High school is one of the most transformational times in life. You develop opinions and grow as a person. All the while, you have the question of what you want to do after high school. It can all be overwhelming. It can be hard to find who you are in the high school. As a freshman, I found the National FFA Organization and that has helped me grow so much as a person. It has helped me realize what I want to do after high school always and it's so amazing to have an organization where you have a support system and pushes you to work hard and try new things.

1. To Be An Educated Consumer

My agriculture teacher made it his mission that everyone of his students knows where their food comes from and the problems that face one of most important industries. I don't think that I will remember all of the ag lessons about soil layers or how to calculate soybean yields, but I will remember the lessons I learned about big issues in agriculture such as GMOs and animal rights. Our teacher never pushed his own opinions; we had to research for ourselves to discover how we felt about the different issues in agriculture. Through participating in prepared public speaking, I also had to research different topics for my speech and become more aware of issuing surrounding the food crisis. Agriculture is so important to everyone's life and I believe that every student should understand that because food security affects every single one of us.

2. Sometimes You Have To Wing It

Whether it's at a CDE (Career Development Event) or leadership training, FFA has definitely taught me to think on my feet. Things don't always go as planned and you just have to improvise. You can be completely prepared for a contest, but in a lot of CDEs you have to answer some questions you weren't totally prepared to answer (maybe this is just my FFA chapter), but it is valuable lesson that I would never take for granted.

3. To Do It By Myself

As the adviser's opening ceremony states "I'm asked to advise you from time to time.." FFA is a youth organization and it really does live up to that. The adviser does not do the work for you, if you want to succeed at a CDE or become a leader, you have to do that on your own merit. I have gotten the opportunity to serve on committees, plan and execute events as high school student. Our advisers do help us out so much and I am thankful for that, but I am even more thankful for that I have had to do things by myself because it has taught me to grow up and work hard.

4. You Truly Can Good At Something If You Want To Be

If you were to ask me if I would be interested to identifying seeds and plants a 3 years ago I would have told you "Absolutely not". That is the thing about FFA. You can really try out so many different fields within agriculture. Even if you don't think you will go into that certain field you can study and practice CDE and you can get really good at it. You don't need to have star basketball genes to be good at FFA. You just need determination and a good team around you.

5. To Reach Out

It is really easy to stick you your clique in high school, but through FFA you have a chance interact with so many people that you end up making friends with common interests. FFA encourages you to reach out to new members and members who are not really involved and see if they would want to participate and see all that FFA has to offer.