I am glad you are taking part in the Advanced Placement journey. The word advance means to go forward. Moving forward is life. You are born and you grow up. You learn to recognize faces, words, and emotions. You begin to roll over, crawl, and walk. You make friends, start school, and learn new things. Each of these milestones takes many, many steps and a tremendous amount of practice to get it all right.

You are all in this class (AP US History) because someone, somewhere thought you could do it. It will be a challenge. There will be days you wonder why you decided to stick it out. But, I promise you, at the end of the year, no matter how you do in the class or on the exam, you will have made incredible progress as a student and as a person. As a student, you will know which learning and studying strategies work best for you and how to manage time and commitments. As a person, you will have committed to an extraordinary challenge and you will have completed it.

It’s easy to give up. It’s easy to say, this is too hard and I can’t do it. It is a rare person who admits when something is challenging. It is even more rare to find someone who is willing to undertake such a challenge and try. In the end, that’s all I am asking you to do–T R Y. I am here to help you. I am here to guide you. I am here to see you reach the end of the journey.

You will survive. I promise!