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Throughout my high school career, I’ve gone through recurring depression and endless stress, but those don’t compare to the ongoing struggles of underestimation from my male peers. They treated me differently than everyone else and I always assumed it was because I am a Hispanic female who is “surprisingly capable of staying at their level.” I wore my feelings toward their behavior on my sleeve, usually angry or spiteful, which made it seemed as if I were angry that they were more successful than me, which wasn’t the case. It was the contrary, actually. It never bothered me that they were doing well while I wasn’t. What did bother me though, was that they always seemed to expect me to do worse than them, academically. As a result of expressing weakness toward their behavior, my peers only continued to take advantage of me and treat me unfairly. I remember once in AP Physics, a class in which only six of the thirty-eight students were female, I scored a 96% on a test while the boy sitting next to me scored a 42%. I carefully watched his reaction while he compared our tests, and he was surprised that I scored higher than him. Another time in the same class, we built towers using only popsicle sticks and hot glue. My group consisted of a Chinese girl, me, and a boy; this boy limited our involvement in structuring the tower, and whenever he needed us, he’d say “okay, do your thing,” in which he affirmed that we were only good for gluing. After our tower failed miserably in front of the class, he turned to his friend and said, “You were lucky to have real ingenuity on your team,” right in front of me. After constant belittlement, I became hopeless. My peers had defeated me by making me believe I wasn’t good enough. These peers of mine were so stuck on viewing high school as a competition, that they ruined the learning environment for people like me, who desired to learn and saw past GPAs. They consistently made me feel that my best was never good enough just because I didn’t get the same high grades as them. I always blamed my hardships in academics on the misconception that I wasn’t as smart as them, or that I couldn’t keep up with their standards. It wasn’t until my junior year when I finally realized that being as smart as them didn’t matter to me. I had gotten so caught up in their “competition” that I forgot about what matters most: my personal goals. Their competition shouldn’t have mattered to me to begin with, and as long as I was doing my best, I didn’t have to worry about keeping up with them. And at the end of the day, I was never really ‘keeping up’; I was always excelling. I can say my efforts throughout high school were honest, and that I have more than just academic knowledge to define who I am. I was never cheating the system just to maintain a high grade, and no matter what, I put in the effort to make sure I learned the material, even if it meant I had to make sacrifices like losing out on sleep a couple nights a week. Whenever I shared a classroom with these male peers- the peers who were considered the class rank kings on campus- I’d shrivel up inside, allowing myself to turn into the frail, hopeless student they thought I was. I accepted the idea that they intimidated me. Now that I’m out of high school and have moved past their corrupted kingdom of grade point averages, I know it’ not that they intimidated me, but the contrary: I intimidated them. I’ve accepted the fact that I would never be like them. I also accepted that I don’t have to be just like them in order to be successful. In fact, embracing the idea that I would never be like them is a success in itself. Why would I want to share the same image as them? Why wouldn’t I want to be my own individual, who knows their own worth and intelligence? My goals and aspirations don’t have to appease anyone else besides me, especially not the peers who base self-worth on GPAs. The best part is that my peers still try to bother me even out of high school. They’ll flaunt their elite college status in my face thinking I don’t have a chance, but in reality, I know they’re afraid because I’m proving them wrong.