Before the first day

Jesuit College Prep is an all male high school placed in the heart of the Dallas metroplex. The school attracts many people from far away distances. There are people who travel over an hour a day to come to the school. I drove thirty minutes, one way, everyday for school and I don't regret one drive. there was a public high school less then a mile away from my house but I decided to challenge myself at a more prestigious and harder high school. Many of my old friends asked me why I would go to all the trouble of going to a school where I had to wear coat and tie everyday to school. And many of my old friends thought I was crazy for leaving all of them to go to an all male school, they thought I was some weird guy now. But everyday I am glad I choose Jesuit over the public school.

The first event I experience at Jesuit was the freshmen retreat. I was a participant my freshmen year and then I choose to be a leader during my sophomore, Junior and Senior years. The retreat attempted to bring the class together as one which was very difficult to do before school had even started. But every year I was amazed on the relationship built purely through the freshmen retreat. My freshmen year retreat was very influential towards me accepting Jesuit for what if was. I never had a problem in my life making friends, but for the first time I struggled to make friends. So I decided to become a part of the football team and that has carried me to Trinity. With the retreat I was able to make friends guild people around the school before school even started and I also helped forming the classes identity for the Jesuit community. For every class there has been a classification and it is first brought up in the freshmen retreat. Whether the class was going to be the intellectual class, the sports class, or the class that slides on by. Fortunately I was in the class that was given the intellectuals and the sports class. We had over ten students go to Ivy league schools and over thirty students to play collegiate sports, which was a school record. I was gifted with the ability to lead a group of strangers through a process that changed my life and that all I need to look back on was the friends I made at Jesuit and I could always have smile on my face because of them.


Patrick Rhatican