I owe it to him for giving me the opportunity to have a skill that I can cultivate and continuously improve on, and for giving me something that I can make friends that share the same interest as me. My time playing golf throughout my life has taught me many important things, such as the power of hard work, and the results of that being gaining confidence and seeing what happens when I don’t give up on something important to me. The biggest lesson I have learned from golf is the concept of hard work paying off. Before high school, I had never played competitively and I never really cared about my scores, nor did I understand what was considered “good” or “bad” for my age group. Then, when I joined my high school’s girls’ golf team in my freshman year, I was introduced to competitive golf. In the beginning, I felt pretty overwhelmed with all the rules and regulations and was especially surprised by my scores and how I compared to everyone else. I was put in the 1st JV position, and my scores were in the high 60s and low 70s for 9 holes. This made me feel embarrassed for not being comparable to the more skilled players on my team. This feeling is something that I’ve always dealt with in many activities throughout my childhood. I know this isn’t the healthiest way to look at it, but it always pushes me to work hard to improve my standing in whatever it is I am doing so I’m not labeled as “bad” at something. So, I worked hard at practice every day after school and tried my best at every golf match. It was originally hard, and I felt like giving up because I wasn’t at the level I wanted to be at. But I stuck with it and kept practicing and, within a couple of months, I improved my game by an average of around 10 strokes and moved up in the middle of the season to the 5th Varsity position. I was so proud of myself for putting in the work and seeing results, and I realized that I could achieve anything that I set my mind to, it all came down to working hard to reach my goals. I continued to improve throughout the years, and this gave me a big boost of confidence because I finally got validation and was seen as skilled in the eyes of my peers and the adults in my life. This encourages me to work hard in all that I do because I have seen the results of putting in the work for something, and the results are very rewarding and worth the extra effort. Learning to work hard and not give up is a very important skill for life outside of sports because you need to be willing to work hard and put in the effort in order to see results. I think this skill will help me in college and my career, and even just later on in my life in general.

My dream version of my future self has grown considerably mentally and emotionally from where I am currently and strives to improve upon herself every day, has graduated with honors from college, is in the process of building her career within the biomedical sciences field in research and maybe is even planning to start a family; she is confident and fearless and does whatever it takes to accomplish her goals and feels capable to take on any challenge she comes across.