The Letter to LESP

Dear fellow classmates and faculties of LESP:

Time passes so fast, and I am also a college student. I learned so much last past two years while being in LESP. It did not just prepare me to go to college, but also let me involve American culture and society. I was so excited to visit my mother school-LESP with other my friend last week, and watched Christmas show which was incredible. This visiting made me home feeling. It was my pleasant to share the college life with the teachers who always carry the heart-full cares. I was so glad to see a lot of students who strived to apply colleges and pursued their dreams.

I discussed with teachers who recommended me to provide more suggestions in order to prepare students better in college. I thought deeply and promised them to share more experiences about college life, which is totally different in different ways compared to high school, and some suggestions for them and school.

As I posted in my blog, college life is full challenging. It has been said that there is no any execute about anything. For example: you say you can not finish the report because you have a lot of work; someone will laugh you are childish and professors may ignore you. Who does not have works they will tell. The atmosphere in college is not what is like in high school. What you miss is what you miss, and it is your fault. It is your duty to response everything. That is college life. It may sound scared, but you must have to mange time properly and take all the responsibility either in the academic or life. It is so important to know what you are doing, and please remember that act before think. I believe it is great place and time to discipline yourself. Do not worry, believe me, it is going to be wonderful milestone you will ever have in your life. What I suggest students is that to set up positive attitude or behavior. Believe yourself and confident yourself.

Teachers asked whether if English provided the obstacle in my study in college. To this question, honestly, I can not say no. For example: my school is 98% students are native English speakers. Reading 30 pages each day is just like a peace of cake. But it is half day work for me. Everyone understands attending the college is not just for fun or vocation. Everyday’s heavy works almost can crash you to death. I had to go to tutoring every nigh for extra help, such as checking the papers, because of my English. I really struggled this semester. So, my dear schoolmates please remember to take as more English courses as you can in high school. That only can bring you the advantage.

In addition, the transition from high school to college is really difficult due to the big distance between the academic levels. For example, when I took chemistry in high school, I did not have to read the book to understand the materials which is so nothing compared to college chemistry. This term in college, I took AP chemistry which went whole book within ten weeks; we had to read 20 pages for each class and lab then did the homework before even the professor taught yet. Do you think is it possible for a student who did not touch chemistry book ever before, to finish all of the works on time? I can absolutely say that it is impossible. This because the text book our students use in high school is so easy and is only can be used for review, and students do not read a of lot materials. I do not think their English is a problem to use thick hard-cover text books in science classes, because English in sciences books is that difficult as English books. So I really wanted suggest the school to use the hard cover texts books in sciences classes, and increase students’ reading assignment in each class for more knowledge and their reading skill. Also I believe everything follows nature. Dear fellow classmates, for yourself, please read more text books, and you can do it.

At last, I want to suggest school to open more AP classes or honor classes to those students who want to challenge themselves. One thing that I felt bad is that I did not have many opportunities to take more challenging courses, such as AP courses, in high school. For example, the conflict between physics and AP English forced me only could take physics even both of these two classes were my favor. Do not feel you are genius when you had 4.0 GPA in high school, because there are more people who come from good education background may compete with you in college. For example, I felt I did great on chemistry in high school, so I planed to major in biochemistry. But while taking AP chemistry, I realized my level was actually in the bottom of the class. This is not just because I was not smart, but it is because those students’ levels were much higher than me. They took AP chemistry already in high school. I still can remember that the schedule problem forced me to go to night school even I did not need that credits for graduation, because I wanted to learn more and prepare myself for college. But I did not learn that much knowledge in nigh school. So I spent extra hours on each assignment in college. So far what I know our school only opens two AP course, Chinese and Calculus. Students take advantages of it. Hope school can have more AP courses. I strongly believe that it will shorten the distance between college and high school, so the students can accept or adapt the college life better and more easily.

In conclusion, study is not just for credits or graduation. Again, take the advantages of what school has provided you and study hard. The more you learn, the more comfortable you will feel in college. Set higher goal for yourself and your future. Hope this letter can provide you good suggestions and make you think more about yourself. Enjoy rest of your high school life.

Sincerely!

Student: Huiqing Zheng

Date: 12-30-06