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It’s my third year as a First-Year Mentor, and this year, my mentees — unintentionally, I’m sure — made me feel ancient. Over lunch at Nolan’s on 33rd during Orientation Week, I gave my mentees my perspective on the social scene at Hopkins, and one made a comment to the others about how I have years of experience here. As in, “We should listen to what she has to say.”
Yana
The University is mourning the loss of Amir Modaressanavi, who passed away on Sunday, July 16. He was a junior studying Computer Science at the Whiting School of Engineering. Modaressanavi was a member of the Table Tennis Club, Tennis Club, Students for Environmental Action, Economics Club and the Johns Hopkins Film Society.
This past Saturday, I spent my night in the Ralph S. O'Connor Center for Recreation and Well-Being. Instead of smelling like sweat and disinfectant wipes, the Rec Center was filled with the White-Claw breath of hordes of Hopkins students after a day of dartying. We were all gathered (way too close together) on the basketball court to watch Kehlani, this year’s Spring Fair Concert headliner.
Like many kids who grew up watching Disney Channel, I often pretended that I was drawing the logo with a sparkly wand alongside Brenda Song or Miley Cyrus. I would stare at the TV and ask my mom why she didn’t put me in acting. I always got the same response: “I didn’t want you to end up like Lindsay Lohan.”
It’s a nearly universal experience for U.S. kids: You go to the grocery store with your parent or guardian, come across the wall of colorful Lunchables packages and beg for a box, holding up the “Nachos with Cheese Dip and Salsa” or the “Chicken Dunks” with puppy eyes and a pouted bottom lip.
It has been three years since I saw most of my high school teachers in-person. The 500-plus seniors in my class left campus in March 2020 and — aside from dropping off textbooks, attending a drive-through graduation parade or picking up our diplomas — most of us never returned.
At a school like Hopkins, it can seem like half of the student body is pre-med. You can’t walk through Brody Atrium without hearing someone mention shadowing, clinical research or biochemistry.
Ever since The Cheetah Girls 2 premiered on Disney Channel in 2006, I’ve wanted to go to Spain. Granted, I was 4 years old. I don’t think I even grasped what countries were then. Yet, I knew I wanted to see the streets of Barcelona where the girl group sang “Strut.”
Navigating college involves a lot of trial and error. Whether it’s oversleeping for an exam or switching majors three times, we inevitably have missteps that we can (hopefully) learn from. But there are some lessons I wish I didn’t learn the hard way. Here are a few things you should know in advance in order to have the best college experience:
This year I blew out my birthday candles a week early. It’s the first time I’ve been away from my family for the big day, so before I left for Baltimore, we sang around a Publix cake on the kitchen island.
When I was 5 years old, I wished upon a shooting star. I was swimming in my backyard at night and saw a flash in the sky. Now that I’m older, I’m pretty sure it was just the blinking lights of a commercial airplane, but that possibility didn’t occur to me then. I had watched enough Disney Channel to be convinced my life was about to change.
You can’t go to Hopkins without hearing about impostor syndrome. As soon as I accepted my admissions offer from the University, it was like a specter waving at me from the semester to come. The phrase continuously popped up in Reddit threads and prospective student group chats. Upperclassmen warned me that I would sometimes (or often) feel inferior to my classmates, doubt my intelligence and wonder how I ever got accepted in the first place.
Tomorrow I get my first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Since Florida expanded eligibility to all residents 18 years and older on April 5, I’ve been obsessively checking the Walgreens and CVS websites for appointments. I know my vaccination won’t change anything immediately except cause soreness in my arm and maybe some cold symptoms, but the moment feels significant.
My grandmother is dying.
Since the start of high school, I thought the idea of college was alluring, for more reasons than the picturesque red brick and the independence it promised. I wanted a space to grow intellectually rather than regurgitate facts about U.S. history. I wanted classes where my beliefs would be challenged and where I would learn from peers with backgrounds different from my own. What I sought in college, I have found in one of my classes this semester.
Content warning: The following article includes topics some readers may find triggering, including depression and suicide.
When freshmen started moving to campus this month, I tried to avoid social media. I didn’t want to see them posing on the marble steps of Gilman Hall or browsing the quirky shops of Hampden. I didn’t want to see the tapestries on their dorm room walls or the way the winter cold turned their cheeks pink.
I’m spending my entire freshman year at home, taking classes virtually. My social life is a fraction of what it was a year ago, and that’s saying something. While I didn’t imagine the pandemic would last for so long, I knew it would disrupt my plans.
I have been trying to practice gratitude. Throughout the day I tick off on my fingers all the benefits of being home and taking college classes remotely. I don’t have to be away from my family or pets for months at a time. I get to have my mom’s cooking. I can attend all my classes while wearing pajama pants. Tick, tick, tick.