notalexus:

KCHILT IS MY BA ADVISER!

EVERYONE SHOULD BE SO JEALOUS THIS IS THE BEST EVERRRRRRR. SHE IS AWESOME I LOVE HER. SHE THOUGHT I WAS REALLY GOOD IN NOWHERETOWN (LAAAAAWL) AND SHE IS GOING TO SEE INTO THE WOODS BECAUSE SHE IS AAWWWWWWEEESOOOOOOOOME.

@anothercellardoor WE ARE…

So! I have been meaning to re-blog this re-blog for a minute now, but. Finals! And my computer breaking prevented me. So here it is.

First of all, Hi! Kschilt is the best, and the class(es) in question were Adolescent Development ( discussing g teen sex, and identify formation) and Emotions and Cultures Blah Blah Blah Buzzwords (discussing anxiety, and an awful lot about sex, and why we have it and how it makes us feel, but only for like a class and half, out of the 10). So they weren’t actually about sex, but sex came up a lot because Teens! And Feelings!  Sex is sort of important to both.

And as a note to your bitter rant, well not really a note or a response, but I was struck by I guess how different we fell about the school? I am only entering the last quarter of third year, so who knows what will change, but I’m surprised at how little my feelings about the school have changed.

I know the horror stories. I’ve lived the horror stories, and I anticipate no shortage of them in the future, perhaps only understanding that I don’t yet know the depths of despair that I will sink too. But as far as I have sunk, and will sink, I have always managed to float, kick, swim, and claw my way back up. This is not true for everyone. The University of Chicago is its own special type of gauntlet, and not everyone finishes this race, or even wants too.  That is fine. That is perfectly acceptable, and understandable, and I won’t admit to a certain amount of mild jealousy when I talk to friends who have left, and are so much happier for doing so.

But I am in this race to finish it, and I knew it was going to be hard, the hardest thing ever maybe, and I welcomed that.  I’ve never lost my enthusiasm for this school, for going to my classes, perhaps because I knew it was going to be a struggle. It’s hard. The University of Chicago is very fucking hard; don’t let anyone tell you any differently. I am going to say it again, it is hard. You will have too much work and not enough time. You will not understand anything in your classes. Your peers will sometimes seem too stupid to live, or so far advanced that your presence in a class is laughable, why are you even here.

 Expect this.

 I expected this, and maybe that’s why I haven’t lost that….sense of wonder, maybe? I had a general idea of what I was getting myself into, and as I struggled to pass my classes fall quarter of first year, and it was a struggle, I didn’t think to consider that it was The University of Chicago that was at fault. I was mostly astounded at how little I had learned in my grade school education, and how coasting by on a smile and the minimum amount of effort was not going to cut it here. Good. If I had wanted to coast through college, I would have gone elsewhere.

Slutsgetcut (if you are creepy, I am too!), mentions my struggle with love being a social construct, and how for her, (I am guessing you are her?)  Social constructs are old news. For me, it wasn’t so much the idea of love not being a social construct that I was struggling with, but the fact that I had been given the tools to analyze all of the social structures I saw around me, and to learn how to deconstruct them, but I hadn’t been.  Everything is a social construct; I know this. I was surprised at my surprise. I didn’t realize that the societal idea of love still meant something to me. It shouldn’t, but I hadn’t done my intellectual homework, and that showed during class. I don’t know if you really can only have a concept blow your mind once, but I am constantly astounded by my own ignorance.

When I was looking at colleges, I knew that by choosing the University of Chicago, I was making a sacrifice of a certain type of lifestyle and undergraduate experience. I made that sacrifice willingly and with my eyes open. Was a still shucked, sometimes, at how difficult things could be? Did I still end up, on more than one occasion, sobbing on the floor of my room convinced that I could not do what I was expected too, convinced that I was to worst sort of failure and a disappointment to everyone who knew me. God, yes. But I never really blamed Uchicago for that. I think, and perhaps my work in the Admissions Office biases me, but I think that Chicago does a very good job of letting the world know that we are incredibly serious about our academics. They don’t tell you that you will have a nervous breakdown (you might not! I am very dramatic and take things far too personally! I’m working on it!), but they do stress academic rigor.

Right after I got into the U of C, my sister’s friend, who is an alumna of the university, sent me a congratulations e-mail. My mom had given me 4 days to pick Chicago, Northwestern or Carnegie Mellon. All three were offering me the same amount of money (a lot), and I just needed to make a decision. I wrote to my sister’ friend asking:

“I guess my main concern about U of Chicago, is the intensity, and the workload. I know both schools are challenging and “hard”, but Chicago does have a reputation (“where fun goes to die…” I hear that every single time I mention Chicago. It doesn’t get funnier), and I’m sort of afraid that I won’t be able to handle it, or spend four years crying over my textbooks. You don’t know my study habits, so I guess there’s not much you could say on how much studying I’ll need to do, but I’m really afraid that I’ll go there and end up swamped and won’t enjoy myself.”

 

She wrote back:

 

“I think you have a very valid concern, and a smart one. The workload at the U of C is very intense. I think that I definitely learned how to study, how to write, and how to overcome any doubts about myself. The “where fun comes to die” reputation has elements of reality, but I know that my friends and I definitely had a good time, whether throwing oranges at each other in the library or making snow angels in the winter, there was always something to do. I also remember my friends studying very hard and focusing very intensely on subjects like general chemistry and information technology.

 

But, even though it’s not the most social place, if you find yourself at home at a bookstore, at a poetry reading, at a lecture, then you will find fertile ground for your brain at the University of Chicago. And, the rub is - everyone, everyone I went to school with felt overwhelmed at one point or another. The U of C seeks to break you down to build you up - it’s a truth I had to face when I broke down in my advisor’s office.

 

But, here’s the bright side - Aside from climbing Mt. Kenya last year, I’ve never done anything as challenging. Graduate school for me (and most of my U of C friends) was a breeze. I met my best friend in the world my first week of college, and even though my U of C friends are nerdy, they are very smart and accomplished in their field(s). But, I also experienced a lot of stress in my undergraduate years. It was hard, plain and simple and no amount of prior work could have prepared me for it…plain and simple. I love the city, but if I had to do it again, I don’t know the answer…”

 

First of all, I appreciated her honesty. I e-mailed a ton of people form different schools, and none were so honest. That was appealing. But what struck me the most about her answer was the line “The U of C seeks to break you down to build you up”  and that she was still unsure as whether she would do it again, even given the positive experiences she gained from it. Call me a masochist; that resonated very deeply within me.  I give a lot of reasons for deciding to come to the U of C, but honestly. It was the Ivy on the buildings, my 5^th grade trip to Chicago, Fall Out Boy (SORRY) and this e-mail.  I was barely 17, if that helps.

So I decided to come here, I chose that sacrifice, and what has made it worth it, what has made it so so worth it, 1000 times over, is what I have gained. The people I have met, the experiences I have had, the classes and professors and d strangers I have met, have been some of the most enriching and amazing in my life thus far. I look at what I’ve done, what I’ve been able to do, what I might do, and I know that I can thank the University of Chicago for that.

Could this have happened at any other school? Maybe. Who knows, I think focusing on the past in that way is unhealthy and a poor use of time, and if I’m going to waste my time, I’m going to do it by watching RuPaul’s Drag Race (not a joke).

My excitement hasn’t waned, it has only intensified. I look forward to, most, of my classes, and I recognize the necessity of the ones I don’t.  Even when I was crying in my advisor’s office (foreshadowed by that e-mail?) I never wanted to leave the school.  Uchicago has not broken me down entirely, but it has made me so much stronger than I ever thought I could be. All of the really awful experiences are just part of the process, the other side of the coin. (Midterms suck balls everywhere; we get them three times a year which is its own special sort of suckaitude, but we knew that. Except for this one kid I met who actually didn’t know what the quarter system was, his shock was legit.)

So! To any future Maroons reading this: Congratulations! As for advice: You are going to have a lot of hard work, if the idea of that is uncomfortable to you, this may not be the school for you. That is fine. Not every single moment is going to be an intellectually stimulating odyssey into the outermost reaches of human thought. There are going to be moments where you feel stupid, where you feel everyone around you is stupid, you don’t give a shit about what anyone is saying, all you want is a sandwich and a drink. That is fine.  You are going to have fun. You will spend at least one night watching the sun rise, with three pages left to go on a paper hat was due the night before at 5. That is also fine.

Uchicago is going to try its best to break you, so it can build you up in its own image. It’s fine if it breaks you, (breaking students since 1892!)  But let it build you up in the image of what you would most like to be.

Congarts to everyone entering or leaving: you deserve it. Good luck.