I have always attended small schools. In elementary, I attended a school with twenty students. Although that number doubled to forty students in high school, I was still surrounded by the same people I grew up with. I knew them and their class standing and whether they were “good” or “bad” students. Because I knew everyone, I knew where I placed in the hierarchy and how I was perceived. I understood who I was, what I liked, hated, and loved based on my surroundings. College, however, has been different. There is no longer a defined hierarchy; there are just people. To be honest, that scares me. Without knowing where the people surrounding me stand, how do I know where I stand? The inability to gauge my position relative to my surroundings has forced me to reflect on myself. I must ask myself again what I like, what I want to spend my life doing, and who I am when I have no one else to base it on. The answer is a work in progress.
In my quarter at La Sierra, I have figured out a few things, to an extent. First, I am confident in my decision to major in English literature while pursuing medicine, which was my primary fear before the quarter started. I would wake up in the early morning hours with nightmares about failing all my classes or, worse, hating all my classes. I felt immense pressure to prove the validity of my English literature major/Pre-medicine track to others, but I am learning it is unnecessary. Each and every choice you make for your future does not require an explanation; sometimes things just feel right. The best way for me to prove it is not to tell people how I am doing but to show them through my passion for what I am doing. I have found that I genuinely love my classes. I look forward to what new things they will give me each day (especially Chemistry and Creative Writing). I can see myself being passionate about what I’m doing beyond just this first year.
Another thing I have realized is that what you are facing in school should scare you, at least at first. Eventually, some level of comfortability should be found in your classes, but being afraid of what you have to do doesn’t mean it is wrong for you. People constantly tell you how they feel about a class, whether it was the worst class they ever took or the easiest one. They scare you with their stories. But their experience does not have to be yours. It took me a moment to shake off all the opinions I was being fed and allow myself to experience things on my own. The hierarchy may be gone, but opinions are not.
Leading up to the start of my first quarter, certain things scared me in academics. I was nervous to join Honors. I did not think I would be intelligent enough to succeed in the program, but now, I have found that it is a place where all they want is for you to succeed. Being a part of that kind of environment has helped me immensely. I’ve made invaluable connections with professors and found like-minded students in my cohort. Reaching for something that scared me ended up making me more comfortable.
Those are all things I’ve learned about my relationship with school within the first quarter, but I find less to say about the things I have learned, specifically about myself. It is easier to observe myself through the medium of school. However, what I have learned is that I am a worse procrastinator than I thought. I am not very good at making friends and prefer a few close ones over many. I like silence. I like the gym. And, I’m not entirely sure what I am doing. None of these are profound revelations, but I should not have expected a completely different person to be born once I reached college. Instead, I think La Sierra has become a space for me to absorb and pick up new things, not become a whole new person. Losing the structure and bubble I had before has left me with an incomplete picture of myself, but after spending just one quarter here, I do not think of that as a bad thing anymore. It’s given me the freedom to recreate parts of myself in a way I could not before, and I want to use that to my advantage.
That leaves me and many other freshmen with a final question. What are we going to do with that freedom? Will we use it to pursue outside interests? Will we dedicate it to research? Will we spend it on school? What will we establish as the defining point of us? The answer can only be found at the end of our college journey. I want to pretend I have learned so much, but I can’t say that. I have been made aware of things about myself and school, however, I still do not know what to establish as my defining point. The luxury of college is that I can choose for myself. All of us can. We can pick out what we will create ourselves with from all the information presented for us to use. We no longer have to pick things from the people around us. This age won’t happen again so I plan on using everything I am given to figure it out. Why not use all of the time, resources, and materials you are offered, to learn about you? When you can not use others to define yourself, who are you?
—Ema Ludwig, Class of 2027: English literature/Pre-medicine