Spencer Pope

Mock College Essay

My cursor blinked on the subject line: Resignation. I hadn’t typed a single word, but the act of opening my email already felt like crossing a line. This was my first “real” job in my twenties, the one that made me feel like a professional for the first time. And yet here I was, staring at a blank screen, wondering if I could actually send this message.

One year earlier, I was sitting in my friend Austin’s downtown Boston apartment at 10 a.m. on a Friday. He was one of the few people I still saw regularly. Most of my friends had left the city, retreating to their parents’ houses during the pandemic lockdowns. The company I worked for had just rolled out a policy requiring us to take half-days on Fridays, supposedly to prevent unused vacation days from piling up. It was meant as a perk, but to me it only underscored how little control I had over my own time.

“We could be anywhere in the world right now!” Austin said from across the room. He and I had traveled together in college, and the memory of that trip made me realize how restless I’d grown while stuck inside my apartment. I muttered something about going back to the office soon, but even then, I wasn’t sure I believed it. For the first time, I began to imagine that life could look different. Not just after the pandemic, but now.

By the fall, that seed had sprouted. I sublet my apartment, stuffed my things into storage, and moved into a short-term rental in Manhattan. The change was energizing. During the day, I dove deeper into my work than ever before, and at night I walked new streets, felt new rhythms, and remembered what it meant to be curious about the world. My performance didn’t suffer (if anything, it improved), but my colleagues couldn’t help but question the frequency with which the background of our video calls would change.

“When are you coming back?” my manager would ask. I’d respond that I’d return whenever the office reopened, but even I knew the truth: I wasn’t planning on going back at all. That tension built until one day I took a call from a public library conference room in Chicago. This time, my manager wasn’t alone. He was joined by the department’s vice president. The message was polite but direct: return to Boston, or resign.

On the surface, the choice looked simple. Staying meant stability. Steady paychecks, colleagues I respected, the reassurance of telling people what I did for a living. Quitting meant risk, uncertainty, and the possibility of disappointing people who had trusted me. For weeks, I swung back and forth between those poles, each day rewriting the pros and cons in my head.

But underneath, I knew the truth. My work was strong, yet the company’s unease with my independence signaled a deeper mismatch. I thought back to that morning with Austin, when the idea of “being anywhere” felt reckless but thrilling. Acting on it had already changed me. Doing nothing now would have meant turning back to a version of myself I no longer wanted to be.

The real challenge wasn’t choosing to resign, but learning to trust my own judgment. I had feared making the wrong decision, but the greater risk was letting someone else make it for me.

So I returned to the email. The subject line still glowed on the screen. This time, I typed. Resigning wasn’t just the end of a job; it was the beginning of believing I could navigate uncertainty and shape my own future.