By the end of 8th grade, I knew that I was going to move to Arizona and start high school in Tucson. One may easily think that moving away from the politically-conflicted and messy Turkey to the American dream would seem appealing to anyone, but it was not at all appealing to my 14-year-old-self. At a psychological all-time-low, I moved to Tucson. At this point in time I was very sad because I thought that I was in love with someone in Istanbul, I had a great social life in Istanbul, I enjoyed my family life at home, and Tucson just did not seem to interesting to me. Honestly, cactus and sand is not too entertaining for an angsty teen.
In Tucson, I attended BASIS Tucson North, currently ranked as America’s second best high school. Just when I thought that no academic curriculum could be more rigorous than the one I had in Turkey, I was slapped in the face with obligatory AP classes in a language that I was not a native speaker in. I struggled massively with my academics and cried a lot in the first few months of my time in the U.S.
After some time had passed with a melancholic mind-set, I decided to focus more on classes instead of pushing them aside just because they were too difficult. By this time my English had also improved because of the constant exposure of it in my daily life. As I started paying more attention in class, asking more questions, engaging in more discussions, doing the assigned homework, I realized that not only was I succeeding in a school full of ambitious and competitive kids, but I was also thriving in this community. For the first time in my life I enjoyed the process of learning new things. I was learning for the sake of it, not just for college applications and for future material success.
I think that grit played a huge role in my success at BASIS. I had resilience because I had the disadvantage of not being a native English speaker, yet I still did not give up and proved that I could gain success in the face of a disadvantage. I had the need for achievement because at a point in my life where I had very little purpose or joy, I grasped onto school as my major source of purpose and meaning. At the end of the 2nd trimester, I was given the Academic Improvement Award, which was given to the student in a graduating class who had the highest boost of GPA.
