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Everything was going all right until I started having mental breakdowns throughout my journey. Education is gaining knowledge, and “education is a practice of freedom”. I follow these two rules because gaining knowledge will let me see the world in a more accessible way. I want to practice freedom and experience new things from the knowledge I gain. I’m going to assume that I have a good amount of knowledge regarding school and skills education. I’m going to talk about how stress has affected my journey. What are the important things that happened in each year of high school? And I would also go into how I developed my baking skills. The significant change in my education journey began when I started high school. There were a lot of ups and downs, but I managed to succeed.

 

The first year of high school was the time I chose my major. I’m interested in theme parks and roller coasters, which have played a significant role in how I chose my major right now. In my first year of high school, I was perplexed because I didn’t know which major I wanted to pursue my career in, whether Electrical Engineering or Industrial Engineering. So, my older cousin influenced me to be an Electrical Engineer. At that time, I started getting my interest in theme parks and roller coasters from a YouTube channel called coaster studios by Taylor Bybee, so I started researching more about the roller coaster industry. I discovered that electrical engineers are likely to work in theme parks and the rollercoasters industry. This research process made me finally decide to choose the major of Electrical Engineering, and by the time of my first year of high school, I had passed the first semester with good grades and high percentages but not what I was used to.

 

More time passed, and when I got halfway through my second semester, covid-19 and the lockdown had begun. It has affected me both positively and negatively. Since covid-19 started, my school has given us fewer studies, so I have focused on developing my baking skills. I have developed them to the point that everyone started asking me to open a business account for my baking. Still, my parents have denied it and told me to think about it at another time so that I could finish my studies, but instead, I have opened an Instagram account where I try recipes online, and then I write my reviews about the recipes. Another YouTube channel that has inspired  me to become who I wanted to be and helped me develop my baking skill is “Alex French guy cooking”. He gave me a boost to work as an engineer and a baker because he was a former Industrial Engineer, which was my second major. He has a YouTube channel related to baking and cooking. His channel caught my interest, and I’m following his path, hoping to be even better than him. And by the end of the first year of high school, I managed to finish the year with good grades and a high percentage because everything was online, which was a new experience for the students. Everyone managed to pass that year, and the teachers were easy on us. 

However, it started affecting me negatively in my second year of high school. In the midterms of the first semester, I was studying so much with zero motivation. Everyone kept saying that the second year of high school would be easier, but it felt like hell for me. I was so stressed without noticing how much the stress affected me, and the school wasn’t helping at all; they made it even worse. I wasn’t used to having two exams in one day, and this happened the whole year. I got a lower percentage than my usual range in the first midterm. I wasn’t used to getting lower than 90%, so I had many mental breakdowns that day. In the finals, for the first semester, my percentage only increased by 5%, which got me into another meltdown because I wasn’t used to having these low grades. And in the vacation between the first and second semesters, I started reflecting on myself and trying to see what I was doing wrong and what I must improve. I noticed that I was bottling up my feelings for way too long because of the stress and the lack of motivation I felt at that time and that I needed someone to talk to. 

 

And on the 1st of January in 2022, I was at a family gathering. I sat there in silence. I didn’t want to communicate with anyone, and it felt like everything was wrong. I felt like I didn’t belong there. My aunt noticed my silence and asked me:” Aisha is everything okay? You seem upset today”. When she asked me this question, I couldn’t resist more, and I exploded like a bomb. I had another mental breakdown, but it was in front of the whole family. Everyone finally noticed something was wrong; they finally noticed that I was at my lowest. I could tell they freaked out because no one knew that I was struggling, but now everyone knew something was wrong with me, and they came in to help when I needed them the most. Everyone gave me advice for the second semester and tried to help me as much as possible so they wouldn’t see me in that position again. As a result of listening to my family’s advice, I started stressing less and expressing myself more freely, and my studying got easier.

 

In the midterm, my percentage increased so much that I cried tears of happiness because I got back to my old self, who got good grades with a bit of stress; I managed to cope with everything around me. I ended my second year of high school with a good percentage that satisfied my expectations. In my last year of high school, I started applying to universities and took the IELTS exam. In the week of my exam, I was stressed because I got sick but managed to get a good score. It could have been better, but I didn’t want to do it again. Before my two finals, I assigned two goals for myself. The first was to get 90% or above in my high school certificate, and the second was to get accepted at Texas A&M University. In the first semester finals, I was so chill about the exams because I knew that I studied to the point that I knew everything, and I got a percentage above 90, which I was delighted with. I was lucky that I accomplished the second goal before the first one because I got accepted at Texas A&M before my second final. In the second semester, I got sick the day before my final and got sent to the hospital, but I studied at the hospital and didn’t freak out about it even though I was crying the whole time, but I managed to finish my finals and be sick at the same time. And finally, I accomplished the second goal and graduated high school with 90%. It would be better if I didn’t get sick, but everything happens for a reason, and I was happy about it because I got the percentage I expected to get.

 

In the end, there were so many parts that stressed me so much. Still, after my experience in my   second year of high school, I managed to know how to get myself out of these stress problems and how to deal with stress problems by motivating myself with motivational words to help me continue. I learned to take breaks, not overload myself with work and to talk to the people I’m comfortable with about my feelings, and I have found out that some people help us by just being there for us. I’m very thankful for the people that helped me through my journey, as I realized how much social media affects a person; like me with YouTube channels, I think social media is inspiring and helpful

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