)
Ethan’s code
Feeling adrift and disconnected from purpose, a high school student set out to map his future. A gift from an alum made that future possible.
Story tags:
)
)
Ethan David Scott, ’27, on a Stanford Spokes trip in 2024. Photo courtesy of Ethan David Scott.
Ethan David Scott, ’27, would eventually leave Utah for California. He’d carve out an intellectual footprint all his own, would pedal 4,000 miles to teach STEM workshops in under-resourced school districts. But first there was high school—and a particularly low night of it, as he recounted later:
I found myself atop a pile of calculus, play scripts, force diagrams, and other class materials, staring at the pattern of stipple on the ceiling. I had pushed myself harder than ever before during that term; my afternoons of homework had become evenings, mornings, lunchtimes ... I was still proud of what I’d done, but I also realized in this moment of reflection that I’d allowed myself to slip on things that mattered most to me.
)
Scott working on a volunteer project. Photos courtesy of Ethan David Scott.
)
Case in point, his little brother—they hadn’t had a serious conversation in months. He’d stopped emailing with his sister too, had neglected friends, had passed up chances to serve others. Maybe more than anything, he wrote, he’d lost sight of “the engaging, in-the-moment, spontaneous events that make life meaningful.” So he did what anyone would do: grabbed some printer paper and got to work.
Over the next few hours—and then weeks, and then months—Scott created a list of his most important values. Family. Friends. Community. And so on, down the line. (Did he repurpose a blank bracket from a March Madness website? He did.) In effect, he was reordering his universe: a simple but clarifying document, ranking all that truly matters in his life.
Never again would he lose sight of his priorities. Ten minutes to spare before bed? Don’t scroll Instagram—consult the list.
“My list is my game plan; it’s my Code of Hammurabi,” he wrote in a letter last year.
)
A glimpse of Scott’s Code of Hammurabi. Courtesy: Ethan David Scott.
He sent that letter to a man he’d never met. The man’s name is Matt L’Heureux, ’84, and 20 years ago he started a scholarship for students to attend Stanford University. It was such a scholarship, plus a work-study program, that allowed L’Heureux himself to attend. “Even then it was a stretch,” he says. When he found himself in a position to create a scholarship, it was a no-brainer.
Scott’s letter to the L’Heureux family wasn’t just a thank-you for a life-changing opportunity. It was a connecting wire.
“When I read his letter, I immediately thought about how much it would have meant to my mother, who passed away last year,” L’Heureux says. “Ethan writes about his core values of family and community, and of his passion for learning. These same values guided my mother’s life. Almost every conversation with her came back to these themes.”
L’Heureux grew up in a small town in southern Arizona. His mother served as both a teacher and guidance counselor in their town, all while raising five children. His father was the head of the school board. His father was the president of the school board in his town—“which involved everything from building the school to emptying outhouses,” L’Heureux says.
“And now I’m on the board of my children’s school,” he adds. “Education has always been a very important part of our lives.”
That’s why, when L’Heureux created the scholarship fund, he named it in honor of his parents.
In Scott’s letter, he saw a candor and deliberateness striking for a college frosh. It went on:
My priorities are not unique in the world; on the contrary, they are quite ubiquitous and entirely normal things for a person to prioritize. What makes them meaningful to me isn’t the fact that I could only find them here, but the fact that here, I am empowered to take control of my life in a way that I never have been before.
:focal(548x243:549x244))
Scott and his Stanford Spokes team members. Photos courtesy of Ethan David Scott.
:focal(860x675:861x676))
Since enrolling, Scott has referred to his list on a daily basis. It helps with everything from scheduling his free time to defining his top interests: storytelling and science. He concedes that his “twin loves” sometimes amuse his classmates. He is undeterred. While researching glacial capacitor signal noise, he also reflects on the capacity of story to “understand communities and to understand yourself.”
This past summer, the list led him to join Stanford Spokes in biking across the country—10 weeks, 4,000 miles, a perpetual search for places to sleep. At day camps, schools, and libraries from Virginia to Nevada, the small group would deliver STEM workshops to gatherings of students who otherwise wouldn’t encounter such things.
“I fell in love with science watching Neil deGrasse Tyson and Carl Sagan talk. I loved the way they told the stories of science,” Scott says. “That’s what I’m trying to do on Spokes—be some little kid’s Neil deGrasse Tyson!”
He pauses, then chuckles.
“Okay, that was a little bombastic,” he says. “I just want to create a space that makes some kid feel, oh my gosh, this is the universe. I want to get a piece of that.”
For now, Scott seems to be finding a space for himself, too. His Code of Hammurabi hangs on his door at Stanford, and he consults it daily—his time is too precious to do otherwise. The result is something that looks very much like a purposeful life. His letter to L’Heureux continued:
I like to go running in the mornings with my neighbor, Charlie. After visiting several corners of the campus, we’ll stop on the banks of Lake Lagunita for a break. Charlie and I like watching the sun come up over the Stanford Dish for a break from the running and a break from the world. It’s a peaceful time; a moment I won’t soon forget as I struggle to make my way in a new world, a world of wonder and of a lot of hard work.
L’Heureux says this is precisely the kind of experience his parents would have valued.
“They raised five children to view education as both inherently valuable as well as a means to improve one’s career and life options,” he says. “They were extremely happy to be honored by our Stanford scholarship and were excited each year to read the letters from scholarship recipients. Among other things, I think they reminded my parents how life-changing Stanford had been for me.”
L’Heureux’s mother passed away in 2022. In Scott’s letter, he says, he suspects she’d have heard a familiar echo.
“I’m not sure I could have expressed it as well as Ethan does,” L’Heureux says, “but I’m pretty sure she would have recognized his excitement about Stanford from phone calls with me, every Sunday night, 44 years ago. She would have loved it.”
Undergraduate Education & Student Life: The impact
The purpose
To magnify the impact of donor support for students—the kind the L’Heureux family has provided through their scholarship fund since 2005—Stanford is mounting the Fast Forward Match. This match helps donors create an even bigger impact by allowing them to create a larger fund, through the addition of matching funds.
The opportunity
For donors able to commit at least $500,000 (or $250,000 for graduates within the last 15 years), Stanford will provide one dollar of matching funds for every two dollars the donor contributes. The combined funds create both a current-year Stanford Fund Scholarship and an endowed scholarship fund in the donor’s name.
)
:focal(1015x453:1016x454))
)
:focal(1023x1001:1024x1002))
:focal(1216x1354:1217x1355))