College Admissions Essay

College Admissions Essay I began attending the Waldorf school when I was in 7th grade. From this education, I have not only strengthened immensely as a thinker and student, but as a person as well. I know the value of community and how to be a good friend. Waldorf school’s use a block system for teaching lessons that are roughly three weeks long. There are no textbooks, for each main lesson a student makes a main lesson book containing all original work. I think that my sophomore to senior years of high school have been a great preparation for a school like St. John’s. Each year I had a two hour seminar course every day, in which half of the grade is based on discussion, and the other half is on papers. Surprisingly enough I made friends within 20 minutes of being on campus. I was able to share my obsession with reading and the knowledge I gathered on any subject I put my mind to. After I came home, I knew I needed more information. Most of our endeavors in this world can be tied back to a philosophical question, but perhaps this is an ideal life. However, in my experience this is the truth, and I would like to continue my own and very human tradition of questioning. St. John’s fosters a life of the mind temperament that I think could last a lifetime. The curriculum at St. John’s is actually not that different from the curriculum at my school as I attend a Waldorf school. This has given me unique experience both in practice with writing analytical papers on a text, as well as practice with reading and discussing a text in a deeper way. This experience will not only be beneficial to me in discussion, but will hopefully raise the quality of a seminar for the class as a whole. Perhaps it is in functionality and mechanics, but many parts of the universe are uninhabitable and violent. What we know about the destiny of the universe is quite bleak as well. There is a substantial amount of time devoted to the arts and physical movement as well. All the classes are taught seminar-style and the most any classroom has is 25 kids. Unlike other colleges with special course requirements, unstable administration, and strange traditional customs such as Freshman not being able to say the word ‘duck’, I found complete and absolute nothing. I signed up for more information; they stayed true to the image and personality of the college. I visited the Santa Fe campus and experienced classes, the campus, and the people. The most important aspect about the Summer Academy was finding my people, the ones who talked about Nietzsche and Plato at lunch and had long debates and poetry slams after Seminar. Making friends was never an easy feat for me, but at the Summer Academy, I found everyone I talked to felt like we had been friends for years. I made an even more intimate group of friends who I still keep in touch with because they are more than friends to me, they are family. I wanted to know more, I wanted to experience it myself. The summer after my Junior year I signed up for a Summer Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. I immediately found my people and a continual comfort of my environment which automatically equated to the feeling of being home. Home is the feeling of being comfortable with the uncertainty and uncomfortable situations. The feeling of being involved, nervous and excited all at the same time. I have truly thrived in this kind of mindful learning environment, and think it would be imprudent to pursue an education that may be heavy in testing and memorization. I am too used to sitting in crowded high school classes where more than half the class did not do the reading. Reading is not checking off a box or attaining a grade, but something I have chosen many times and will continue to choose for the rest of my life. In my pursuit to find a catch, I could only find nothing.