Short Essay Guidelines

Short Essay Guidelines 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. I began attending the Waldorf school when I was in 7th grade. I want a safe space for inquiry, not a safe space for ignorance. I know too many people who are content with limited knowledge and are discontent with limited possessions. I want to expose myself to as many ideas and viewpoints as possible, and I want to be more than a consumer. 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. There is a substantial amount of time devoted to the arts and physical movement as well. Unable to take this beloved course a second time, I chose my senior classes with more than a touch of melancholy. I was skeptical that even the most appealing humanities class, AP Literature, would be anything but anticlimactic by comparison. I’d become so accustomed to reading the function-focused writings of Locke, Rousseau, Madison, Thoreau, that I found it difficult to see “literature” as anything more than mere stories. I wanted substance that I could actually do something with, and I didn’t expect to find it in AP Lit. When I think about my principles, I think about how I aspire to the humility of Helen Burns and the resolution of Jane Eyre and the stoicism of St. John. All the classes are taught seminar-style and the most any classroom has is 25 kids. 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. 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. 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. J.K. Rowling clearly saw her application of appellations not as a burden, but an opportunity to enrich the story and world she had created and expand its reach. Maybe not, but I loved the rules, the structure, and the big questions that surrounded organizing a government. I thought about these things constantlyâ€"while brushing my teeth, doing chores, and driving to school. But more than anything, I would like to live my life thoughtfully. When I think back, my favorite memories and my moments of greatest esteem are not those when I was victorious, but when I was thoughtful. I treasure the philosophical debates I’ve had with friends, the snow days spent reading in bed, the essays I labored over until they were a source of pride. Merriam-Webster defines satire as “trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly.” Catch-22 clearly fits within this definition. However, I find this definition lacking, good satire should hold up a fun-house mirror to society to accentuate its problems and perhaps offer hope for the future. Any pessimist can simply expose and discredit vice and folly. I know too many people whose only hope for college is to earn a diploma, and if they can do it without learning or growing, even better. I want to spend the rest of my life learning as much I can, because getting a diploma without expanding your mind is like saving a receipt for something you don’t own. I know too many people who want to silence their opponents instead of understanding them. The small enrollment size of as well as the overall approach to education makes St. John’s the ideal place for me to extend my positive experience of high school into the college setting. St John’s advertises itself as the school for readers and thinkers, people who want more than a degree.