Engage and Persist #

My studio habit of mind is Engage and Persist. This is the ability to keep going through difficult work and persevere, without abandoning the project. I picked this studio habit of mind because I can work more consistently on projects now than I could in 6th or 7th grade, and can create larger scale projects such as my rollercoaster design program. Engage and Persist is important because any work requires persistence and determination to do, and it allows rewarding growth in any area. I used this studio habit of mind in school and in personal work, such as PE, math, and my personal programming. In this essay I will prove how I have applied this studio habit of mind to succeed in these areas.

My current major project is my rollercoaster design tool, forcevector.app. I am a part of the rollercoaster enthusiast community. In this community, there is a niche focused on designing realistic virtual coasters for fun. The current program most people use for their layout design is called FVD++, but unfortunately it hasn't been updated in a decade. So, I decided to write my own. Today I have over 6k lines of code, which is a lot for a small personal project. One way I used Engage and Persist on this project by continuing to work on the important tasks that are less rewarding. For example, I don't constantly add features, as it is rewarding but will end up harder to maintain as the code gets messy. Instead I spend a lot of time cleaning up code and fixing bugs. This helps me keep a good pace while working on the project. Another way I used Engage and Persist is by continuing work on the project. For my older programming projects, I have dozens of half-finished and abandoned projects. This is partially because they weren’t very good ideas, but also because I lost motivation to work on them. I would start a new project, then a few days later abandon it as a tantalizing new idea appeared on the horizon. Now most of my ideas are features to add to my program, and I can keep a good pace of development while still enjoying working on it.

A project I didn’t use to engage and persist as much on was my 7th grade superhero project. I had Ms. Scott in both 7th and 8th grade, and so did the superhero project twice. In this project we had to turn a food into a superhero or supervillain, and create a visual representation of them. I was lazy on this project and had a very hard time getting to work on it. Most of it was rushed and it was overall not very good, especially because I’m not good at drawing. I didn’t work on the project as much as I could have, and everything about it was pretty bad. I was not totally unhappy with the story I wrote for it, but the drawing was not very good. Overall it was a poorly done project mostly due to lack of work ethic and I have improved in my engage and persist since then.

The way I have improved in engage and persist is shown by comparing these projects. In the first project, forcevector.app, I have worked hard at it for several weeks and still have work to do. Rather than give up and start something else, I have continued pushing forward and developing it into something better. On my PE superhero project, it took me a long time to get started and I only got work done once the deadline approached. I was rushed and the project went badly. I only achieved a B but I could have done better had I been able to continue working on it longer. As I mentioned earlier, I took PE with Ms. Scott this year and last year, so I had to do the superhero project again. When I did it this time, I got an A on both parts and had an overall A in PE for the first time since 6th grade. This was mostly due to my Engage and Persist skills improving from last year, as I could work on the project more easily without as much resistance to starting and working. Overall I can persist more on projects than I could in 7th grade, and can accomplish more because of it.

I have shown how my Engage and Persist skills have improved since 7th grade by comparing my ongoing forcevector.app project and my 7th grade superhero project. Forcevector.app is a project I am very proud of and I plan to continue for several more months, as there is still lots of work to be done. Engage and Persist really helped me to work on the project, and even helped me develop the skill of persisting as well. Overall, I have applied this skill to my personal and school work and developed it over my middle school career to achieve success.

Evidence #