Jacky Bosworth
Class: 2008

My brother and I have had the great fortune to have parents who indulged our every aspirational whim. When I said I needed a new violin, my dad sold an old car and bought one; when my brother wanted to learn guitar, he was bequeathed the old Martin in the basement.

We grew up with a love of the arts—I spent the majority of my high school career elbow-deep in books, rosin dust, broken strings and sheet music, and my brother felt most alive in a costume on stage. Greg is now 18 and majoring in musical theatre in Florida; I am 21 and majoring in English at College of Notre Dame, with the intent to become a playwright.

While my brother chose to go to a larger coed school to pursue what makes him happy, I chose this small women’s college for reasons I did not entirely understand until recently. I have always been extremely studious, and attending a small college surrounded by like-minded women fit my style exactly right—much more so than a party school with lecture halls the size of amphitheaters.

When I told my friends I was going to a single-sex school I had to pick a few jaws up off the floor. “What are you going to do without boys?” they’d ask me, wide-eyed with wonder at the incomprehensible idea of being without male attention for four years. “Well, I’ll probably do my homework,” I’d say.

I came to College of Notre Dame expecting to study and graduate summa cum laude in the typical four years. Barring all horrible accidents, it’s going to happen. I have worked hard, and being in a tight-knit, intellectual environment made it all the more possible. Having faculty members who know my name and actually care about my success has made all the difference.

What I didn’t expect Notre Dame to give me were so many opportunities. In 2004, I enrolled in Japanese at Loyola College. In 2005, I traveled to Japan through the Morrissy Honors program. In 2006, I wrote a full-length play and had it produced in LeClerc Auditorium. In 2007 I went to London, my second play was produced, I wrote my third play, and I applied for a Fulbright Scholarship to return to Japan for a year and conduct a research project on the study of English literature in Japanese universities.

Throughout my time at Notre Dame I have held office in a number of clubs and honor societies, had essays published in the school’s literary journal Damozel as well as in larger journals, and worked on-campus jobs in the music and English departments for the past three years.

I will graduate this May, and while Notre Dame has offered me fantastic opportunities, it has given me something even better: the ambition and drive to go out and take those kinds of opportunities. Before college, my parents provided me with everything I needed to become a better person; during college, I learned how to do it for myself. I gained the courage to apply for a Fulbright Scholarship and the confidence to write a play and have it produced in front of hundreds of people.

That said, I couldn’t have accomplished any of this without my parents. For all the crazy things I dream of doing, they never have and never will say no. I told them I wanted to go to Japan—they told me to bring back some chopsticks. I told them I wanted to go on a 10-day study tour of London—they bought me a plane ticket. I told them my greatest ambition was to write plays—they framed my very first show poster and hung it in the kitchen.

We are not the wealthiest family, and perhaps we’d be better off financially if Greg and I decided to study accounting and business. Still, our parents have always understood that real happiness is something more. It comes from an inward desire to succeed in your own way—and Notre Dame and my parents provided me the means to find it.

In my four years of college I have learned from my school and my parents that there is nothing more precious than personal ambition, and nothing more valuable than the confidence to give anything and everything a try.