Sitting on the Hudson River one morning, watching the sun ignite the changing leaves that covered the hills flanking the river, hearing the bubbles underneath my boat, the soft splash of oars entering the water together is one of my favorite memories at Vassar. When I came to Vassar in the rainy fall of 2006, I never imagined that I would be on the rowing team, let alone be a co-captain. I was not an athlete. I had failed miserably at team sports in physical education classes. The story of how I came to row at Vassar follows the same narrative line as many other experiences, such as how I decided to be a history and Chinese double major, how I became involved in the ALANA Center, how I began to work at the Office of Admissions. These unforgettable experiences were not planned, were not really by chance, but really they were unexpected.
I think back on all the things I was supposed to be and all the expectations I came to college carrying in the back of my mind, and I have shed every last one, except for maybe being a pretty diligent student. I am not pre-med. I will not be an hepatic surgeon, and when my parents’ friends ask what I’m doing with my life, they will be able to laugh nervously just like me. But thinking back on all the opportunities and experiences I have been afforded at Vassar, even if by accident, I have loved each and every one.
Getting my ankle sprained at rugby practice early freshman year gave my friends and I the opportunity to eat “just add water and microwave” Indian food that a friend had brought in a suitcase from home. I ran naked into the Library with those same friends, past the desks where we slaved for hours at a time on history theses, anxiously waiting for the day to turn them in. Being dragged to the Kenyon Hall erg room one wintry morning brought the weirdest and most fun people I know into my life. We sweat together, grunt together, struggle together and laugh together.
The ALANA Center has been a place of community and safety. There, when I needed a piece of home, when I needed a shoulder to cry on, when I needed somebody to vent to or when I was just frustrated at dealing with everything that is race, ignorance, privilege and identity, I was sure to find a brother or a sister to contemplate with. I never really questioned any of these things until I came to Vassar, and the realization that I had to deal with them was sprung on me, once again, unexpectedly. Lost and reeling for something to make sense of all these questions that had suddenly assaulted me, I found shelter in the friends I had made through my ALANA connections. The journeys we have taken and the questions we have asked are all experiences that render you to me, and I will never forget them.
For me, Vassar is a place where the unplanned and the accidental can blow you off your original course to a place more wonderful than you could ever have imagined, or dared to imagine. I will miss this big safety net where dreams can be dreamed and risks can be taken, cognizant that failure is a huge possibility, but they are encouraged to be taken anyway. For my classmates, let us continue to dare to dream like we’re still here, for no matter where we go, our Vassar family will always be somewhere nearby. For the underclassmen, dare to be crazy. Use the quiet of the library to hatch a plan for something totally ludicrous, and follow through, no matter how ridiculous it may seem. I am sad to leave this place where I have learned to think until I dream and laugh until I cry, but I am excited to see what I may stumble upon next.
A couple of weeks ago, a prospective student of the Class of 2014 sent me an e-mail as the contact for the Vassar Catholic Community (VCC). Some of his questions included: “What is it like being a religious student and the leader of a religious group at Vassar? Do you see Vassar as a place of atheism and soulless hedonism, to be blunt? Or are people irreligious but still effectively moral? Is there a spirit of service on campus, or are Vassar kids generally disinclined to interact with or help the Poughkeepsie community?”
In my e-mail response and the weeks following, I began to reflect on the last four years and what it has meant to be a “person of faith” at a renowned secular institution of higher education. For me, being a religious student has been a major part of my college experience although I didn’t expect it to be. I had come to Vassar as a practicing Catholic, more because my culture and family required it. I had some conscious investment in my faith, but it was largely shaped by the fact that it was what I grew up with. College gave me the freedom to decide whether my faith was a priority.
Becoming an active student of faith-through the VCC, the Inter-Religious Council and the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life-has probably been one of the most rewarding decisions I have made. It is in these communities where I found the most joy and the most frustration, where I questioned but sometimes couldn’t find the answers, and where relationships were built on the shared understandings of something greater than ourselves that move us to be compassionate, to love and to respect every life.
Not to say that my undergraduate journey of spiritual and self-discovery has not been without a fair share of anger and frustration. It has been difficult being a student of faith, let alone a leader in the VCC for the past three years. There is a wide range of cultures and traditions among Catholic students, and not all share the same perspectives on the Church. Given the history and recent events in the Catholic Church, combined with the lack of a common language with which to talk about religion in general, students of faith here face enormous challenges in the attempt to integrate their faith with their college experience. Adding to this are the instances of negativity, disrespect and insensitivity that I have unfortunately observed on many occasions by the College community towards religious groups.
Despite this however, Vassar is a school that attracts intellectuals, thinkers and activists who think outside, above and beyond the box. Where there are students who are adamantly agnostic or atheist, there are students who truly want to live out the cornerstones of their tradition. The religious and spiritual communities are important, thriving and passionate parts of student life, and together, they contribute to a spirit that exists in the greater college community-one that yearns to celebrate, serve and protect the human experience. It is perhaps this spirit, this joy, this struggle, that I will miss, yet also take with me as I leave this place and go beyond the stone walls of Vassar College.
As I write this, I am probably more nervous than I’ve ever been. Not the heart-pounding, sweaty-palmed anxiety you get before a performance or a presentation, but something more subtle and difficult to define. Well, not too difficult: I’m scared to graduate. The past seventeen years of education should have prepared me for this (graduating is the point, right?) but I’ve never dared look past the midterms and final papers to the inevitable conclusion. On Sunday, years of learning will be transformed into a degree, and I’ll walk off Graduation Hill both elated and terrified at the prospect of never again discussing Ulysses, or singing in Skinner, or walking around Sunset Lake with a cigarette and my thoughts. A good chunk of what I’ve learned will only be pertinent if I’m playing Jeopardy from home.
Maybe I’m more worried than most-I’ve been in boarding schools for over half my life, and the prospect of living on my own without a dorm full of like-minded bright young things will take a lot of getting used to. Vassar, in particular, has given me more than I could ever expect. On my revisit day, I could immediately tell (I think most of you could, too) that the students here are exceptional. Not exceptional in that tri-varsity-athlete-straight-A-student-aspiring-biochemist kind of way (though there’s that, too) but exceptional for their character. I received some small confirmation of this when my friend’s father said, “The kids at Vassar know what’s up. I like their head space.”
I don’t know how to define “head space” exactly. Does it mean we’re liberal? Probably, but “liberal” is a tricky word to pin down, and it often ends up sounding like one-half of a bipartisan conflict. Thankfully, there is also the liberal arts, the sort of education thanks to which I’m able to use the Oxford English Dictionary to pick out convenient definitions. The first: “Liberal-the distinctive epithet of those arts or sciences considered worthy of a free man,” and then there’s “free of restraint, free in speech or action,” and my personal favorite: “free in bestowing, bountiful, generous, open-hearted.” Some of you have maybe learned this already, but if you ever can’t find the words for something, let the Oxford English Dictionary do it for you.
I’ve had the good fortune at Vassar to work with incredible writers, both teachers and students. From my freshman writing seminar to Senior Composition, my experience at Vassar has been one of always reaching to find the right words. Working in the Writing Center, I’ve read and revised countless papers by my friends and peers, and every time I read something new I’m astounded by the variety and depth of knowledge on display. All I have to do is show up to work, and inadvertently I learn about shifts in magnetic poles, Utilitarianism, Coca-Cola marketing strategies in China and the detective stories of Edgar Allen Poe. I’ve concluded, after almost four years of writing and editing, that one thing will make a fantastic paper: passion. If you don’t care about your argument, neither will anyone else.
The trick is to find that argument, to find that passion, the one thing that gets you so excited you’ll just die if you can’t tell someone else about it. That’s the point of writing, the point of any communication at all. I’m nervous now, but I do know what I care about, and I’m going to write it like crazy now that I’ve got a diploma and no excuse not to.
Thanks for four great years. I think every graduating senior has found something at Vassar that has changed them and made them better. I encourage you all to be free in bestowing, bountiful, generous and open-hearted with what you’ve learned.
Being done with your final set of finals is a wonderful thing. With my work finished I have been able to take my last few days at Vassar at my own pace, sleeping in until ten thirty, playing video games, going to the gym and then having a late afternoon tennis match. I had just been commenting to one of my housemates about how wonderful this was, that being at Vassar without any work to do was freeing and relaxing, but I should have known that telling someone would jinx it. Within five minutes of these remarks to my housemate, I was approached by the The Miscellany News, which asked me to write a senior retrospective, and it only had to be 800 words. My first thought was, “800 words!! Hell no, honey! I am not writing ever again!” My second thought, “You clearly have never spoken to any of my professors or you would know that I am NOT the right person to ask to write anything!” My third thought, “Could be fun…question mark?”
Needless to say, I accepted the offer. However, I hadn’t walked ten feet from Contributing Editor Miss Teeters before I started stressing. It’s not that I don’t have plenty to say about Vassar and everything it has given to me personally but that’s just boring! Nobody cares about reading that! I could write about the many high school-esque dramas which I have experienced, and while that may be more enticing to a reader I was not sure I wanted to expose so many tawdry details of my life. I struggled with trying to pinpoint the discussion I wanted to raise through this retrospective. What was my thesis going to be? Do I have an argument? Is it cohesive? It was about the point when I started outlining what I wanted to say that I realized that Vassar may have influenced me too much. So I chose instead to “screw it!” No argument, no point, no organization and no mind for who is reading. This is my retrospective, and it might as well have my rambling, unfocused and manic voice!
Having just done a word count I see that I am already succeeding at establishing myself as a rambler! I have written over three hundred words and said nothing! Point for me!
Although the gifts and changes Vassar have given me go far deeper a simple superficial look at my first and last days at college paint a vivid enough picture. Snapshot: I arrived at Vassar a starry eyed 18-year-old boy who could not break out of the boarding school fashion. I was obsessed with theater, had too much ambition, too competitive and was determined to make a name for myself. I spent my year wearing polo shirts with popped collars trying to convince myself and the rest of Vassar that I was straight. I was a first class know it all who had so much hope. Snapshot: I am graduating in a week. I am 22 and still starry eyed. I am obsessed with dance and theater and truly understand how lacking my knowledge of both is. I want to learn everything I can and am always hungry for more. I am celebrating my one year anniversary with my boyfriend in two weeks. I would not argue if someone told me I was a pompous arrogant human being, but I would say that I know my own shortcomings now. I can see my lack of experience, and although I still have hope, I am filled much more with fear and anxiety.
In case the changes between these two pictures were not clear enough here is a run down. One, I came out of the closet. Hurray for me! I now own more glitter, heels and Disney princess paraphernalia than is probably healthy. Two, I was introduced to my deep passion for dance, an art form I had never taken part in before college other than basic choreography for musicals in high school. Three, I have realized how college is a secure bubble. I have been taught that I am not an adult yet, and even after graduation, I will still be studying how to become one. Breaking down the changes in this way they don’t seem like much, and yet I found myself breaking down into tears with every professor I said goodbye to, with every last class I took, even when I handed in my last official assignment. My boyfriend tried to comfort me through the worst of these episodes, after I had said goodbye to one of my ballet professors, and he told me that I can always come back to visit and that although it will be different, Vassar will still always be my school. I explained to him that it’s so much more than just my school. I found myself at Vassar. It has shaped me and molded me into who I am. Inherently Vassar is a part of me and although college was not without its hardships I personally owe a debt to this school. One I am not sure I am ever going to be able to repay.
Okay, so maybe rambling along was not my best idea because not only have I babbled past my word limit I wrote the sappy college admissions essay I was trying to avoid. So I am going to attempt to make my summary brief to make up for this. Vassar, I will miss you and, by the way, I owe you.
In my first meeting with my pre-major advisor, Erica Crespi, I was pretty sure that I wanted to be a doctor. So over the next two and a half years I labored through the standard pre-med classes such as neurobiology and organic chemistry more interested in simply completing the work than actually learning anything. Then, halfway through my junior year, a friend introduced me to the Vassar Uganda Project, a small student-run organization that did global health work in rural Uganda and my coursework, academic interests and professional aspirations were turned upside down.
Upon returning from Uganda I switched my major from Neuroscience and Behavior to Science, Technology, and Society, which allowed me to pursue my newfound interest in global health and international development. I started taking classes that I actually enjoyed rather than ones that were simply a means to an end, I developed better relationships with my professors and even started receiving better grades. These changes would not have been possible without the guidance of my advisors, professors, and administrators who were relentlessly supportive of my goals. This past January I was in Haiti with three fellow students during the devastating earthquake and the first people to contact me (after friends and family) were my professors whom I had developed relationships with over the past three years.
I’ve had many moments over the past few years where I’ve wanted to change something about Vassar, but upon reflecting on my experiences I now realize that Vassar has changed me far more than I will ever change it. I will take my interests and relationships with me into the real world—with a pit stop at graduate school first—knowing that Vassar fostered my passion for global health, and despite the challenges I have faced in pursuing this interest I will leave here with zeal and profound interest for what lies ahead and a deep respect for what I am leaving behind.
