UC Application Prompts

Essay 1

I was incredibly shocked the first day of high school when my ludicrous dreams did not come to fruition and unlike the movies I had to take classes, lots of them, but there was a theology class that from the first day really struck me. At that time I did not know to what extent the theology class would shape my ambitions and aims for my next four years and the rest of my life. Jesuit's vision of the ideal high school man is one who is a man for others, which could also be defined as being a well-rounded and upstanding man. I heard that phrase "man for others" always being tossed around in teacher's speeches at orientation or just during class but never fully comprehended what the phrase stood for until about half way through freshman year when we were covering St. Ignatius and St. Thomas More in our theology class. St. Ignatius was actually a fairly rough rider for the first portion of his life and that is what drew me to him. What he taught was not to sit back and write up some meaningless dogmatic church doctrine but to actually go out and take action in the world around him. I quickly incorporated his ideals into my life because his practice was not, to me, so heavily seeded in the church but more so in the idea that no matter whom you are or where you come from, you should be looking out for everyone as if they were your brother. So every day at school I try to embody what he taught by just trying whenever I can to help someone who needed it and at the end of that first year I was given a note by the school saying that I was to attend an award ceremony.

St. Thomas More was a man that was steadfast about his beliefs and had the courage to stand up for what was right. He was seen as a renaissance man of his time because he was well versed not just in classical forms of education but in all aspects of life. His actions taught me to stand up for not only what I believe in but for myself and the people who could not stand up for themselves. I aspired to be like these men and I knew that it was in ...