2. From David McCullough’s recent commencement address at BC:

“Facts alone are never enough. Facts rarely if ever have any soul. In writing or trying to understand history one may have all manner of ‘data,’ and miss the point. One can have all the facts and miss the truth. It can be like the old piano teacher’s lament to her student, ‘I hear all the notes, but I hear no music.”

Tell us about a time you had all of the facts but missed the meaning.

3. In his novel, Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann writes:

“We seldom know what we’re hearing when we hear something for the first time, but one thing is certain: we hear it as we will never hear it again. We return to the moment to experience it, I suppose, but we can never really find it, only its memory, the faintest imprint of what it really was, what it meant.”

Tell us about something you heard or experienced for the first time and how the years since have affected your perception of that moment.

4. Boston College has a First-Year Convocation program that includes the reading and discussion of a common book that explores Jesuit ideals, community service and learning. If you were to select the book for your Convocation, what would you choose and why?