AP World History Portfolio

About Me

Hello and welcome to my AP World History Portfolio. My name is Luis Leal and I am currently a sophomore in San Diego. Growing up has not been easy for me. I was born in the U.S. but raised in Tijuana up until I had to start first grade. I learned how to correctly spell English until I finished 5th grade. I have always thought that school wasn't that important to me since I hated it. Both my parents dropped out of high school so I thought I would have ended up like them and begin to work at a very young age. Once I got to middle school, I was enrolled into a class, AVID. This class was meant to help those students who want to get a college education by getting help with school work and learning about college information. I didn't know much about college but once I continued to take AVID for 4 years. I have learned so much about college and universities by visiting colleges and getting information about how to get accepted. I learned that now only will I have to maintain a high GPA but by joining extra curricular activities and taking more challenging classes, I will get a lot of attention for universities. Once I got to high school my grades began to improve as it was the first year in my whole academic year to not have an F in a class. I know it may not be that much of an accomplishment but to me That was one of the greatest feeling ever. I showed my parents and they said they were proud of me. Those words meant a lot to me because I knew that my parents wanted me to be successful and not turn out like them. I decided that I did want to be successful so sophomore year I took my first accelerated class and AP class. At the end of the year I didn't get the grades I was actually hoping to get but I still was able to go from no Fs to all Cs or higher, so that was still very great for me and my parents. I also decided to join extra curricular activities like M.E.Ch.A. Joining M.E.Ch.A has been been something has has impacted my life dramatically. Thanks to Mr.Rodriguez and Mrs.Flores I have now learned that it doesn't matter how poor your background may be, if I want to be successful and put all my effort and dedication, I am able to accomplish anything that I set to mind. I started to ignore all the negative comments I've told myself for the last years that I'm a failure and that I won't be anything in life. I will now have a new and better attitude to school as I will continue to take challenging classes because I want to make my parents real proud of me and say that I am the first member of my family to get accepted into a college or university.

Poem

I remember the first day I walked into room 207

it was the end of freshman year

we were told that this class was going to be stressful

the last day of summer break i stayed up until 12 to finish the summer packet

the first weeks were easy

but then came chapter 7...

so many empires to remember, by December

At last, Christmas break!

Just kidding! another winter break packet

We returned with new clothes

do we remember the middle ages? who knows

4 months until the AP exam

damn...

The next weeks id sleep at one

I'm still not done...

I wish i had not procrastinated, but it was too late

there was one week left for the AP exam

so i started to think straight.

I began to study

I knew i was in a hurry.

For if it were not for my dedication and commitment to the class

or Mr. Rodriguez and his words of wisdom

I would have had a hard time to pass

the AP exam.