Dear Goddard Prospective Student,
I am not going to tell you my story.
I am going to take the things I have seen and heard over the last two years at Goddard and create your story.
It’s just the two of us here on this page, so let’s not be humble and shy. Admit it right here to yourself – you are a smart person. You are creative, and you have things you want to create. For quite a while you have been saying to yourself, “I thought I would have made it by now.” There is something that has been holding you back, and you’re not exactly sure what it is. It could be that you have so many obligations that your creative side is always in the back seat. Maybe your work needs to be at the next level in order to get noticed.
Your focus has been on your creative work and how it could be better, but, if you were to look a little deeper (remember, it’s just you and me here), you will see that it’s your own identity and your self-worth that you are really striving to perfect.
You want confidence in yourself. You feel that more letters at the end of your signature block may offer some of that. You want to be taken seriously. You want to be respected. You want to be really good at one thing in life instead of being okay at several things.
You want more people in your life who understand you.
Goddard isn’t a regular school. It’s not a machine – a thing. It’s an organism. It somehow makes you available to yourself. There is a “you” inside of you that hasn’t emerged. I can promise you that you haven’t met that person yet. Goddard gives you permission to find that person.
Goddard gives you permission to be outlandish, creative, disruptive. It gives you permission to be yourself. When you are surrounded by the Goddard community you feel better about yourself. You feel more creative. You take risks. You feel supported.
The credentials you get at the end is not what you will prize. You will prize what you have become.
Your first Goddard friend,
Dennis Rush
MFAW 2020
Affiliation Trustee
