<p>“I will choose AP US History,” I firmly said to my grade chair last year when I handed in my course selection sheet. Now, after my junior year, I am proud to say that I do not regret this decision because I’ve made tremendous progress on the journey of pursuing outstanding excellence.</p>
<p>AP US History had always been an unreachable course for me because I had just been in American school for a year. The enormous amounts of reading and essays were like two ferocious beasts that I never dared to encounter. Moreover, a lot of my friends considered it unnecessary for me to take this class. Many were saying, “Why are you taking AP US History? You don’t even speak English.” I, however, believed that this course indeed was a tremendous challenge, but it could also be a precious opportunity for me to improve my English and gain a profound understanding of American culture. Thus, despite all of these difficulties that awaited me, I still decided to take this course. </p>
<p>However, my goal of improving myself required great effort and tenacity to be accomplished. When I was learning about the Gilded Age and imperialism, chapters clearly became so long that I could not handle it; historical events became more complex since Asia besides Europe also began to influence American society in the late 1800s. Longer and more complicated chapters hence adversely affected my history grade and damaged my confidence. Consequently, dropping the class became a very tempting option. Yet when this attractive choice rose up in my mind, the idea of facing the challenge started to counteract it. Why would I give up during the middle of the year? I had been taking this history class for an entire semester; the efforts I made had already proved to be beneficial. Giving up meant to me that I would leave with regrets. Therefore, the idea of dropping the class was outweighed by my strong desire to face and overcome this challenge. I started to read the textbook more carefully and review it as frequently as possible, deeply holding the certainty that I would understand the materials after reading them multiple times.</p>
<p>Eventually, my efforts and perseverance yielded great benefits by the end of the year. In addition to 5 on the AP exam and A for the final grade, the vast improvement of my TOEFL score demonstrated my significant improvement in English. Complicated historical readings and well-developed essays were no longer problems for me. Also, from American history, I learned an important lesson that everything cannot be perfect; one has to sacrifice something for more essential goals. Nevertheless, none of the benefits could be more rewarding than the confidence from my success of overcoming various difficulties during the year. It enabled me to confront bigger challenges in the future.</p>
<p>Yet, despite these promising results, my journey of pursuing outstanding excellence did not stop when I finished my AP US History exam. In order to further improve my English skills, I chose to take AP English Literature, a much more challenging course than AP US History. Its reading is indeed much more difficult than that of history, but I believe that with my hard work, persistence and constant effort, I will conquer this obstacle on my journey of becoming better self.</p>