Our College Experience (Part 1)

Soliana and Liz discuss their experiences applying to and attending college: things they did wrong and right. Learn from what they didn't know as teenagers. (Part 1)

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hi, this is Beyond Admissions. Today we're bringing you an extended episode in two parts with Liz and Soliana talking about their experiences applying to and attending college. This is part one.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

Welcome to Shaping Your Narrative, a podcast brought to you by Steam Beyond. I'm here with my co-founder Liz. I'm Soliana, and we're here today to talk about our own experiences applying to college and kind of just like sharing some insights about um how, you know, how we began our journey that led us to the spot where we are passionate about helping students tell their own narrative to that.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

And I can say I would I think that would probably be, I still think that my personal statement, like it was good, I think, but I would think I'd be so embarrassed if I if I had access to I remember very little about mine other than the fact that I made one of our like the key mistakes everyone makes, which is that I started at the end, right? And you gave it away. I gave it away. I gave away the most exciting thing I did because I thought that that's what a hook had to be. But then my essay kind of just went along a flat line.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

What was the hook? Like what was your most exciting thing?

SPEAKER_01 1:24

It was um the experience of speaking at the UN's floor, not at the UN, but in front of like, you know, I like in front of a delegation of leaders. We weren't model UN kids. We were leaders from like all many different countries in the US. Um, so it was really fun to sort of like have that experience of speaking to each other, not to compete, just you know, together. People were passionate about politics and international relations, but it's where I end, you know, that was gonna that could have been the ending, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:56

Yeah. I've started mine, mine started off. I mean, that's interesting, but that's on like a really powerful moment. And I feel like even I'm like my my brain is like going into editor mode, and I'm like, it could be you also, it could be the beginning and another paragraph. Like it could be like you could like extricate like part of it. So it's like the the intro is like a cliffhanger, and then you don't find out exactly, you know, you could it could be like a both hand situation too, right? But you're totally right that um that's such a common thing that we see students do. Um my personal statement started off with me talking about how I hated broccoli, I would never eat broccoli, and the reason why was because once when I was like seven or something, I lifted up the fork and I was about to put the like take a bite of broccoli, and then I thought there were little green worms crawling in it, and I freaked out and decided to never eat broccoli again. And the context was that like we were living in Jamaica, and you know, things weren't grown with plasticides and there were little buns and stuff, and I was traumatized by some of the by that experience, and so it like was a segue into me talking about um how like growing up in Jamaica having like an identity, like a bit Ethiopian American identity, and was growing up on like a third culture, and like that was my lead into talking about that. I'm like I don't really remember where it went after that, like I don't really remember what, but I'm sure I talked about things that I did and that's cute. Yeah, yeah. I liked I like I I I liked I've always liked having um an intro where you have no idea where you're like, I'm intrigued, but this feels like it it definitely doesn't like it couldn't connect to like a a college experience. Like that's always been my favorite kind of like wait.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

But that's great though. Yeah. It reminds me of my little brother. My butt little brother grew up um sort of all over and he had a very much like a beautiful third culture kid as you know, of like what it means to define yourself based on home, like your actual home as opposed to one single culture. Like, yeah. Um that's that's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 4:11

I like, yeah, but whereas like I had a like whereas I had a lot of clarity about I think I don't know if I had a lot of clarity, but like I think that I had like a to let to land there and like from where I remember feeling, like I think that I had like a decent amount of clarity around like what to write about and how I did want to shape my Arab in that way. But what I didn't understand at all, like was the college at like just like the the the strategy of it all. Like I went into it thinking like I want to apply to these colleges that have like a 10% acceptance rate. So I'll apply to 15 and then maybe I'll get into one because 10 brings out of 155. With the wrong math equation.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

It was the wrong math equation, but my misguided 17-year-old brain was like, that's how I'm doing this. Hey, you made a system, like it with a structure. Sometimes you just need to make a system to like get yourself through it. You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:11

I made it my own logic flow that I could believe in that was gonna like carry me through doing 15 applications, a lot of which I still had to fill out like by hand. I did a by hand and like was required by hand at that time, I remember, and like Georgetown was by hand.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

Some of them were required, and some I did by hand just because I didn't understand that like I shouldn't do multiple drafts. That blows my mind. I was like I also also to Princeton and I definitely did one draft. You did a first draft.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

Can you believe that? I feel like I won't. Um totally. I mean, I feel like I wrote them. I definitely did not do drafts in drafts because I saw some things, some application material from something like a few years ago, and I was like, this is gonna make first draft. I don't think it was a first draft, but it was probably like a third draft, but it was no one no one else's input but mine, you know.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Yeah, yeah, I'm like I mean the the your description of like you knew what you were telling a story with the broccoli. So you had some insight there. Like I truly am sure that my essay was a resume in like essay format. I had no clue. I just was going in with that idea totally alone. I'm I'm like, so I ended up going to Berkeley, which to me speaks to the fact that, like, as a Californian, like my essays were not all that put together, but I talked enough about a couple of interesting things that they saw the promise because the UCs are less narrative focused. Like they like to see, of course, details, but those essays, they don't care as much about like a beautiful narrative, as much as sort of like really getting the answer to the question.

SPEAKER_02 6:55

Yeah, I mean, they internationally, I think, like give they don't get they don't give you enough space to allow for it. Like with the types of questions they're asking, the 350 words, like you just can't give them a lot of anecdotal. You can give them anecdotal details, but you can't give them like a story. Yes. Because you're gonna not you're gonna waste word count on details that are extraneous to the narrative and then like miss telling, missanswering the question.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Exactly. Totally. And that's why it spoke to me because I was really confused on what it meant to sort of like tell a narrative. I because to me, I could I didn't grasp really that I was like they were getting to know me. I just was like, oh, you still you want to see my resume. That's with my whole brain was in that world, you know, you want to see done. And so I didn't come across the way that I didn't understand the sort of like the more, you know, how in a community essay they really want to see you acting with others. I just thought they literally wanted to hear my about my biggest accomplishments. Right. So the UC system saw that and recognized it and it was the right thing to do, but I wasn't as successful with some of the schools where that was not the right thing to do because you know, I I didn't stand out for the pack, right? Like I still did all right, but I didn't I didn't get all the Ivy acceptances, certainly, you know. Um Do you remember how many schools you applied to? Yeah, good question. I feel like I it's it's blurry. It must have been at least eight, you know, because I know the ones I remember where I got in, you know, and I got into like like five or six. So, but I didn't get into the Ivies. So I just forget how many I applied to. And I didn't know anything about the schools I was applying to whether them brand names. Like I did not like now when I look at it, I'm like, oh, I would have loved Brown, didn't apply there, you know. Um I applied to Harvard and Princeton or Yale and Princeton. Why? I I know I thought they looked pretty, you know, um, really didn't know the personalities. And so I think so much about that. About like, oh, now I know so much more about where a person like me would really thrive. You know, and how do you access that information when you're applying?

SPEAKER_02 9:07

It's really hard to know unless you have to I don't thank you, can necessarily like you know, like some students can, I think, but like I think that a lot of students like don't have access to going to visit a school, or like maybe you can go and visit a school, but like if you go for like an admin student's weekend or something like that, like you're not gonna necessarily get an understanding of what it's like to be a student at that school.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

No, they're they blend together. You just you're like, it's the aesthetics, right? Like when is it?

SPEAKER_02 9:40

I read some statistic that said that um I can't remember what it was, but it because it was a long time ago. But it said that like the weather on like on campus on the day that you visit the school, it was like a huge determining factor. And I can't remember what the percentage was, but I was like shocked for being like that makes sense to me, but like seriously, like this many people are like, you know, choosing it based on their like that experience. Yeah, but I mean, I think that like like for me, like I definitely went to Harvard based on the name alone. Like I ended up I ended up applying to a mix of schools that were like some of them asked me to apply like um scripts and like Notre Dame, I think, and Duke. Um some schools like that. And so I got and some and they flew me out to like visit their schools and stuff like that. Oh that's awesome. Like move. So that was interesting. And then uh I applied to like some schools like Georgetown and Swarthmore that like it was all this reputation, and then like UC and Stanford was the one that I had like spent the most time at, like being someone from Northern California. So that was like the last I had like played some lacrosse tournaments there.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

I'm like smiling, so I'm laughing because Stanford's the one where I live, so I grew up in Palo Alto. Did you want to go to Stanford because you spent more time there?

SPEAKER_02 11:11

That so Stanford was so basically this was my story, which I pulled so many students because I really wanted to go to Stanford and I applied there early and it was the only school I didn't get into. And I think that it was because I spent the next two months after I submitted it like improving my application.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

Yeah, so is URL.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

Yeah, yeah, because I I didn't think of it as a trial. Like I didn't think of it as being like, oh, this is a work in progress application. Like I thought like this is you know the the best work that I can do. But as somebody who's like a perfectionist and like just my personality type and stuff, like there was no way that I was going to submit something and then just be like, okay, I'm not gonna keep improving it for two months. So like I kept improving my personal same. And then I also, which we see with all of our students every single year, like you start out being completely like a novice of the call-up application process, and then by the time you leave, you are skilled at it to some degree. Oh, and so I just became like more and more skilled at knowing what I was doing, writing the essays. So I mean, I I can't think of like any I mean to me that's like the most satisfying explanation. I mean, I ended up getting like deferred from a couple of like I think I got deferred from Yale and then ended up getting in, and maybe I got deferred from one other school. But I was like, I never I mean, I thought I was gonna get into one or two schools, one to two schools. So I was very shocked when I got into like all of the ones I applied to RD. And I also because of the Stanford decision, I was just like, oh, I guess that I'm not I think that even made me, I don't remember because this was like, I mean, this was in 2003, I guess, that I was applying. So I don't really remember, but I but I'm I knowing me, I imagine that even like I think it already had my system of like how many schools I was applying to, but I'm sure that like the Stanford rejection, which I would have gotten before because I don't think I got deferred. I think I got rejected outright. If I recall correctly.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Yeah, when you're like a promising applicant, Stanford often if they're not taking you, they'll reject you so that you like you you know you're not you so they strike the fear of God in you. Yeah, yeah. But then they know that you like you can you can know to plan to relate twice for somewhere else. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:37

Totally. And I think that that's actually like good in a way, but for sure it like I I I probably drew the wrong conclusion from it. I don't think that it made me feel like I was like a strong applicant because I got yeah, rejected. So then I ended up having like a whole other deciding was just like I remember I visited Columbia. I don't think I don't think I visited Yale because I think that like when I went to the East Coast, like I think I was still deferred and I was just like, whatever. When I went to like Harvard, I didn't apply to Brown, but also for me, I'm like, that's the one I would have liked the most. I didn't go to Princeton because I was like, I'm not like what I Harvard was the one that to me was like, wow, it's Harvard. So it kind of just became like I was trying to measure things up.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

Yeah, no, I didn't, I like I think I applied only to Yale and Princeton, and I got waitlisted at Princeton. Um, but then I got Georgetown and NYU. I almost went to NYU because they gave me money. And that was my other thing, is that like they gave me enough money, you know, and for me, so that like once and then I got an Emery and a bunch of other like sort of like mid, you know, um great now, but they were them. It's so funny to think about that. Thanks so much, but like, but at the time we're like decent, but not like amazing, right? Um, in terms of their reputation, because again, I'm going all off brand, like, you know, and then I got into Claremont McKenna and a bunch of like California schools, right? Um, but for me, I realized it hit me after I got into UC Berkeley. So it's funny, like you say I I didn't go, I didn't apply to Stanford because that was where I was from. It's the this I had the best chance of getting in. I worked at the Stanford Physics Department, like all of high school and middle school, like before I was like legally allowed to work. But like um, like, you know, and doing cool stuff. And like that was um that was something that maybe if I look back on my essay, that's what I should have written about. Um, I got completely thrown. Actually, okay, I'm bouncing around in topics, but this is actually kind of funny. Um, I really, my favorite book in high school was Gogol's Dead Souls, and so I already wanted to write about it. And then guess what? You remember the show Gilmore Girls? Rory Gilmore wrote her college essay about Dead Souls. Really? No joke. And I totally floored me and I got really confused and felt really stupid. And then I started wondering like, am I just like a TV, am I a cliche? Like, what do I even like? Am I better about? Yeah. Am I super basic? You know, but like if I look back, what I should have written about is the fact that like I was essentially someone really interested in uh literature and um political discourse who'd worked at the high-energy physics lab her whole childhood. And like that is fundamentally fun and interesting and weird. Like, I wasn't an aspiring physicist. I landed there because of funny circumstance and I got this really interesting job, or like no one that like freed up a bunch of grad students to do other things, you know. But they were like, grad students kept making really bad computer boards for these like high-level, you know, um uh physics like experiments. And they're like, we need someone to do that. And I randomly needed a job. And so they gave it to me when I was a middle schooler. I'm like, could you build these boards instead? And as someone who really enjoys actually like mechanics and mechanical energy engineering for fun, I got I got the job and I just did that all the way through high school, you know? And like everyone would be like, So where are you trying to go? What what you know, what are you interested in in terms of science? And I'm sitting there saying, like, oh, I'm I'm just listening to my punk music and I'm gonna try and apply to be a lit major. But this has been a great experience and all.

SPEAKER_02 17:33

That's a great opening scene, it writes itself.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

Like me soldering wire, like that would have been fantastic, you know. Um, but like I, you know, I didn't know what I was doing. But um, but yeah, so I purposefully lapsed the Stanford deadline without telling my family because I knew I was gonna get a lot of pressure to apply because they'd all gone to Stanford, and I just really knew I was used to being sort of like the like lower to middle income person at a private school, and I knew I couldn't handle that, and I knew that that's what Stanford was, which is also comical, it makes it comical that I was applying to a lot of Ivy Leagues because I just needed to like get out of that sort of exact framework, you know, of being again like the lower income kid in a very highly recessed resourced environment, you know. So when I got to Berkeley, it like broke the mold completely and it was I was so liberating. I felt so great. Everyone around me, I just was on my same level. And it's not to say that I couldn't have thrived somewhere else. It just was from my personal experience. I needed like a wider and of course going to a like going to an Ivy League, there's so many people, there's such a big range of experience. It's just as a high schooler, that's what I was imagining, right? I was imagining.

SPEAKER_02 18:54

Yeah, I mean that was like my experience there, which I didn't have like a frame of reference for. And I like simultaneously when I was applying for colleges, I was also applying for scholarships because like I always knew that I needed to get like I needed to my parents always told me that I needed to go to a great school and that I needed to get scholarships. And I got one that paid for school anywhere. So I and I found out around the same time that I was getting like all my acceptances. Like that's awesome. Or maybe a little bit before, yeah. So I didn't I was like very surprised to be in the situation where like I didn't have to like I didn't need financial aid and like I didn't have to look at those offers or consider that because I had some full right offers and that was like I definitely could have ended up I yeah, I don't know, like that would have completely changed um the way my decision making process. So that was like a huge um also like wild card that like happened that made me then be like, oh, I really nah that's like part of why deciding it so hard because that it was just like oh I can't just consider all of them, and then yeah, and even like even schools then I found it so hard to eliminate schools from my list. I remember like trying to eliminate like UC Santa Barbara and being like, I'm not gonna go to UC Santa Barbara, like I'm gonna go to Harvard or something. And then I'd be like, but UCSB has a beach, like they have a private beach there. I'd be like, I can't, I can't, I can't eliminate UCSV. Like, I want to go to a school that has a private beach that sounds like the best thing ever. And I don't think UCSV was the right school, but Harvard wasn't the right school for me either. Like it was like a very um like oppressive culture, and I didn't know because it was so competitive and people are also like um not everyone's like this for sure, but the people that I knew, a lot of them were kind of like downplay how hard they were working as well. And I just like didn't really find I just didn't yeah, I think that I just kind of um like I just was like, oh I can't I like I don't know what I'm trying to say is that like rather than like in subsequent because we both went to school so many times, like it wasn't until like my third like yeah, my second, my third graduate like program that I was like, oh I like know how to do this now. Like now I know how to now I know that like I can I'm supposed to be like networking with my professors and like talking to them and like if I don't like an assignment then I can talk to them and if I have a rapport with them then I can probably like get things changed and like make sure that I'm like so in in the in the um service of like being able to do work that I cared about because I was like not finding it able to like find like all of my professors were these like white men who Who didn't find my perspective interesting and I thought that they were all talking like bullshit. And like I just was it was there the English department now, and I looked at the faculty. Like, I don't know what the spirit of the department is now, but it looks extremely different to how it did 20 plus years ago. And I just tried to like bump up against people in different ways. And when I got discouraged, it made me just kind of like check out because I was like 18 and I didn't have any experience with like or like the confidence to like like I feel like yeah, to to like be able to be like or that it wasn't even confident, like I just didn't have like the historical and political analysis to be like this problem is structural and it's not your issue, and like all these people are wrong and like complicit and like this institution was built by enslaved people. So of course it's not like a pleasant place for you to be. One thing that I do think though is that like I'm never under the miss misunder like misunderstanding. What am I trying to say? Misapprehension. Yeah. Misapprehension apprehension that like there was a perfect school and I missed the chance to go there. Like I was having a hard time in that period, and I didn't have a clear idea of things, the things that like I wanted to be, I thought I wanted to be a lawyer when I was going to college, and it was like that was unraveling, and it was like clear that I wanted to do something else that I didn't know what it was. Like surprise, I'm an artist, but like you know, I just feel like I didn't yeah, I was really I think that I would have had a hard time anywhere, but I think that there are other schools that like I probably could have had like an advisor who was engaged in my well-being and could have like really helped guide me, which I didn't have and should have had at that school.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Yes, because I was gonna say, like Berkeley I didn't, but like that no surprise. Like, yeah. Right. But I should have. But you should have at Harvard. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:05

And I should have had like professors who were taking more of an interest in me and not like putting all of the burden on like it's like there should I should have had a lot more support. And then there were specific instances of times when things happened where I definitely should have had more support and I didn't. And there are many stories of many people who like should have had more support and did it. Oh and then of course, yeah. So but like, but yeah, but I do think that like it would have I do think that there are places, I mean, because even the weather too was like horrible. Like I filled out a a a transfer application, my winter, my freshman winter, I just never like finished it and sent it. But I was like, I think I was really depressed because of it, and also didn't know that, like didn't know about or even like the that that could be a thing.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

Yeah, that would have shocked me. Like I for sure that would have shocked me. Um like yeah, I it it's funny. Um, Berkeley's not that much further away when I'm from where I grew up than San. Like it's further because it's literally where I grew up, but like it that so I I was worried about being far enough away, you know. That was my whole journey is like, should I make sure, like go to NYU? Should I go to Georgetown? Like, should I go somewhere that's like really far just like for the my need to separate and be apart, you know? Um, and it's really hard to make those decisions. Like that that kind of pro-con list is really because it's not, it's not just like they're not parallel. It's not like this is good and this is bad. It's just, it's just some things seem positive and some are negative, and like you, they don't, they're not one for one. You can't cross them off, you know, they don't negate each other. It's like it's just different ideas, right? So um it's a difficult balance of decisions, but I I ended up just going for it because I knew like the tuition started so low that I knew I could get apply for scholarships and get it to zero, no problem. And that the like the cost of living made sense to me and going east, even with places where I had a full ride, I didn't understand how I could deal, like how the money would with money. Totally and so I'd have paid for that stuff too. That's amazing because I would have gotten out to New York and been like or wherever and been like, um, I a thousand dollar puffer coat, no, like what are you worrying about? And then I would have been like frostbitten and not known what I was doing.

SPEAKER_02 26:37

Um I didn't ever learn that until after college, but I mean it took me so long to learn what real just like that I never I like moved to London and then I was like, oh, all the coats that I had for Boston are right for London. That's I was wearing like weight because it doesn't snow there. And I was like, well, and it clicked, and I was like, oh my god, you can actually like be warm. Yeah, you can wear the appropriate like winter wear and be warm.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

California winter wear is just fashion winter wear. Like it's exactly like I never knew. Yeah, like it's all like it's like still cotton, but with has a little lining or something like that, you know.

SPEAKER_02 27:13

Um what you're saying though is like so that's how I made the decision, like because they're scalded as well, it's that I got like the it was this foundation that eventually like disbanded. So they paid for like one grad program, but then I had to start paying for my own school. And finance like finances were always like probably the number one factor for me, just because like when I think about and I think like if you think about quality of life, like to me, like debt is like such a negative, stressful thing that it's like in order to in order to take on any kind of significant debt, like I need to have like a guarantee of income, which is like very, you know, there aren't that many jobs that give that to you. And it's also harder going into undergrad because almost everyone changes their mind. And also, like, there's not that many jobs that you can get out of undergrad that are going to be like you you basically it's very it'd be very unlikely for you to get a job out of undergrad that would help you pay debt that you took on to go through an undergrad program. It's really more like soon C route, which I unless you go to school, but gonna help you do like an investment making and consulting, sure. But that's also gonna be like only if you go to like a top school that you're gonna be like almost guaranteed to have like access to that kind of job. But right, exactly. So I think like to your point, that's something that like I think that it's wise for anyone who's applying to any kind of program to consider, which is just like the c like the cost. And also like with undergrad, like you can, there's no if you know you're gonna go to grow, I tell students all the time, like if you know you want to go to grad school, then like it should be even more important because it matters so much less. Like if you want to do community college for two years and then transfer to a UC and then apply to like an Ivy League grad school, like no one will ever know that you went to community college or care, and you will have that so much less money than if you went to an Ivy League for both.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

I'm so glad you brought that up because I just remember thinking that the transfer students had it together. Like I just like in classes, I just remember like being a sophomore and they're a junior, they'd just shown up and they were going to every office hour, they were asking you the right questions. They were not like, you know, dicking around and like sort of like turning in an okay paper. They were like working their butts off and they knew what their major should be. And I just remember thinking, like, oh, this makes a lot of sense. Like I found my own way with scholarships for it to be, you know, for tuition to be um to be free for me. But like, if you know, if if that weren't the case, if I hadn't found that, really, what did I even do those first two years towards my major? Like, very little. I just those intro classes don't matter at a especially at a bigger school. There's 150 of you. Like, you're not building a beautiful relationship with a professor. So if you want to be strategic about the community college to bigger school route, like a hundred percent think that that's smart.

SPEAKER_02 30:22

Um, I mean, I think as you were saying that, I'm like, I think that what you do miss out on is like the social like socialization on campus experience. But like, I don't know that that's necessarily a bad thing because I think it depend I think that's highly dependent on individuals because a lot of people come into college and really like experiment with like who they are and start trying new things with different kinds of people. And it's a little, it can be like a really chaotic time, and it can be a time like where you can kind of lose yourself too, like a little bit because you're you have for most people have like more freedom and agency than they've had before up until that point, unless you're coming from like even if you're coming from a boarding school, but that's like the only kind of more comparable those people aren't. So it's like the first time you're living by yourself, and like you don't really have most people don't know a lot of people in the place that they're going. So you don't really have people to like hold you accountable in good or bad ways, to kind of be like, that's not who you are, or something. And I think that like it wouldn't necessarily be the worst thing for some people to like have a couple of years of college to like figure out what's important to you and then go into a context where because like where you where you're actually like meeting people who you might end up being lifelong friends with. Because a lot of times people most people didn't are not friends with the people who they were friends with freshman year. Like a lot of times people meet their best friends in college later on, or even after college, people who went to the same school, but you didn't even like know each other well, like you know, so I think that like if you use it's just making me think that like if you have like the more self-knowledge you have, like the better it is to like be in that kind of the better or the more like valuable that kind of socialization is. I don't know if that's the right way of saying it or if that makes sense. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

No, that makes no, I think that that makes a lot of sense. I think it's also this might be for like another discussion where we talk about like what it means to find your place, you know, but like uh it to the like transfer discussion. I think that it's really important for people going in to know or who's been in college for the last six months to realize like, hey, if you're unhappy, you don't have to write it out, right? Like you filled that out, the transfer application, you never ended up sending it because you kind of realized it was a winter specific thing and you were okay, but like, or maybe you should have, maybe you just needed a push, you know. But like, I think it's really important to try different things in the school, but also know you could transfer out, right? Like I was pretty, I mean, I was fine, I made friends in the dorms, I was having a good time, but I knew that they weren't like my sole friends, you know. They were people we were placed together by default, and we were making the most of it, you know. Um, and like they all wanted to go to frat parties, and I was, I'd been a punk all through high school. And so, like, going to frat parties was like felt really weird for me. It was not my crew, it was not my scene. It felt very meat markety and I hated that. Um, and so like it took me a while though. I remember feeling that way after the first semester, being like, okay, it's been fun and all, but like, is this really am I just gonna like accept this as my college experience or what am I gonna do? And I signed up for a lot of different stuff. I started like going to the CLU because I I thought I was gonna be an ACU attorney, that was what I was thinking first. Like, um, and then I like also started DJing at the radio station, you know, and then I like I did like everything. And um finally I started realizing that the bands I liked were playing at co-ops and that I should just if I didn't really, if I hadn't found my friends yet, you know, it co-ops were the alternative to the sorority, basically, right? You know, and um it would be helpful to just be thrown in with a bunch of people again if I hadn't find my found my people yet. And if that didn't work, then I'd, you know, figure something else out, right? And so I did that. I signed up for the co-ops and I loved it. And it took me a little, I I found like all of my friends, you know, because I just needed then. It was like still by like random, but there were more of us who'd we'd all liked the same kind of music, we all liked the same kind of socializing. And so it had found I'd sort of like narrowed, narrowed the pool, you know, enough to care for myself. But that can be really hard, you know.

SPEAKER_02 35:13

Yeah, you're making me think about how like it's hard, it's really hard when you're in it, but like it's useful if you are thinking about transferring to like to like try to diagnose if it's like um like a culture issue that of the school versus like sort of a I don't know, I don't know, personal issue or if there's if there's a maybe no point to make up, maybe just like to say like if it's a cultural issue of the school. Because like when I when I started trying to apply to try to do lots of things, like one thing I hated was that you had to apply for almost everything. Like you had to apply to join Phillips Brooks house, and like which was like had to volunteer. Like you had to like everything was highly competitive, and there was almost nothing that you could just join. And then also academically, there were no credits, so all the courses were weighted the same. So there were also no fun classes, like you couldn't just take like a ceramics class, like for fun. Like the art classes had to justify being worked the same as a physics lab. So they would also have labs and like a lot of reading and papers and stuff like that. So like now looking back, I can clearly say, like it was you when you were talking, I'm like, yeah, that's my inclination too, to just like try stuff and like you know, to be in lots of different contexts and meet lots of different people. And that's like something that I found so frustrating and disheartening. Um, and then also the fact that just like there felt to be that like maybe there were maybe like the don the dominant culture of like what seemed to take up space, um, were not like the people that I would have had the most in common in or gotten along with with both. And like best, best. And maybe that like wouldn't be true of any school, because I'm like a weirdo, but I would as you were talking, I was like imagining that like I bet that like the co-op scene in Berkeley was like better than like Harvard co-op, which were we considered to be so everyone just acted like they were such freaks that I never even thought about, like, you know, and now I'm like I think they just recycled and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

That's the thing, like, and also it's like if a button at school like the freaks like could have been really, really normal. Like, you know, what's the freak? Totally, right? Like Berkeley. I mean, at Berkeley, some of the co-ops were too freaky for me for sure. Like there was a huge scale of freak. Like, um, and we all had our different reputations, you know, and all of that. But it was like just like sort of like Greek life. It was exactly like Greek life, except for people who like want who, you know, um wanted it wasn't gendered and it was about like it's like I want to live in an easy situation with with people who are, you know, culturally similar to me. No, the co-ops were dirty and messy and had their own problems, but like, you know, you get to choose is the point, right? So if you ever feel limited, if you ever feel like you're backed into a corner and you're in a college environment, like, yeah, like you said, see if you personally can choose to do something different or see if it's a cultural problem. And if it's a cultural problem, like transfer.

SPEAKER_02 38:22

It's no yeah, it's a don't be afraid to be like it's everybody else's problem, not my problem.

SPEAKER_01 38:27

Exactly, exactly. And it's cultural problem means it's just not what you want. You're not putting them down, they don't need to be putting you down. You just are it's like it's like go on a different date, you know, like see something else, right? Um, and transferring it's a little annoying, but you already know what you're doing, you're on top of it, like it's gonna happen, it's gonna be fun.

SPEAKER_02 38:47

And it can also help you define your goals too, in a nice way. Like we see, we were talking the other day about how um in transfer applications, it's really successful when you speak to um what it is that you want to do and why your current school can't support those goals because maybe you've already taken all of the courses or they don't have a major in that you know discipline or whatever it is. And like in writing those letters, I do think, or those applications, I do think that the students maybe like maybe they begin with thinking, like, oh, I want to study this thing, but that by the time they finish doing it, they have like a clear, much more clear focus, which is sort of what you do for your undergrad application, but it's like without the benefit of any college experience, so you don't actually know what you're doing when you write those why essays in the same way that you do once you already have a semester or sometimes a year or a year and a half under your belt, and then you can actually be like, okay. And then that can actually be really powerful and helpful. I mean, I do think that like more people would think about taking a gap year and transferring and the sort of like alternative modes of navigating this process that I certainly didn't like, I don't think I'd ever heard of taking a gap year until I got to college. Yeah. Um, but then I was like, oh, that would have been like that would have been cool for me to like just have like a different experience away from home, probably. Like I'm thinking like if I like could have gone and volunteered or just like yeah, done something that was like maybe I don't know, but like just yeah, I think though that like that I think I find myself thinking about what I it like sometimes slips into what I would have done differently, but more is in the area of like what would I what would I do now, or like you know, knowing what I know now, just because we're constantly like I like don't I never like really want to be in the place of like thinking about like what should I have done differently? Because to this conversation, I think that like I did the best that I could with the information that I had, and there's like nothing really that I could have done differently. But because of the nature of talking with students all the time and like hearing about like their dreams and stuff like that, I do imagine like I have over the years imagined like millions of different like maybe I should have done this or that or this or whatever. Like, and I don't, you know, ultimately I think that like the choices that we make, of course, define us and shape us, but like all roads sort of lead to the same place. Like there's just like I don't think that there's I think that like you know, they college can be life changing and defining, of course. Like maybe you'll meet somebody who you end up as your partner, or maybe you meet someone who gives you a job or sets you on a different path, or what of course, but that can also happen like in the grocery store. Like things can happen at any time. Like I think that like as much as it does matter, like I think that maybe it's just like you know what I mean? Like we I feel like we still put too much pressure if we think that like there's a right answer to the use virgin.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

This has been part one of our extended episode of Liz and Soliana discussing their experiences applying to and attending college. Please join us for part two.