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HI THERE! I’M SHEA CANTRELL

Home: Welcome
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REFLECTIVE ESSAY

My Background

Personal Qualities, Work Habits And Attitudes 

Anyone who goes to ACLC will tell you that free periods are one of the most unique aspects of the school. By giving us the opportunity to decide how to use our time, it forces us to find the balance between school work and fun. Free periods have helped me develop valuable skills in both time management and collaboration. This has allowed me to balance taking classes at both ACLC and the local community college, as well as a part time job. However, this didn’t happen overnight. When I first started middle school, many of my free periods were spent working on a variety of non-academic things, from playing board games to chatting with friends. Over time, I learned how to better use my free periods and I became much more productive, including the time spent with friends. After finishing our work, we would spend whatever free time we had left teaching ourselves Scratch, a beginners programming language. This skill of self teaching has persisted throughout my academic career, leading me to teach myself a variety of different programming languages, as well as many other skills. This exploration has allowed me to discover what I enjoy doing, and what I’m hoping to pursue in the future.


Thinking and Reasoning Skills 

If difficult work is the vehicle which drives people to learn, then learning strategies and problem solving are the gas that fills the tank. ACLC knows this, and from the sixth grade, helps you develop the skills that work best for you. When I first came to ACLC, I had no idea what a learning strategy was, or why it was important. However, I quickly learned that to be successful, I needed to have a plan, and over the years I have built up a multitude of strategies to help me get through even the toughest classes. I did this by looking at what did and didn't work for me, and tried to play to my strengths. I’ve always struggled with learning languages, and when evaluating my learning strategy, I realized it relied heavily on memorization, which worked very poorly. When I switched to a strategy based more on patterns, and pattern recognition, I saw a quick improvement. This basic principle is simple yet extremely effective, not only in school, but in many other aspects of day to day life.

Interpersonal Abilities

Since starting at ACLC, I have learned a ton about how to be both a good leader and team member. The multitude of projects I have completed over the years have taught me the many roles one can take, and how to fulfill each to benefit the group during a project. However, while this has helped me on many occasions, easily the most important Interpersonal skill I have learned during my time here has been acceptance. While it seems obvious, simply reaching out to members can turn a whole group dynamic around. This simple principle has helped me in more ways than I can count, and is easily one of the most useful skills I’ve learned at ACLC.


Technology 

Over my past 6 years at ACLC, technology is arguably the skill I’ve improved at the most. In 6th grade, I was able to create a Google doc, and little more. However, through a mixture of online projects, and self exploration, I have honed my skills in programs such as Google Slides, and Jupiter Ed., helping me both stay organized and give my presentations some extra flair. In addition to the skills required for the classroom, I have also been able to apply technology to make my life easier by automating repetitive tasks. This includes things such as utilizing spreadsheets to send hundreds of personalized emails in an instant, to creating simple web scrapers to collect large amounts of data for school projects. Overall throughout the years I’ve gained a considerable amount of valuable skills that have, and will continue to help me in our increasingly technology driven world. 

Home: About Me

PERSONAL VISION

My Background

A personal vision, we all have one at least; if not for the future then for the day. What am I gonna do today? How hard can I work? What can I do to feel accomplished for the day? these are all personal visions that most of us have. My personal vision is simple go to a good university. After that I want to do well in my classes and work hard. After that I want to work on becoming a biological and or environmental engineer. I want to do this to keep the world easy go go along with; keeping everything for the future into simple instructions for the year rather than the long future, to make them easier to accomplish. I want to become someone I am proud of years down the line, have no regrets, know that I tried my hardest in all aspects of my life. That is my personal vision.

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Home: About Me

RESUME

Roles & Responsibilities

Team management:
During my time in high school, outside in my extracurriculars, as well as my personal life, I've noticed that I have a certain aptitude for directing a group.

Academic Awards and Honors:
In my Junior year I received a GPA of 4.3 due to getting almost all A's as well as attending  as many honors classes I could.

Time Management:
I am a person who likes things early, I want to be ready for trips early, I like to get up early and I really don't like spending hours on a project a day before it's due, therefore I like getting my work done early as well.

Writing:
Writing is a skill that I've developed a lot during high school; I would argue I stressed about it the most out of all classes. Because I've worked so hard in English I have confidence in my writing skills.

Extracurricular Activities:
I've done numerous sports for all of my life, such as baseball, soccer, basketball, tennis and now rowing. I have been in a youth acting group for many years, since 4th grade.

Rowing:
During the summer before my junior year of high school I found a love for rowing. I have always liked sports and was quite the athlete. No sport that I've played until now gave me a reason a drive to push past, to get better until Rowing. For two years now I have committed weeks and months of my time practicing and becoming stronger and working harder. I am proud to say Rowing is one of the most important aspects of my life.

Home: Experience

BEST WORKS

School work or projects

Received 2nd place award for my science fair project.

ACLC 2018

Where I brought my interests into science in a unique way that I had fun in.

ACLC 2016

Frankenstein essay after a summer reading of Frankenstein that I received an A on.

ACLC 2020

Home: Education

WORK EXPERIENCE

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SOCCER REFEREE

I worked for the US Soccer Association as a referee. I refereed numerous games for soccer teams across Alameda. Often reffed 3-4 games per day. Being able to focus and stay in command in general are key aspects of life and the game that I learned through reffing.

EVENT MAGIC PACKER AND MOVER

My dad's company Event Magic is a party rental and event planning company so I would often work for him moving rentals setting up tents and decorations for certain events, often very early in the morning. One event had us wake up at 2:30 for the annual Webster Street Fair. I was often called for very early jobs, sometimes at around 2:00 AM and worked for 6-8 hours whenever I'm called. I learned how to be proactive in a less than exciting job while also

BABYSITTER

I often babysat for parents friends whenever they had important work events or had social gatherings to attend to. I have babysat many times over the past 4 years and was asked multiple times to sign up for a babysitting job online but passed on the suggestion as I enjoyed babysitting on occasion.

Home: Skills
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