The Synthesis Paper

I am about to be super negative on Jesuit high schools, be warned. I am not saying that their education is bad, it's not, or that I did not like Xavier, I did, I am just criticising the grade 12 Synthesis Paper.

When you enter grade 12, you are given a daunting task: write a twenty page research paper on your life. Great, it is not like university applications are due or all my other classes are loading on work or anything. To top it all off, it is a religious paper, so, guess what. Heavy religious themes.

Honestly, I do not know why I went to Catholic school all my life. I was born in a household with a Catholic grandma, a Jewish grandpa, and an Agnostic mum. I get that the Catholic schools in the desert were the best, but based on my religious upbringing (pretty much as secular as they come), I guess it just did not fit.

Anyways, throughout my entire high school and later years in grade school, I rebelled against any sort of religious notion. This paper was just the icing on the cake.

Now, looking back, I can honestly say that that paper was seriously a waste of my time. The entire point of the paper was to come to terms with the relationship you had with God or something. I know I tried every now and then, pulling interesting ideas, but the bulk of it was BS, but not just BS to get my work done, serious, "I have no idea how to answer these questions honestly without insulting anyone so I really need to BS this assignment"-BS. Talking to people about that paper, I have gotten a good many responses that just hated the paper and a few people even have said that they came out of the paper less religious. The mandatory, massive assignment of our last year in high school, that was portrayed as probably one of the best and biggest assignments we will ever have to do, was ...just..not..good.

Now, I get it, I should not have been so rebellious, maybe taking everything with a grain of sand. I am ok with religions now, not so angry towards them. I have even been going to the Jewish Hillel house. But, to be quite honest, that paper was not worth it.

I think my rant is over.