Mission of University of San Francisco - Essay Example

? The of San Francisco has a strong reputation for educating leaders that seek to make the world a more humane and just place. My interestin attending the University of San Francisco centers on the fact that this is the type of person I want to be, and the type of contribution I want to make to society. I believe that my personal beliefs and experiences have prepared me to continue my education at the University of San Francisco not only as means to greater academic knowledge, but also to contribute to campus life and learning during my enrollment. Much of my life has been centered on living and learning Christian values and principles. I attended a Christian high school and found it to be a wonderful experience. My high school experience was academically challenging. I enjoyed the secular learning and am well prepared for higher academic endeavors. I do feel, however, that the greatest learning I experienced in high school was the development of my own personal beliefs about and relationship with God. Through my time in high school, I have developed a set of beliefs that I feel matches the values and sensitivities the University of San Francisco tries to instill and develop in students. My first core belief that I developed in high school is the belief that all knowledge must be used to do good in the world. Knowledge is like the Pearl of Great Price mentioned by Jesus. Many have left all behind to follow after it. In my mind, this is only the first part of the righteous pursuit of knowledge. Knowledge that is not applied changes knowledge from a Pearl of Great Price into pearls before swine. I believe that my secular studies in math, science and the arts can be used to guide my life’s work. This work must be enlightening, engaging and uplifting for me and for those around me. By using all of my knowledge to uplift through my life’s work, I hope to add some much needed humanity to the world in which we live. Another core belief I developed in high school is the belief that a variety of skills are necessary in order to live a productive and happy life. Early on in my high school career, I was upset by the fact that cliques seemed to rule so much of student life. I could see from the start that groups, which exclude others, or try to enforce a false conformity upon the individuals within the group, are inherently unjust. Small things, such as the discouragement by school counselors for academically inclined students to take art classes, seemed so unfair to me. Why can’t a person be great at physics and portraiture? I learned that encouraging the development of talents and skills in others, even if they failed to fit into a particular mold, was a very liberating experience. The injustice in being forced to live a life that is not really yours is among the most pervasive yet preventable injustices in our world today. A value that was developed in me at an early age by my family, and continued to grow throughout my high school years is that of charity. When I say charity, I am referring to the pure love that we can have for one another as human beings. This feeling of charity that I have for others has lead me to some of my greatest experiences and my most unlikely friendships. For me, strangely enough, charity and food seem to go hand-in-hand. I have volunteered for Meals-on-Wheels throughout my high school career. I participated in preparing and delivering meals to individuals in my neighborhood. These were all older individuals. By giving a bit of time, I found that I was able to greatly bless some of these people that were so lonely. Listening to the stories of their lives and their opinions about current events has greatly enriched my life and broadened my understanding. May of these clients became friends in the truest sense of the word. What I learned from volunteering for Meals-on-Wheels is that we all need human contact and a humane disposition towards those in need. This lesson extended to other food related volunteer opportunities. I worked for an organization called Dream Catchers. It was here that I witnessed first hand the effects of broken homes and familial abuse. We delivered nutritious meals to children living through the traumas of abuse and broken families. Without ever becoming political in any sense, I realized the true value of an intact family and loving familial bonds at home. I helped to feed the homeless as well in several sites around San Francisco. Here I learned that charity only is charity if it is expressed without judgment. My final core value obtained in high school was this idea of being non-judgmental. At the homeless shelters and soup kitchens, I sometimes caught myself wondering how an individual could sink so low in life. I was truly there to help, but I could not understand how a person could get into such a situation. I understood that many of the people I was serving were addicted to drugs and alcohol. I knew that many suffered from mental illness. Still, I found it difficult to quiet the small voice in the back of my head that whispered somehow all of their problems were their own fault. Not everyone, I reasoned, with these problems ends up homeless. Why are these people out here in the street? While I still believe that we will all be held accountable for our choices, I have come to understand that the world is a place full of injustice. I learned by talking to some of the women in the shelters that incidents that set them on the path to homelessness would not have greatly impacted me. I realize that not everyone has the safety net of family, friends and faith that I have been surrounded by my entire life. Learning that I had no right to judge these homeless people was one of the greatest sensibilities I developed during my high school education. I learned that we are all living in the same world, not different ones. The only difference is the amount of injustice each one of us is going to experience. I hope that through my continued education at the University of San Francisco, I will be able to build upon my high school experiences as I strive to make the world a more just, humane place. Read More