The evening before first day of freshman year is supposed to be memorable at Penn. At an event aptly named Convocation, it is the first and only time an entire class is gathered as one before graduation. It’s usually a time when administrators sing arias to the entering class “as the best class the University has ever seen…until next year’s.” It is also where eighteen-year-olds are told that the future leaders of America and the world must venture beyond comfort zones and pave roads for posterity (note the sarcasm here).
Convocation in front of College Hall
I don’t remember much from my Convocation. I was supposed to feel inspired and yet I felt my shoulders sagging from the onerous task at hand. It was already difficult trying to figure out, plan out what to do with the rest of my life. I didn’t need some stranger to tell me that posterity depended on the choices of my peers, of me. What a piece of $%*&, sautéed with a pound of “privilege.” However, it was a chance to begin anew, and I ate it up. It didn’t turn out all romantic. I struggled with the idea of facing the unknown.
It wasn’t a surprise to anyone that I started and ended freshman year as a premed. I am a product of a doctor and a chemist. While my parents advised me to not enter medicine or science, I adamantly refused to give up the idea. I was the typical “organizational kid” who planned out every class I would take for all of college. It wasn’t until summer of 2005 when I realized every piece of life cannot and should not be planned.
Backcover of the last issue of The Whole Earth Catalog from the 1970s (?)
In June that year, I stumbled upon a YouTube recording of Steve Jobs’ commencement address at Stanford. As his closing, Jobs suggested the newly minted cum laude’s to “stay foolish, stay hungry,” to find what you love. To date, Jobs rarely made plans and took everything in stride. It was very inspiring precisely because his life was the exact opposite of mine. Jobs’ speech, a month in China, a summer living in West Philly, and a few other developments led me to reconsider my college plans. To NOT make plans. Like everything in life, word and action aren’t always in sync.
The idea of trusting in the Mysterious is a serious leap of faith. I continuously struggled with this for the rest of my college years. I was a definite planner. While I didn’t travel a straight path (gave up the premed track), I didn’t stray too far from familiarity (I stayed in math and science with a touch of the humanities).
By senior year, I was sick of school and lost myself in the job search. The culmination of my undergraduate years, the thesis, was a disappointment. My majors became a bore. Job interviews started to sound alike. I was especially sad to say goodbye to college friends whom I wouldn’t see every day or week. I was never good with geographical separation – ask my old friends from New York or Chicago, ex-boyfriends, etc. I foolishly thought if I could plan out my life, I would escape the immeasurable pain of moving on. Graduation eventually came. After a month of wunderlust in Europe, I entered the working world.
It has been exactly one year since I said goodbye to the Quad. Another difficult “first year”, and it isn’t getting any easier. It isn’t supposed to be. And a meaningful life is even more difficult to find, to define. Haha! Oh if only life could be as easy as writing a paper, a maximization problem, or a spreadsheet. Convocation may seem like it was a million years ago, but that exhilarating feeling of adventure lives on; I just have to soak it up here and there so the blast of color from each rising sun doesn’t fade.
“and let the future come into each moment like a rising sun” - Mason Jennings’ “Be Here Now”
