The Essays Themselves (updated with LINKS!)

So how'd we earn this trip?

To put it simply, there was an essay contest.

Irish Network New Orleans (IN-NOLA), the local attachment to IN-USA, was offering a scholarship. According to the forwarded email:

This summer, IN-NOLA will be sending some deserving New Orleans high school juniors to University College Dublin to attend a two week summer program designed to show high school students a glimpse of college life in Ireland.

Each of us heard about it different ways (our individual stories are linked below), but the application was the same. The only real requirement was a GPA at or above a 3.0, and the application asked for only some basic contact information. The only way to distinguish ourselves from the rest was the application essay:

"Please tell us in 500 words or less why is the connection between New Orleans and Ireland important in 2013?"

At least they asked politely.

Essentially, we had to convince them that we understood their motive behind sending four high school kids across the pond.

But hey, free trip to Ireland, right?

And so, we took to our keyboards, did a little research, and away we went.

Each of our stories: (not updated yet - still working on it!)

• Alexis
• Erin
• Marisa
• The mysterious Zaire

Each of our essays:

• Alexis
• Erin
• Marisa
• The elusive Zaire: http://fromnolatoucd.blogspot.com/2013/07/zaire-essay_9.html