Dear Viviana Rodriguez (sophomore year),
Hi Vivi! This is your younger self from 2021 8th grade going into freshman year. Some questions I have for you is are you still into sports like you used to be? Are you still friends with the same people you were in 8th grade? What classes are you in? Are you doing any extracurricular activities? What are your grades like?
Well some things that I do know is that you are currently in St Laurence in the honors program.
Some advice I would like to give you is to not let friends get in the way of your success, for example when you’re applying to colleges don’t pick the colleges that your friends are applying for, pick the colleges you want to apply for. Also if you’re still into track start running longer distances and practice speed drills because there may be a possibility that you might get scholarships for college through running. Another piece of advice I would like to share with you is make sure to keep a good relationship between you and your teachers because for most scholarships they’re going to be the ones writing recommendation letters and you would obviously want them to say nothing but good things about you. Try to be friends with older students because they can be someone you can look up to and they can help you study for tests and homework since they’ve already gone through that process. The next thing I’m going to say is something I always want you to remember….. know your worth and don’t ever tolerate any kind of disrespect from anyone. Always know who you are and where you came from because something i’ve seen in many highschoolers is they begin to lose themselves in highschool pretending to be someone that they’re not, and I would never want to see you do that because you’re an amazing, funny, smart, kind, dedicated and independent girl.
I’m saying this because when you were younger you would try to be someone that you were not just so that you can have friends and feel part of something. But later on in the years you start being yourself and showing your friends who you truly were and they accept you and they even found you more interesting since you weren’t just like them and sometimes people don’t like people exactly like them, they want to be friends with someone they can learn from. Other advice I would like to give you is to have fun during your high school years. Obviously make sure you get good grades in highschool but don’t get too stressed out about it to the point where you just can’t think. Also make sure your friends are real friends. Make sure they are someone you can depend on when you’re sick, feeling lonely or disappointed, not just a friend that’s there when you’re at your happiest. If they’re really a true friend they’ll be there for you through all your moods and emotions. Make sure you start developing a growth mindset if at the moment you have a fixed mindset. Some examples of that are whenever you fail a test or get rejected to be on a certain team or college scholarships dont act like it’s the end of the world or close yourself out, you just got to learn from it and look for other opportunities.
I hope everything goes well in highschool and remember the things I told you. Good luck I am confident you will do big things in life and be very successful.
From: Your younger self Viviana Rodriguez (St.Laurence)-DMSF