cheater

I feel like the narrative should be a little more specific in examples I would like to know where I could expand and bring in more specific examples in my narrative.

A Lesson Learned

When I was coming up in high school, I thought it was ok to cheat off of other people because getting a “good” grade is the only thing that mattered. Boy was I wrong. It all started during sophomore year. I was sitting in the principal’s office trying to convince him that it was only a “coincidence” that my test score is exactly identical to a friend of mine. To make things more obvious, we even had the same wrong answers. This was the first of many zeroes that I earned because I failed to learn my lesson through the punishments. Every time I would leave the conference room I would be mad at myself for getting caught rather than for cheating on a test. I simply failed to look ahead in my future and instead lived in the moment. I did not bother to ask, “What good is this doing to me?” Sure, I will have a good grade, but what have I learned? Is school just about surviving and getting that diploma? Or is it about growing as a person and finding who you really are. All I really knew about myself at this point was that I was a cheater. It sort of became a cycle. I would cheat on assignments, and when I would get caught, I would try to get out of it. It usually ended with me taking a zero and a phone call home. Things would soon change, though. It was spring time and soccer season had just started. I was very excited about it because I felt that we had a great team and we could do great things during the season. With soccer season in full swing, I knew that the only way I would stay on the team was by keeping up a good grade and staying out of trouble. This was going to be hard for me… The one person that is most responsible for getting me back on track was my soccer coach. Although I didn’t care as much about getting in trouble, I definitely cared about being on the team. I wanted to play and contribute to the team, but constantly getting into trouble for cheating on assignments almost caused me to get kicked off the team. I remember getting benched for the first two games because of an incident that happened in the classroom. It was then that I realized that what I was doing was wrong. Although I thought that it was helping me, it was actually hurting me. It affected my relationships with my teachers, prevented me to learn, and it almost caused me to lose my spot on the team. I decided to stop cheating mainly because I wanted to play soccer. I still was not getting the bigger picture that my coach was trying to lead me to. Again I was more mad at myself for sitting out games than cheating on assignments. Sophomore year was the last time I ever purposely cheated on a test. I stopped cheating, but I was yet to realize the benefits of it. It would only be near the end of my career in high school that I would come to realize how that decision changed my life. As I was writing college essays I was forced to reflect on my past and see how my past experiences have helped shape my personality. Thinking about it, I realized that doing things for myself pushed me to become a better student because I would learn from my mistakes. When I cheated, I was unable to do that because it was mistakes that other people made, there was no way I would learn any lesson from someone else. It helped me become a better team player because I began to contribute. It also enabled me to discover my strengths and minimize my weaknesses. Once I was able to figure out my strengths I could finally think about possible things I could pursue in the future. Because I was extremely good at math, I decided to take engineering courses which sparked my interest in engineering itself. I was beginning to realize what I liked and what I wanted to do. Aside from the educational aspect, I was finally able to enjoy being a teen instead of constantly being grounded for my stupid actions. I ended up playing soccer all four years of high school and was even appointed captain by fellow teammates. I finally earned others’ trust, and that is what made me the happiest. Finally, late into senior year, I found myself sitting in the principal’s office once again. I can proudly say that this time, however, it was for something good that I was doing. I was asking for advice as to which college to attend. (I ended up being accepted by three universities) As I was having this conversation with my principal, I wondered how different the topic could have been had I not changed my habits. That conversation could have easily been about whether I would graduate, or maybe I would not have been in school anymore to begin with. This was the first time I was more mad at myself for ever cheating than for anything else in my life.


 * Comments**

The attention grabber was lacking. It was very vague, and the phrase "coming up in high school" is awkward. you mention that "it all started in sophomore year" but that the last time you cheated was in sophomore year. I would remove the first reference to 10th grade. It makes it seem like it wasn't that bad of a problem. 3rd paragraph doesn't fit cohesively. It seems like you could take the sentences and put them in other paragraphs that you already have. 4th paragraph should be broken into 2 separate paragraphs. The first should be how cheating affected you and the second would be about stopping. If you want more expansion, talk more about the cheating. You have a lot of information about soccer. It seems more about soccer fixing your cheating than cheating actually affecting your life.