My name is Miranda “Micky” Rittenbach. I am a senior at Alameda Community Learning Center, and I plan to attend UC Santa Cruz when I graduate.
This is only my second year at ACLC and I have already come so far with my self-esteem. I grew up not knowing what I was really capable of, and it wasn’t until the last three years or so that I really started to see how much I am worth. With my improvements in self-esteem, there has also been a rise in my GPA. My freshman year was a mess emotionally, and that affected my grades in negative ways. I would show up late for classes,Ii would be missing multiple assignments, and wouldn’t participate in class. Over time I’ve learned how to take care of myself and my responsibilities, and make sure that my academics come first, even when things aren’t so great. Along with better grades, my new found self-esteem has helped me to reach out to people as myself, as opposed to someone I thought others wanted to see. I’ve made so many beautiful friends who I love with my whole heart these last couple of years because of the love I’ve learned to feel for myself. I have always excelled in reading and writing, not only because I was taught it from a young age but because it is something that I deeply enjoy. I love being able to look at a poem or a piece of fiction and search for a deeper meaning in the text. My goal is to be able to help people do the same thing and hopefully find the same joy in it that I experience, I feel like that would be a deeply fulfilling practice to pursue. In addition to these reasons, reading and writing also help me feel connected to my mother. When I was young, my mother and I were very close, and that has changed drastically in the past 4 years. In 2016 I moved out of her house to live with my dad after an especially bad debacle. I’ve had a hard time connecting with her since then. She was the one who taught me how to read and helped me to write. So now whenever I’m writing something in my freetime or trying to understand a passage of text, I feel like her and I are still connected by something other than blood. I like to think of myself as a creative thinker. I tend to approach things differently than other people would, and these approaches often get me different results compared to those of other people. I use my dreams for the future to motivate me to do my work both in and out of school. This also helps me to try and fix problems when they occur. I’m able to see a problem and test out different possible solutions, some end up being rather odd but those are usually the ones that work. Another reason that I feel like I am good at problem solving is my fear of failure. If I see something going wrong in my life, you better believe I am going to do everything in my power to correct that, because I am having none of it. When working in a group of people I find that I am able to participate as a team member, and I am willing to negotiate with other teammates when we find ourselves at a “fork in the road”. I’m not afraid to state my ideas in groups and take charge if I feel that it’s necessary. I would definitely describe myself as a people person, I’ve done work in places where I needed to put those skills to use every day so I’ve been able to exercise those abilities. I’m not afraid to state my ideas in groups and take charge if I feel that it’s necessary. At ACLC I have had to learn how to become more proficient with technology. With all of the projects we're given, it's become necessary to learn how to use programs like spreadsheets and google docs (which I know sounds super dorky, but before coming here I insisted on handwriting almost all of my assignments).I've also learned to use new programs which I didn't realize could even be helpful for me. For example, for my science fair project last year I used a website called Survey Monkey to help me collect my data. I ended up getting 255 responses, and with some help I was able to graph the data and turn it into something of substance. That science project won third place at the Alameda County Science Fair and is one of my best work artifacts on this same website. My Time here at ACLC has been truly life changing. I came here afraid of what my future would look like and unsure if my future was something I wanted to be a part of. Although I am still afraid, I'm ready to embrace the unknown knowing that I have been prepared. |