Mr. Jim Hughes
My name is Anthony Boyd as you may already know. I am 16 years old, about to be 17 on December 29th. I am a junior at Lee M. Thurston high school, and I am writing this letter to you as an introduction of myself.
My favorite subject in school is math, mostly because it comes easy to me even though it takes a lot of hard work to understand the matter. My most difficult school subject is science, because it takes a lot to remember everything. It has a plethora of memorizing and that is one thing that I myself am not good at. In all honesty I don’t know specifically where I would like to go to school, but all I know is that I want to go where I will get the best education in psychology. For a career I would like to be a psychiatrist for the simple fact that I want to help people in their problems and maybe help the cope with something that has happened.
In my family I have my mother and father of course. I have a 12 year old sister and a 14 year old brother. Also, I have a half brother who is I believe 22, he is my fathers son because he was married once before. I like to hang out with my girlfriend for fun but on the weekends when I can stay out later than usual I hang out with my friends that live a few miles away. I most definitely love to drive, except for the gas prices. My favorite movie is either saw or the Texas chainsaw massacre. I listen to a lot of rock but I also listen to some underground rap. I like papa roach, insane clown posse, dramadeus, and the used. I don’t really like sports all that much because I think it’s boring to watch somebody play a sport. My favorite books are Angels and Demons, or just anything written by Dan Brown. In 10 years I’m hoping that I’m seeing myself in college or graduating from college and getting in the field of psychiatric standards. Something interesting that not many people know is that if you give me a game to play, I will catch on really fast and my skill in the game succeeds anyone. (Except halo)
Again, in all honesty I don’t really like high school for many reasons. We have to get up to early, we have 6 different classes which mean 6 different homework each night, and lunch is way to short. I’m doing the best that I can in school but it’s just not cutting it anymore. I was wondering if you had any advice, any tricks, or some study advice to give. Also on a personal note in class it’s like “my mind is changing the channel” I can’t seem to concentrate for very long and I always end up day dreaming. How should I prepare for an ACT test? That is going to be a big factor in what happens with my future. Would you also happen to know what classes I should take to become a psychiatrist? Why did you decide to become a part of this mentoring program? And why did you become what you became today?
Hopefully I can get some advice from this mentoring program and maybe better myself for the future. Thank you for your time and I am looking forward to your reply soon.
Sincerely,
Anthony Boyd
1 comment:
Hi there, Anthony,
Thanks for your letter and all the interesting notes about you.
You strike me as a person with varied interests and and with some self knowledge. Reading is an important interest that you have-the more you read , the stronger will be your knowledge and your writing skills. This will be a key factor in your ability to succeed in college and thereafter, in my opinion.
I was a psychology major in college. While I did not pursue a career in Psychiatry, I believe that my Psychology background as well as my Liberal Arts classes (History, English, Art, Sociology, Philosophy, Religion, etc.) prepared me well not only for work , but for life. I graduated from St. Louis University in 1970 after going to high school in Flint. I've worked in a variety of jobs since then, mostly in the non-profit or government area.Currently, I work as an administrator in state government--for the Michigan Supreme Court.
As far as thinking about preparing for college, the best thing you can do is to establish a regular reading and study routine.
Find things you are interested in and read as much as you can about those things. My own Dad, who was not a college graduate, used to tell me--"Jim, find something you like to do..if you like to do it, you'll be good at it and then you can make a living doing that thing."
As a junior in High School, I'd
say you're in good position to spend time learning about lots of different things. If you like music and you want to help people, perhaps there's something in terms of volunteering that would use these interests.
I was interested to learn that you read "The Da Vinci Code'. That was a fascinating book to me.
I read it while actually traveling in Europe with my wife and daughter a couple of years ago.
I decided to join this mentoring program for two reasons:
1)My son, Rory invited my participation
2)I figured if a high school student took the time to write to me , it would be a good thing to do to share my experiences.
I'm looking forward to writing back and forth to you, Anthony.
Sincerely,
Jim Hughes
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