Essay Topic #2: J.T. Adams stated, "There are . . . two educations. One should teach you how to make a living and the other how to live." Describe what the quote above means to you and your expectations of your Endicott experience.

Abagail Adams stated, "Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence." Many students attend college, but it is only those students who choose to passionately pursue learning that succeed the most. The traditional expectations of the college experience involve a challenging, life-enhancing experience, with useful outcomes resulting from study and earning a degree. While this may be the basis, my expectations for what the college, and hopefully Endicott, experiences will be are far more in depth. I agree with the quote by J.T. Adams. Sitting in a class and listening to a lecture is one type of an education, along with writing papers and studying for exams. However, what I plan to get out of college focuses on that second sort of education that is often overlooked. I plan on learning how to live.

I have made it a habit recently to not just get through the day, but to absorb it and actively make it a part of my life. Albert Camus wrote, "Everyone who has ever built anywhere a 'new heaven' first found the power to thereto in his own hell." I spent my junior year in personal exile due to self-hatred, in isolation punishing myself for no reasonable cause. Through over a year of enduring the depths of depression and personal trauma, I learned the hard way that I cannot afford to take an aimless approach to life; I must take it seriously, and if I don't, nobody else will. I know what it feels like to hit rock bottom, and I know that I never want to go to that place again.

On the other hand, had it not been for falling so low, I would never have had this drive to succeed and give everything I have to attain my goals. Taking the step to actually learn from my mistakes has given me the opportunity to grow, mature, and understand so much at such a young age. Nights once spent having severe panic attacks one on top of the other, nights once spent crying incessantly without an hour of sleep, are now spent in creative reflection, writing, studying, and of course, peaceful slumber. I pick up on everything that is happening around me, no matter how trivial. I have learned to ask myself what I am supposed to be doing, how I am going to do it, and when I am going to do something about it. It may seem simple, but evaluating myself throughout the day helps to avoid mistakes. I find that the most effective road to attaining wisdom is to continue asking questions, to better gain insight into what I thought I knew. This seems to be the key to learning, that second education, not only to acquire the facts, but to also apply them to real life.

I always thought that deciding how to actually take on my college years would prove to be a very difficult task. In the eyes of my high school peers, a college degree is the ticket to a good job. They expect various job-related courses that will prepare them to go into their desired career. I want to run with it. I expect to do more than enter the marketing field. I want to advance within it, to leave my mark and change it for the better. I hold myself to high standards of accomplishment, as I expect Endicott to for all its students. The sort of invigorating and intellectually stimulating environment that is found at Endicott is exactly what I desire in a college, and I firmly believe that I am the type of student that Endicott needs. I expect not only to learn how to work, but to enrich my life outside of my work through my experiences at Endicott.

That's what college is really about: the growth of the individual. After going through four years at Bunnell High School, I realize that my main obligation is to myself. I have come to expect only the best from myself. It is this drive for perfection, to accomplish, to make something of myself, that ensures that my future will be a successful one. In assessing the power of this will by how much resistance, pain, and torture it has endured, I know how to turn all of this to its advantage: I know how to live. There are no obstacles. The sky is the limit.