About a month ago, The Curious Times staff met with Allison Hope, a journalist for many newspapers and news media outlets, including most notably The New York Times. In addition to being a journalist, Allison is a fellow District 26 graduate (PS 186, MS 67 and Cardozo High School). She is a graduate from CUNY Hunter College. Allison Hope is an example of a student who went to schools in our community, set goals and achieved success. Please read on and understand the many lessons the newspaper staff learned from Allison.
One key takeaway from the meeting was that failure is success in disguise. In other words, failure is not ever meant for you to stop or give up. Every student or young person should understand how failure is really just something to show you that this way isn’t working correctly. Know that failure was never meant to bring you down, just to help guide you. If you believe in these wise words, then you will realize all the times you have “failed” is really just more attempts at success. This idea of not looking at failure as a bad thing and use it as an experience to get better, will stay with me every time I make an attempt to achieve success.
Another piece of advice by Allison was in order to become successful, you have to have intense curiosity about the topic. If you are not passionate or curious, you will never have the willpower to continue what you are doing to be successful. For example, if you want to be a firefighter when you are older, you should really want to be one. You should wonder how you can make your dream a reality. You should be passionate about doing this job and can’t wait to become one. If you do not have a passion to save peoples lives, if you do not have the passion to achieve your goal, then you really do not want to be a firefighter. This advice applies for anything you want to accomplish in school or any job you want to pursue. If you want to get good grades you have to be passionate about your studies and you have to be curious about how you will get good grades. Understanding what you have to do to achieve your goal will give you instant motivation to be successful.
During Allison Hope's time with The Curious Times staff, we learned a lot about failure and what it means to be successful. As a journalist, Allison's articles were submitted to editors and she has been rejected hundreds of times. All of those failures did not stop Allison from writing and submitting her work to newspapers and magazines. All of the failures made her want to try again until her work was published. Here are a few additional pieces of advice Allison expressed, which we should consider for our daily lives because they will help us become super successful.
Paired with Persistence: if you didn’t do well the first time, try again and try your best again. Be persistent about achieving your goals. Know what you have to do in order to be successful.
Building and Maintaining Relationships: For example, Mr. Ng has known Allison Hope for over 30 years. Are they best friends, not really. However over the years Mr. Ng built and maintained this friendship. So, when the opportunity came up he reached out to Allison, his years of building and maintaining a professional relationship paid off, and the meeting happened for the students.
Success isn’t defined by a singular fixed moment in time: this means just because you are successful once does not mean you should stop trying to be successful again. Just because you find success, does not mean you should stop trying your best.
We are middle school students who just survived a pandemic. We need to remember as students and young adults, we should set goals and make every attempt to achieve success. Start thinking what you want to be when you grow up, research what it will take to get that job. Put in the work to reach your goals. If you fail, dust yourself off and try again. Be passionate about what you want to do and you will be successful. We really appreciate Allison Hope's time and if she is reading this we thank you for taking the time out to speak with a bunch of middle school students.