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“Dear Lydia, Congratulations! You are among a very select group of students who have been admitted to the University of Southern California for the spring semester of 2010. I know that when you applied, you intended to begin your studies here this fall, so please read on and let me explain this special opportunity.”
Special opportunity my ass.
The moment I tore open the big envelope from my dream school is engrained in my memory as one of the most confusing emotional experiences of my high school career. I burst into an embarrassing onslaught of happy tears when I saw the golden-hued “Welcome to the Trojan Family” — the words I had imagined USC admissions officers whispering into my ear as they pulled open the big metaphorical door to my collegiate dreams. I burst into even more tears when I saw the words “spring semester” and realized that they wouldn’t make room for my borderline-applicant self until January. My dad looked at me perplexedly and asked awkwardly, “Lydia, are you happy, or are you sad?” I looked up at him, and said, “I have absolutely no idea.”
For the first time, I had no clue what to think about my education and future, a situation I was completely unprepared for as a Lowell student who had been trained to stick to my assigned academic track and not expect any rifts along the way as long as I joined the right extracurricular activities and kept up my grades in my appropriately challenging courses. This formulaic existence had taught me to expect only the expected: Everyday will start with Mod 1 and end at Mod 20, I will always get a B in English, I will graduate after four years in a cardinal cap and gown and I will start college three months later. Being told that the essential last part of my plan would have to be altered was like finding out in the middle of self-scheduling that the Mods 16-17 section of your math class was cancelled and that you’d have to rearrange your whole schedule in a matter of minutes to get out of arena alive. Multiply that feeling by a billion and you have me — freaking out over what I’m going to do with myself for the fall while everyone else goes off to college and happily continues on track. I was angry that I’d have to miss out on the friend-making first semester and that I’d get stuck in the worst housing or no housing at all, but most of all I was angry that the next year of my life was going to be so different than it had been in my blueprint. This gladiator was going to have to take a little detour in the arena, for her self-scheduling plan hadn’t allowed for battling lions like these. But with the wise words of Project Runway’s Tim Gunn in mind, I knew right away that I’d have to “make it work.”
In the mean time, I was blown away by my peers’ reaction to my spring admission. Most people either didn’t see the difference or said they were jealous of my time off. That was when I began to look at the whole situation in a different light. For the first time in my life, I will have the opportunity to spend my time however I want. I will laugh at the idea of life being broken up into 40 or 65-minute increments and will get to know myself outside the context of being a student. After all, who will I be when I don’t have tons of homework assignments to catch up on and other people’s prom dates to gossip about? What kind of life will I live in San Francisco now that I’m not so preoccupied with getting into college? The fall semester is going to let me find out.
The most valuable lesson I’ve gotten out of this experience is that I can reevaluate a less-than-ideal situation and put it in a more flattering light. There is no way I’m going to look at this semester as time spent waiting for life to start up again. My bucket list for the fall includes but is not limited to: getting over my fear of driving and getting my license, something I wasn’t motivated to do when I had a dozen friends with cars I could mooch off of; becoming a Starbucks barista and learning how to make all the drinks I order on a regular basis (these coffee-concocting skills are sure to make me everyone’s best friend in the spring during midterms when people are craving caffeine late at night); mastering every Muni route; trying out adventurous haircuts that I’d be too self-conscious to try when I have high school hallways to walk down and basking in the unexpected opportunities of a gap semester.
I still daydream of USC admissions officers calling me up and notifying me that I’ve been one of the few students bumped to fall admission, but it’s not something that’s eating me up inside anymore. I’m confident that I will start college with the mindset of an adult, as someone who has experienced the real world where, after all, there is no self-scheduling announcer to pick classes — or life choices — from. So, USC, even if this spring admission is your way of telling me you could live without me for that fall semester, I’m still going to thank you for this “special opportunity.” |
