Reputation

Among my extended family back in my hometown, I have a strong reputation. I have a reputation based off of academics; my parents and the majority of my extended family emigrated here from Ethiopia. With that being said, I am the first of all my cousins to attend a university. I also was fortunate enough to gain close to a 95% scholarship; I was on math honor society, multiple clubs and sports, obtained a 30 on my ACT, and graduated on honor roll. I have always had success academically since I was a child, more so from natural ability rather than work ethic. My family always tells me I am lucky because they know I do not spend day and nights studying for exams. In high school, I prioritized my social life over academics yet still had profound success. This helped form my reputation which of some of my family members admitted to me that they envied. In second grade, I passed a math test that put me into fast paced mathematics with three other students. The teacher at the time told us we were two years advanced in our mathematics level. Thanks to that, every standardized test was a walk in the park for me. Combine this with years of intense pressure from my parents who themselves did not have the luxury of being able to attend college and the result is where am I now, at a legitimate school such as the University of Illinois. The means in which I plan on continuing my reputation is by proving my success to be meaningful. The way people view me does not change the way I plan to make life decisions. More importantly, I use my previous success access as motivation to work hard to land a reputable job, which will provide me room for growth and a great learning experience. The reason I came to the university of Illinois is to set myself up for my life post education: my career. Academics have done a lot of great things for me and have set me up to be successful, as I will be graduating with very little to no debt. I have never felt the need to abandon my academics and I will never consider doing so until I have finished my bachelor’s degree here. The goal is to graduate and then pursue work; hopefully sometime down the road I may come back to school for something such as an MBA but only work permitting. My reputation not only has been a reassuring factor in my academics but it has also been a huge confidence and self-esteem booster. Sometimes I get distracted from my success because of the peers I am surrounded by and the competitive environment the classroom gives the students. This is in comparison to my cousins, none of who have successfully graduated from any type of university. The reasoning for this is I do not like to compare myself to people who I am positive do not have the same ambitions as myself and that is why I like competition. My high school was very competitive and I believe that prepared me heavily for college because in every class it was almost a battle to get the best grade on the test.

Triangle Relationship

The standard principal-agent model is interesting because I never noticed before how it applies to situations in real life. I knew a specific situation that pertained to one of my good friends in high school. There were three parties in this triangular relationship. One was my friend, an aspiring athlete looking to play football on a full scholarship. The second was the head coach of his football team. The third were the prospective college scouts that were recruiting him. All three of these intertwined in one way or another; the college scouts can only talk to the high school coach at first and not to the player directly. In a way, the high school coach is that of an agent for the player because they are the ones that speak either against or on behalf of one of their players. The high school athlete wants to receive an offer from scout but needs the high school coach in order for him to have to a better chance. There were some conflicts that occurred through this relationship. The high school football player was a spectacular athlete and a great player but he had his flaws. One, he did not take the classroom seriously and had bad grades. Two, he was considered “cocky” and a very flashy player, which did not go over well with the head coach. Many college coaches were turned away once they checked his report card despite his tremendous talent; to them, if you cannot keep your grades up in high school when there are much less distractions, then how will you be able to do so in college. The few that were able to overlook the report card would ask questions to the head coach about the player’s character. This is where the conflict begins. Between the athlete and the coach, there has been tension because the athlete did not get any playing time junior year when he was clearly the better athlete then the man in front of him. The coach believed in seniority and rewarding hard work, which did not hold over well with the athlete. The athlete then proceeded to show disapproval and that led to not the best relationship between the two. Senior year they were able to hold off on their conflict because of the immaculate success they were having together, which led to an eventual state championship. The head coach ended up telling coaches that there were some behavioral issues with the athlete such as trouble listening to authority and hardheadedness. The problem here is that the athlete had so much potential but almost lost it all because of his lack of commitment to academics and a bad relationship with the one person he needed to vouch for him to play college football. Luckily, he got one scholarship to a school called Central Michigan and that was all he needed. A person who otherwise would not have gone to college was able to go for free. He was unhappy because he knows he was capable of going to way better schools such as in the big ten. He made the best out of the opportunity the scouts gave him and was very successful at Central Michigan. He started as a true freshman and for the next four years and broke man records. His historic success just shows that had he been more focused in class, more responsive to coaching, he could have been playing at schools such as Notre Dame or even here at Illinois. This example really showed me that the triangular relationship could be confusing because there are many different factors that are at stake.