George Li, Bloordale Middle School

Essay Topic: What 2 character traits do you feel are the most necessary to

be successful in school? Please justify your choices with examples.

Why do some students excel in school and others don’t? Is it because

some students are smart and others aren’t? I believe that the two most

important character traits needed to be successful in school are initiative

and perseverance. These two traits will not only help you get good grades

but also the learning skills you need to succeed.

Initiative is the first step to success. Initiative means that you do things on

your own without someone forcing you to do it. For example, my grade

seven core teacher was very impressed that I have a lot of prior

knowledge. I think that the main reason for this is that I take initiative to

understand what I learn in class and strive to learn more. When I don’t

understand something, I am always curious to find the answer. I learn

many things by reading books, researching on the Internet, and listening to

the news on the radio. All of the information I get outside of school hours

helps me during class to understand concepts more easily.

Initiative by itself is not enough. Perseverance, meaning that you will keep

on trying, is also needed so that you don’t give up despite having

problems. I once was in charge of programming of the robot in the school

FLL Lego Team. It was a very exciting job at first, but started to become

frustrating as I started to program the harder missions. Sometimes the

robot would go all over the playing field although it wasn’t supposed to do

that, and sometimes it would get stuck and break. But instead of just giving

up, I was determined to finish all the tasks, and came back from the

competition with the 2nd Place Robot Design Award. This gave me a sense

of accomplishment. Most of the time success doesn’t come easily, but as

long as you persevere, you will be awarded.

Initiative is you setting a goal for yourself, and perseverance is you trying

as hard as you can to reach it. With these two character traits, you will be

able to achieve success in school.