<p>Hey everybody! I’ve been following the thread since I left for camp, but haven’t had time to post. Now that I’m back home and have access to a computer, I would like to start a little conversation. What is one MAJOR thing you would like to accomplish before graduating high school? I would like to do a full-blown research project with a proposal (done for now with mine for camp) and compete in a huge competition (like Siemens-Westinghouse).</p>
<p>Probably get a internship to research outside of NY or something probably at a notable University.</p>
<p>But I don’t know about a national competition. My school is full of un-motivated students. :(</p>
<p>@nothingto: My school is full of unmotivated kids too. The smart ones do weed (my parents would kill me if I even thought about possessing it) and the “dumber” ones do all kinds of crazy things that I would never think of.</p>
<p>But, conquering at what seems to be the impossible is what many colleges look for.</p>
<p>Evanb, I am working on teaching myself c++, then i plan to start developing apps for iPad, android etc. With a friend. Hopefully by senior year I can make some money doing it. CS is what I want to major.</p>
<p>Cool, ATPmolecule…</p>
<p>@Evanb1996</p>
<p>Yes, same with mine. Except, that almost every student in my school is either doing drugs, some dont want to go to college (95% of students who graduate go to college) (91% is my schools graduation rate) however many go to only State/city universities/or CC. Only around 4-6 students actually got into the top 20 universities in America, in the past which is discouraging :(</p>
<p>But I need tips on how I can overcome this obstacles. I have almost no clue. I am going to start bugging my Guidance Counselor, but I don’t think it will help. :(</p>
<p>@nothingto: Nobody at my school usually goes to a top 20 university, public or private. From this past class, 3 people got accepted to NC State. The class before them only had 1 person to go to UNC and almost 20 going to NC State. </p>
<p>When it comes to opportunities, always talk to your guidance counselors and your teachers. They usually know of programs that you can do. A lot of programs in NC center to my region because the lack of resources and low rate of high school and college grads.</p>
<p>As far as one thing I want to accomplish before graduating, I really want to get a short story published in a national literary magazine that’s respectable. I’ve been published in various local journals and won writing contests, but I’d love a semi-impressive litmag to slap on my resume. 
Plus, some of them pay well!</p>
<p>@emeraldEvi: Sounds so cool! What type of things do you write about? If I could write about anything, I would probably write about something in biotechnology or medicine.</p>
<p>EmeraldEvi, how do you do that? What did you do to get them published? I am so confused, that is why I can never get too involved. I want to change. </p>
<p>However, I am of low-income family, so I cannot do anything with too much money. Any help is appreciative. I am very limited in these things due to my economic status.</p>
<p>Generally, sophomores don’t take AP classes at my school. We offer 13 AP classes (Calc AB, Stats, Chem, Bio, Physics, English Lit, English Lang, French 5, Japanese 5, Spanish 5, Euro, US History, Government & Politics). I only got into Physics because I’m a year ahead in science and my Honors Bio teacher happened to love me, she wanted me to get switched into AP Bio but it was impossible.</p>
<p>@evanb1996: I really want to do some sort of medical research volunteering/actual project research at Udub and intern at a music venue. Or I want to get into a boarding school for junior/senior year, but who knows.</p>
<p>@nothingto: I know how that is. One of my best friends can’t do the things that I can do because of money. I live in a very poor county and my parents are like in the top 20% of salary in the county (the lake in my county is a whole different story). I just came back from shadowing an evolutionary geneticist at Duke and writing a research proposal about genetic modifications in a certain crop (wont spill too many beans :)).</p>
<p>@franzferdinand: I want to go to a boarding school for jr and sr years too (NCSSM is the one here in NC). An actual research project would be nice for college. Maybe the boarding school you are applying to has research opportunities for its students (NCSSM gives every student the opportunity and many of them take it)</p>
<p>@Evanb: I’d love to make it to the USABO top 20 camp (and maybe IBO!), or reach the USAMO. Either would make me absolutely ecstatic.</p>
<p>On a smaller scale, it’s a personal goal of mine to break 2300 on the SAT. That would be great…</p>
<p>Pretty much same as above. I’d love to publish research of mine and make it to the Intel or any of the major ones…ah, dreams :)</p>
<p>@Evanb: I’m a fiction-nut, so most of my writing is creative and not research-based, hence why I want to publish a short story rather than an article. I’ve written everything from literary shorts to fantasy novellas and hopefully all this practice will pay off, lol.</p>
<p>@nothingto: Many national writing contests have $10-20 entry fees, so you might have to avoid those, but where I live smaller artsy-like companies or programs will occasionally hold contests for visual, performing, and literary art. There are some school-sponsored things as well-- Reflections, Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, etc. Keep your eyes peel for newspaper blurbs on contests, and your Guidance Counselor might know of some. If you’re feeling brave, check out [Duotrope’s</a> Digest](<a href=“http://www.duotrope.com%5DDuotrope’s”>http://www.duotrope.com) for legit national literary magazines, although that’s some steep competition.</p>
<p>I wish I could enjoy science and research, but I just don’t. All of my ECs and accomplishments are/will be related to the arts.</p>
<p>@emeraldEvi: I’m more of an arts based person as well. One of my biggest ECs would have been theatre, though it’s a class, and we meet after school for rehearsals. I also want to submit poetry to the Scholastic Art & Writing awards (as well as other pieces) and join the schools poetry/art club, called ARGO. </p>
<p>So you’re not alone with your appreciation of the arts!</p>
<p>it feels like it’s been a while since i last posted xD</p>
<p>@emeraldEvi and @julieanne: Those are both my goals: to publish something in a well-known lit magazine and do something for intel. LOL. Well the problem is I don’t really know to start either of them though. I’ve never entered any local writing competitions or magazines though. In 7th grade i spent a load of freetime writing stories (never finished any of them) and i just loved creative writing. However, 8th grade and last year I barely read or wrote anything other than what was assigned as hw/schoolwork (essays, english-taught-novels, etc.) The thing is, i go to a magnet school that orients itself toward the math/sciences/computer sciences, but I feel i am somewhat english/arts oriented in comparison to most students (within the magnet, and compared to many of my friends in another school who are pursuing literature/humanities/and the like). i enjoy writing essays, overachieve on a lot of writing assignments, etc. And, of course, I absolutely love art and piano. Sometimes i feel like i’m a little out of place, but i’m pretty determined to be a doctor. </p>
<p>I also think i want to submit some sort of writing or poetry to the scholastic art &writing awards, but all my writing skills are kind of rusty since my school doesn’t provide much vigor in that area (and i never tried to do anything beyond the things assigned for hw last year…).</p>
<p>Finally, as a part of my appreciation for art, I’ve always loved photography, and i really would like to improve. The thing is, idk if it’s for other classes/states, but i feel like where i live, EVERYONE does photography… it’s like this gigantic fad/trend where every person has one of those really-expensive cameras that professionals use [forgive my ignorance, i don’t know the name of the camera], although many of them just take mediocre self-portraits and don’t seem to have any other uses. Okay i think i’m starting to be really judgmental… so backtracking. Nonetheless, I was wondering if any of you guys do photography (for how long) and your experiences? I just have a normal digital camera (my family’s), and I don’t want to ask my parents to purchase the nicer cameras until I’m sure I’ll put forth a lot of devotion to photography. Not sure how it’s going to work though…</p>
<p>A question for you writers out there; how do you ‘improve’ your writing? (is it just practicing/writing as much as you can and reading? or do you actually focus closely on your writing style, sentence structure, vocabulary…) Do you often change your writing style? And what writers/books serve as your source of inspiration?</p>
<p>/full-fledged interrogation mode. sorry about that, folks. :P</p>
<p>@upinflight: To improve your writing skills, read things like adult fiction, newspaper editorials, critical reviews, essays, and journals on a certain topic. They all have very good use of different sentence structure, vocabulary, and other things that could help with your writing skills. I’ve read a lot of adult fiction and critical reviews just to look at sentence structure and level of vocabulary and my Honors English 9 teacher said that I improved the most of any student she has taught in writing skills (On her “scale”, I moved from lower-9th grade level to higher 12th grade level. She said I write better than her on one of her good days 
I’m somewhat exaggerating that last statement.)</p>
<p>@upinflight: I dabble in photography as well, though I’m old fashioned: most of my photographs are taken with my film camera (a Canon AE-1) and I mostly just shoot the things I see. My interest began in eighth grade when I was in a digital photography class.</p>
<p>As for as the writing? Read. Read, read, read. Everything. Don’t stick to one genre of books, or even just books. I agree with evanb on the reading part. Though write a lot, too. And when you do write, edit. Edit a lot. Don’t be afraid of trying new things. And don’t try to force anything. Ask other people to read your work, ask for people to critique it. A fresh perspective is often helpful.</p>