I’ve taken time off from my blog for the last couple of months to focus on another project: providing feedback to high school students on their college application essays. As the New Year approaches, a time of mindful renewal, each one of us could benefit from the reflection necessary to write an effective college app essay. . .
My Defining Moment
It was the summer of 1995, and the OJ Simpson murder trial was center stage in Los Angeles. Ordinarily that kind of endless courtroom drama doesn’t capture my attention: there are many engaging projects I’d rather focus on instead of watching hours of testimony on forgotten eyeglasses or bloodied leather gloves. Even the photos of beautiful and battered Nicole Brown Simpson, while they tugged at my heartstrings, wouldn’t normally have kept me glued to the television. In the summer of 1995, however, I watched hours and hours of OJ Simpson’s trial.
Perhaps I was so obsessed with the scandal of a Heisman Trophy winner accused of murdering his wife in their multi-million dollar home because it made my own life seem somehow more manageable, less traumatic. I had lost my dad to cancer the year before; my mom was a multiple- stroke patient residing in a convalescent home; and I had just returned to the US from Prague, leaving behind a people and a language I had fallen in love with during the three years I lived there.
While I had inherited more than enough from my father to start over again in Southern California, I felt paralyzed, unable to move on. That summer I migrated through a series of friends’ homes, sleeping in their spare bedrooms and depending on their generous hospitality. I grieved the death of my father, the debilitating illness of my mother, and my own loss of direction. Yes, watching a handsome, rich American hero facing the prospect of forfeiting his property, even his life, was perhaps a comforting contrast to the overwhelming losses I was facing at that moment.
College App Essays and Defining Moments
So how does my return to this painful moment from over twenty years ago relate to writing a college application essay? And why would I recommend that you write such an essay when college is likely a distant memory, fond or otherwise? Let me explain. Through the process of giving feedback to high school seniors on these 650 word reflections, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know a variety of students from the West Coast, East Coast and Midwest, from India, Japan and Ecuador. All these students have one thing in common: they are leaving behind one stage of their lives and reaching for the next. And in the process of reading their essays, I have reflected on my own life, on where I am now and which direction I am headed.
My journey towards answering those questions is not as clear-cut as the path of a high school student applying to a list of schools in the fall and dreaming of multiple acceptances to choose from in the spring. However, the demand that a college application essay places on students to single out a defining moment in their lives, look back at how they arrived at that moment, and then reflect on how they have grown since is a useful exercise for anyone seeking direction in their lives, no matter their age.
Reflecting on My Defining Moment
For me, reflecting on that summer of ’95 when I had no idea what would or should come next in my life means returning to a moment when I questioned the very meaning of my existence. By the fall of 1996, however, I was teaching advanced English to a class of fun-loving adult immigrants while studying the fascinating intersection of theology and culture in graduate school.
When I revisit that earlier sense of hopelessness and then trace my subsequent hopeful growth through master’s degrees in theology and English, through over twenty years of rewarding teaching at the adult school, college, and high school levels, and through the flowering of sustaining friendships and other nurturing relationships, I remind myself that even the deadest end can lead to surprising, life-giving beginnings. As I approach my 650 word limit, I encourage you to consider your potential for a new start by reflecting on your own defining moment.