It Doesn't Get Better

To my family and friends back home: I admit it. I haven’t been updating you on much, and it was on purpose. Because truthfully, I am not sure how things are going. I am only vaguely aware of what is happening around me, and am only just processing what it all means. In starting my first year of college, I have encountered some wonderful people and experiences. I have also been acutely aware of where I come from, and not just in the “I love cheese curds,” “It’s pop, not soda,” way. (But I do love cheese curds. Please send me some curds.)

My transition to life at Yale has been uncomfortable as I have wrestled with new questions of my role as an Ivy League student, as a Midwesterner, as the first person here from my high school, and as a role model for my younger friends.

When I say “role model,” I don’t mean to indicate that I somehow hold a unique position to my younger friends in relation to many of my peers at other universities. However, I acknowledge my personal privilege in being here at Yale and what that represents to high school students because six months ago, I was a high school student, and not long before that, I was a high school student who had no idea what she was capable of. I feel responsible for that high school student. I feel responsible for all the high school students who are just dying to go to college.

Growing up, everyone idolizes college. Parents love college. My mom is a college professor, and regularly reminisces about finding her calling, meeting lifelong friends, and developing self-confidence in college. Everyone else I know loves college, too: my teachers and counselors at school loved talking about college; people who graduated two years before me would come back to tell crazy stories about frat parties and “finding themselves”; my friends would excitedly talk about their future plans over lunch at school. College is seen as the “peak” time of life.

I was also consistently told throughout my academic career that “things would get better when I got to [insert life milestone here].” In fifth grade, it was supposed to happen in middle school. In middle school, things were going to get better in high school. And of course, things would get the “most better,” the best, in college. But things didn’t get better throughout that time: I still struggled to fit in socially throughout my entire K-12 educational career and I never found my exact “right” place academically. In high school, I put all my faith in college as the place where I would find everything I had been looking for (whatever that means).

My high school career was defined to an obsessive, unhealthy, and ridiculous degree by my goal of getting into an Ivy League school. I knew no one else who was striving for the same goal, and I often acted out of fear. My life was controlled by perfectionist anxiety, and any and all relaxation left me laden with guilt and shame. I rarely slept through the night. I made myself sick with anxiety on a regular basis. I isolated myself. I never slept over at someone’s house. I cried about school regularly. We all love to talk about “toxic” relationships, so here goes: my relationship with school is the most toxic relationship I have ever had.

I tell you this because I spent way too much time striving for things to get better in the way I had always been told they would. They didn’t. My senior year of high school, I started getting everything I had ever wanted; I won awards, scholarships, publications. I was accepted to attend some of the best, most selective universities in the world. I had everything. Things didn’t get better.

And things didn't get better because I got into Yale or because I stepped on its campus for the first time as an undergraduate student last month.

My life only started getting better when I made conscious choices to love myself more than I loved who I wanted to be. My life started getting better when I could be honest with myself about not liking things that made me successful but--quite frankly--sucked. There were things I did throughout my entire high school career that made me unhappy because I felt like I had to, because I felt it was the only way to get to college and I thought getting to college was the only way for things to get better.

But some things about college do suck, even at Yale. (I’m looking at you, half-finished history paper.) It’s okay to acknowledge that a college education is an extraordinary privilege and still want to change the narrative that college is the be-all, end-all of a fulfilled life.

So, here’s my takeaway: Things are never going to get better. Not by themselves, at least. It’s time to change the narrative from “things will get better when” to “you can change your expectations by.” It’s time to value ourselves more than who we want to be. It’s time to understand that--while attending Yale is an incredible, intense, and beautiful opportunity--there are things that aren’t worth sacrificing to get where you want to go.

So, how’s college going? It’s going well. I am probably not the best in my classes, but I am learning to speak Russian, to love history and to appreciate the world around me. I am relearning my love for literature in new and exciting ways. I am meeting people from all over the country and the world. I am learning to manage stress differently. I am writing, debating, discussing, and falling in love with ideas. But I am also wrestling with important questions about myself, my identity and, yeah, whether it all “gets better.” I am getting rejected a lot. I often still feel isolated from my peers. I still don’t always make healthy decisions about school. I am confused about what my Ivy League status means and what privilege means. I am being honest about my experiences, and I hope you will too.

Oh, yeah. And things are getting better. A lot better, actually.

#college #reflection