For whatever reason, high school was tough for me. Maybe it was undiagnosed ADHD, or perhaps I just couldn’t adapt to a public high school from a private Hebrew day school. Whatever it was, I didn’t try much and my GPA showed it. I had an 82.5 average without doing much work and it would probably be 10-15 points higher if I did.
In the end, I think life is like a Choose Your Adventure Book, and that terrible experience led me to a path of happiness and success. That and no longer communicating with the bullies who made my high school life difficult, which were my parents. You’ve read quite a bit on how their lot in life and worth as parents, was judged by my GPA.
My daughter, Meredith, had high school struggles. They were more personal than academic because Oceanside High School didn’t have the supportive friends that I did at Midwood. Whatever it was, I believed that college offered her the chance to change things because it was a change of environment. As discussed, I wanted to break the cycle of abuse and be more encouraging than my parents were. Whatever Meredith does or does not do, is no reflection of me, they’re not taking away my accomplishments for what she does.
Like Stony Brook for me, UAlbany has allowed Meredith to grow. She’s become more responsible; she’s become more studious. She did what I could never do at Stony Brook, win a contested election for student government. So far so good. I hope it continues and if it doesn’t, I will continue to support her because I didn’t get that support. I deserved it, and so did she.
