By Yesenia Rocha

Feb. 1 2022

SAN JOSE, CALIF.- Venessa Martinez has bettered herself as a person and learned from her mistakes academically, which is enabling her to finish strong.

Starting high school can be a big adjustment from middle school for most students. Passing classes and keeping up with all the work assigned can be a struggle. Being inexperienced can impact a lot of students because it can lead them into thinking they aren’t as smart as others. Martinez started her freshman year very poorly, ditching a lot of her classes and only passed  two classes that year. 

Martinez had a talk with her counselor during her sophomore year when she was told that she was 20 credits behind. Given the option to take alternative settings and having seven classes that year would bring her back on track to graduate on time. Having a childish mindset was what ruined it because she would still ditch and continued to only pass another two classes that year, similar to freshman year.

During junior year, as graduation neared, Martinez realized she needed to do better to pass her classes. Cyber High was the best for her, letting her catch up on her work and being able to recover from the classes she failed. Another opportunity Martinez took was taking a dental class at Silicon Valley Career Technical Education, which was able to earn her credits as well. 

Martinez’s motivation is to be able to go to college and succeed in her future life goals. She plans to do two years of community college then transfer to a university and major in finance. Looking back, she realizes she could’ve done so much better academically if she didn’t ditch school. Now that she tries to be more independent, going to classes, doing her work and now being on track to graduate. Personal growth can change a person a lot, now she feels more self motivated, which she didn’t before. 

Martinez mentioned, “Don’t let anyone influence you or bring you down and make you believe that you aren’t capable of getting work done. If you push yourself to do better you will be able to overcome any minor obstacle in front of you.”