Kenowa Hills — If he could sit and talk with his younger self, Jacob Collins would say, “High school is important, even if you don’t think it is.”
Now a Kenowa Hills High School graduate, Jacob said his freshman self could have used that advice, because admittedly, he didn’t take his schoolwork very seriously.
“It’s the easiest year, (but) it impacts your grades and sets the tone for the rest of high school,” he said.
Jacob wrestled, got really good at the clarinet and maintained a great group of friends as a freshman, but didn’t succeed as much at completing homework and tests. By the end of the year, reality hit him in the form of a 1.2 GPA.
Jacob called bringing up his grades and earning a 3.4 GPA during his senior year his “biggest success.”
“I got back on track this year, and I’m pretty proud of where I’m at,” he said.
The Impact of Encouraging Adults
When he logged onto his PowerSchool account and realized his lack of effort had impacted his grades, Jacob said he didn’t want to tell anyone, especially his parents.
“I didn’t let my parents see (my GPA) ‘cause they would have been super disappointed,” he said. “My mom and dad have always encouraged me to keep going to school and (to) do well academically.”
Jacob’s mother and adoptive dad raised him, and “made sure they got me rides to where I needed to go, cheered me on at wrestling meets (during freshman year) and were supportive,” he said.
He also credits STEM Academy teacher Steven Feutz as one of the most encouraging and influential teachers during his first two years of high school.
“(Jacob) loved working with his hands, but he struggled with organization and academic work,” Feutz recalled. “That being said, he had two particular traits that allowed him to be successful despite his challenges: He was relentlessly positive, and he wasn’t afraid to fail.”
Feutz said Jacob’s positive attitude was infectious and helped him deal with failure in a constructive way, instead of letting it consume him.
“One of the most important things students can do is fail. They need to experience what it is like to not be successful in both big and small ways,” he said. “Jacob, just like every student, had his failures. … No matter what it was, he always learned from his mistakes and tried again.”
Endless Possibilities on the Road Ahead
Working with his hands for STEM class projects helped Jacob discover his passion for working on cars, which led him to Kent Career Tech Center’s Automotive Technology program at the end of his sophomore year.
“KCTC was all hands-on, and I could work on cars every day,” he said. “You get to meet a lot of diverse, cool people from different schools and the instructors are amazing. It’s a good place to be.”
Jacob said he looked forward to going to Tech Center classes and preferred them to traditional high-school classrooms. Post-graduation, he hopes to put his acquired technical skills to good use at a job, or fix cars as a hobby.
“I have a very love/hate relationship with working on cars,” he added. “Sometimes it’s really easy and sometimes it’s not, but it’s a good life skill.”
With high school in his rearview mirror, Jacob is excited to see where life takes him.
“Over the next few years, I think I see myself with my own house, someone I care about, still having my hobbies and my friend group, a job that I like and being myself.”
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