Family history, culture, environment influence - UCF essay

2. How has your family history, culture or environment influenced who you are?

My family environment influenced my personality by providing me with the confidence to succeed in a challenging environment. I have two younger sisters that assisted me in maturing and understanding that my attitude and actions outside of school are essential too. I have learned to look at myself from other people's perspective and to change my behavior accordingly. The family environment molded me into a more understanding person and helped me to perform at my best. My family gives their total support both in swimming competitions and school activities and has helped me significantly during my school career. My mom was the most influential factor in creating the person I am today.

Her unfailing support guided me on a straight and narrow throughout my school career and pushed me to put my best effort into each assignment. She helped me develop effective study techniques to prepare for swimming competitions and tests. She taught me to set aside a hour and a half each night for studying to avoid the stress of cramming. I enjoy exceeding expectations that my parents place upon me and view them as a challenge to overcome. They force me to find ways to reflect up on myself which allows me to pinpoint small problems before they worsen. During my junior year, I felt intimidated by Chemistry AP and wanted to drop it in favor of an easier class. However, my mother refused to allow me give up and encouraged me to improve my grades by attending extra help sessions and spending extended time on Chemistry material. I rebounded from a slow start and improved my grades by setting aside a small amount of study time each night to over prepare. After completing Chemistry AP, I felt full of pride after ultimately succeeding in that course but put most of the credit to my refusal to switch classes. I arrived early each and every swim practice in rain or shine in order to prepare for swim meets. However, my success in swimming was owed to a large part to my mom's consistency in driving me to swim practice and assisted me in performing well academically.

I study for small and large tests the same and view them as equal in importance. I complete homework at all times and understand that excessive preparation will always yield high test scores. After understanding how much I took attending a private school for granted, I changed my attitude and wanted to succeed in each respective year. Now, I am using this top notch education to my advantage and strive to perform well in all my classes no matter the difficulty. The overall relief and joy that I experience when I get an "A" on a test cannot be matched.

Taking pride in my work has been my biggest step in embracing my work and allotting different tasks for each period of time during the day in order to make sure I will be able to complete work to the best of my ability. Being raised under strict standards, I understand the importance of setting goals to provide guidance and confidence when shooting for a goal that is far off.

Thank you in advance. I was wondering if it answered the question and if you had any ideas that would make it more interesting and appealing. This is my first draft and it is due on Wed. so I am working a lot on it. How i can expand it maybe?