Juan Espinoza

Class of 2021 senior goodbye

Juan+Espinoza

It can be ascertained that four years is not a small amount of time. However, I find this fleeting extrapolation to be much more of an understatement than an undeniable fact. This can be contested through my experience at Archbishop Carroll High School—an institution that not only fostered my scholastic merit and achievement, but gave me opportunity. 

Interactions and relationships represent fragments of one’s life. In other words, these encounters, as insignificant as they may seem, have the potential to carry change within one’s life. I felt that throughout my time at this institution, two notable individuals represent these fragments. The weight that their words and actions have carried have not only fomented ideals of success, but have made me realize that mentors are an essential part of one’s growth. 

Mr. Gennaro implicitly demonstrates what faculty at an institution should be. An administrator is a driving force in one’s education, not necessarily someone that compels a student to do something that they lack interest in, but rather someone who gives a student the tools and opportunities for success. Mr. Gennaro has not only handed me these but presented them on a silver platter and I seized these opportunities. I thank him for all of his guidance and I can say that his fragment will stick with me outside of this institution and well past university. 

While Mr. Gennaro demonstrates the qualities of supportive school administration, Mr. Murphy has the qualities of a supportive teacher. Not only did he place an agenda of both rigor and work ethic in his class, he also was able to be not only just a teacher, but a friend — one that knew to keep the class under control and maintain the respect that he deserves, but could also put a smile on one’s face with a well-timed joke or remark. I recognize this as the epitome of what a teacher should be and that is what Mr. Murphy was and always will be. I thank him for all the knowledge he imparted and the moments we shared.

It is with great ambivalence that I say goodbye to the institution that fostered my education for the past four years. I don’t know how to feel, but what I do know is that the memories will not flee, but will flow back when I am a fourth year in a corporate finance lecture staring at my professor while he writes on the board, and they will bring a smile to my face.