From kindergarten through freshman year and again as a senior, I was homeschooled. In a household with nine siblings, I often planned and completed my work independently. Rather than being a hindrance, this environment built my intrinsic motivation—an invaluable skill as I look toward college. My mother’s dedication as our teacher, especially in our co-op’s writing class, inspired me. As a homeschooled student, I learned to seek out opportunities, make the most of my free time, and view teaching as a rewarding career path. To begin, homeschooling didn’t mean a lack of support or opportunities. In my sophomore and junior years, I began volunteering and discovered how fulfilling it was to contribute to my community. My family was part of a homeschool co-op for seven years, giving me the chance to connect with peers and learn from other parents. Two classes stand out: a mock trial course that introduced me to the legal system and a writing class (IEW) taught by my mom, which gave me skills I use today. More recently, participating in a drama camp helped me build friendships and develop my acting skills before college. Moving on, the extra free time homeschooling provided truly benefited me. It sparked my love of reading, a habit that deepened my knowledge and shaped my thinking. I also spent time studying languages—English, Spanish, and Finnish—which broadened my perspective. Most importantly, I valued the chance to spend more time with my family. As someone who has faced mental health challenges, taking time to enjoy family moments has helped me appreciate life’s simple joys. Finally, my mother’s role as our teacher, especially with IEW, showed me how life-changing a great educator can be. Unsure at first about my future, I realized my love for languages and writing pointed me toward becoming an English professor. I hope to inspire students as my mother inspired me, not only to view language as another class to pass for school but also as a beautiful form of art and expression, and to demonstrate that teaching is a meaningful and fulfilling calling. To summarize, while some siblings felt homeschooling hindered them, I found it enriching. It gave me unique opportunities, meaningful free time, and a new perspective on teaching as a challenging yet extremely fulfilling calling rather than just a job. Though I may not homeschool my own children, I hope to pass on my mother’s care, wit, and perceptiveness to them.

"Spread kindness" is my personal mantra. With every action in my daily life, I strive to be kind and helpful to everyone around me. One memorable moment from my experience that affirms the idea of "Kindness in Action" is when I volunteered to clean our local church for about a year. Before I started, the deacon, who was also assigned many of the church's important responsibilities, cleaned the church every week. When I saw that she was under stress from both her personal and church life, I asked if I could start helping with cleaning. While it was intimidating and not easy to find the time, I found the work profoundly rewarding. Even though it didn't last super long because my family moved churches, I learned some valuable lessons from my time there: one, if I put in the effort to do kind and helpful things, I become much more satisfied with myself and my life than I would be otherwise; two, kindness never goes unnoticed. While I didn't reap many rewards from cleaning the church, I was touched by how appreciative and thankful the deacon was when I asked. Moving on, I have dealt with the battle of conforming versus being my true self my entire life. This is because I am a gay man, and I grew up and am still living in a religious and conservative area. I remember being instructed many times at church that if I gave in to my sinful ideas, I would go to hell. Rather than seeing myself as a victim or that I have been afflicted with a curse, I see my queerness as a gift. This is because it has helped me see the unfairness others have to deal with, way more than I ever have. I mean, I am a white man, meaning I am the pinnacle of privilege. So, despite how difficult things may seem, I know I could have it much worse. Stepping out of the closet has always helped me inform my family and friends about what being gay is like. Naturally, many had questions for me, not understanding why I am the way I am, but after talking with them and helping them see that I am just this way, they were able to understand my perspective and better humanize queer people. Finally, one memory of mine in which I tried to create a connection was taking everyone's input into account as student body president. One fact that highlights this idea is that I based my campaign on considering everybody's thoughts. I remarked on this as someone who was considered an outsider at my school, meaning I understood those who felt they weren't included, and could take the time to listen to them. In fact, I even attempted to prove this idea by starting a Key Club at my school because many people told me they had no idea how to earn volunteer hours for groups like the National Honor Society. However, I ultimately left school before I could fully implement this idea, but I still learned lessons from the experience, such as how to present my ideas to faculty and how difficult it can be to compel the entire student body to complete a survey.

Like Jack Terry, what I thought would be the end of my story turned out to be the start of an even greater chapter. While I didn't go through the horrors of the Holocaust, I tried to kill myself by driving into a tree last February. Although the severity of these events contrasts, they both represent parts of our lives that were painful in the moment but allowed us to grow more than the "easy" path would have. Seeing how Jack Terry made his life so great and meaningful after going through such terrible things fills me with hope that I can do the same thing. To go into more detail, my suicide attempt was not a random event but rather a culmination of years of struggling with mental health and loneliness. I have a long family history of depression and anxiety, so poor genetics combined with growing up gay in a rural, extremely religious Midwestern town both played huge parts in my irrational decision. Yet, the most important lesson I have learned from my struggles is that I need to keep pushing myself to be better and not let myself become hopeless, but instead feel bad about my situation. Even something as simple as watching the news and seeing how much worse many other people in the world have it than I do motivates me to realize that my life has purpose and that I can achieve amazing feats if I truly try. Simply put, I now know that I am the author of my life and I have control of what I want to do with the amazing gift of life. Looking at another aspect of the lessons I have learned, I am now excited to use my studies and training in college to bring about the change I want to see in the world. My dream job is a Human Resources (HR) manager. This is because bringing others happiness, whether through listening, validating, or fixing problems, truly fulfills me. Thus, I feel that if I were able to fund my education, I could make a huge impact on the world by ensuring that no one, or at least the people I come into contact with, ever feels the way I did on that fateful day. I wouldn't wish the mental state I sadly had on that day on my worst enemy, so if I had the opportunity to oversee a company's workers in order to make each and every one of them feel safe, seen, and heard, happiness would flood my heart, and I could rest easy knowing that I was doing good in the world. To summarize, Jack Terry's heroic story of overcoming such a terrible fate to become an incredible, world-changing figure gives me hope that I can do the same. Even though I haven't gone through nearly as many hardships, I have dealt with difficulties in my life like mental health struggles and feeling alone from being queer in an unaccepting area. I am so excited to use my studies to make a change in the world for the better, to bring others hope, safety, and comfort. I pray that I will have the opportunity to do so on a larger scale than I currently have access to, whether through managing HR or completing more volunteer work.