Self Centered Essay

Ryan Wulpi Com 320-01 Professor Hess

My full name is Ryan McKibben Wulpi and was born and raised in Fort Wayne, IN. I was born in 1978 followed by three brothers, 9, 11, and 13 years later. You can make the assumption that I was a lot to handle if my parents waited that long in between. My parents both graduated from college when I was around 5 years old. I went to Haley Elementary until the 3rd grade when we moved and I started at Croninger Elementary. This coincided with the arrival of my first brother and the diagnosis of my ADD. When I was 9 years old I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder. My mother did not want to put me on any medicine until I was old enough to make the decision for myself. That happened when I was 15. I went from a B and C student to an A student taking Honors and Advanced Placement classes. I definitely helped me focus in school, but it also took away my personality and who I am. I finally came to terms with it and how it affected me and have since tried to remedy it. You’ll probably see throughout this essay, times when it will creep in, as I will go off on a rambling tangent, not so different than what I am doing now. Back to my timeline, after Croninger I moved on to Blackhawk Middle School where I continued to be a thorn in the side of most of my teachers. After that I continued my education at Snider High School and was basically a bump on a log when it cam to extracurricular activities. I was involved in my church but I never really got involved at

school. I was liked well enough by my friends and classmates but I had, and still do, an immense fear of failure. I would rather not try than to fail. I can’t tell you how many times that has held me back from taking/seizing opportunities that have presented themselves. At the age of eighteen, 6 weeks after graduation and 3 weeks before my freshman year at the University of Evansville, my best friend passed away in a car accident on 469. That incident profoundly changed my life and my perspective, in ways that I am still trying to unravel, 9 years later. I never really handled being away at school, knowing no one, and ended up coming home for good after 3 semesters. I then went on to work jobs here and there until I found a good job at Lincoln National Life. I also met a girl around that same time. We dated for about 3 years until I proposed. That ended up not working out the way we had expected and we broke it off 2 years ago. I was laid off from Lincoln two weeks later. So within the span of 2 weeks I lost my fiancée and my job and needless to say, my life had been turned upside down. I picked up and sorted out the pieces and it became pretty clear what needed to happen. I enrolled at IPFW for the following spring. I said that I was ‘going back’ to college, but when you only transfer 9 credits, you are not really ‘going back’ but starting over from scratch. I am definitely better equipped to be here now, than I was 9 years ago when I started this journey. I always knew that I would graduate from college, I just didn’t know when. My most immediate goal is to graduate before I turn 30. That is 3 years from now and I have four to five semesters left at 12 credit hours a semester

working 30 hours a week at Grabill Bank. I will finish with a B.A. in Communications and a B.A. in Political Science. I am not sure what I want to do when I finish, but I would like to go into public relations or to work for a Political Action Committee or a lobbyist. I am comfortable speaking in front of people, always have been and I guess that comes with the ADD, the need/want to be the center of attention. I have a little experience speaking in front of people. I was in a few plays in middle and high school and I participate in a dinner theater every fall at my church and the requisite speeches in class. I think that I will do well in this class, I bring a unique perspective and no one else has ever lived my life or walked a mile in my shoes. I’m not sure where my life is headed, but I am very concerned with the legacy that I’m going to leave behind. I wonder often how people will remember me and that drives me to be a good person and empathetic to others. I want people to remember me as a good person and friend, someone that was always loyal and also had a big heart. I know that I want to get married some day and raise children. I cannot imagine doing anything greater than raising children to be better than ourselves. I am most likely not going to win the Nobel Peace Prize or the Tour de France, so raising good children will be my coup de grace. This class interests me from the standpoint of the small group aspect. We deal with small group communication everyday from our families to work to school to friends. Understanding this and looking at it in a new light hopefully will help me understand people a little better. I am always looking for new ways to

understand people and their interactions with each other. This is also the reason I enjoy politics so much. Not necessarily wanting to be involved in the politics but watching and following it interests me, the interactions between governments and other governments, governments and the people, and also the people inside the respective governments. Inside the field of political science, foreign policy intrigues me. I think it is so interesting to see how governments deal with each other, how their dealings are based on partnership, but also remembering that they are all sovereign countries looking out for number one. How they balance that is amazing to me. Some obviously do it better than others. In a nutshell, this is me, Ryan McKibben Wulpi. Hopefully I gave you a little bit of insight into where I came from. If there is anything that needs some clarity don’t be afraid to ask!