Throughout my life I’ve been a planner. I get it from my mom and brother. If you want to host a summer cookout, my brother will have a spreadsheet for you with people who are coming, backyard games, types of meat to grill, side dishes, drinks, and the cost of everything. While I also enjoy planning events, I am more of a long-term planner. Although it changed, I always had a plan of what I was going to do when I got older.

When I was in elementary school, I planned to be a 2^nd or 4^th grade teacher. When I was in middle school, I wanted to have a job where I could travel the world, so I wanted to be a photographer and journalist. In middle school, I planned out everything: where I would live, what type of house I would have, how many children I would have and all their names, the type of car I would drive and the car my husband would drive, etc. When it came to what college I wanted to go to, in 5^th grade I decided I wanted to go to a large Division 1 school like IU. By 8^th grade I had my eyes set on Mizzou because I knew they had a good journalism school.

Once I got to high school, I began to take my plans more seriously. Towards the end of my Freshman year of high school I realized that I would not make much money being a professional photographer and decided after learning about the Holocaust that I wanted to study international relations to help prevent future genocides. (I was such an idealist back then.) For the rest of high school, I wanted to study international relations to become a UN ambassador.

When it came to applying for college, I focused on schools that had the best IR programs. Junior year of high school all I could think about was applying to Johns Hopkins. I even registered for two science classes for my senior year because I knew Hopkins was a school that focused on the sciences. The summer before my senior year of high school I scheduled to tour the campus in Baltimore, Maryland. However, during the time that I was so focused on Hopkins, College Board kept telling me that some school with the name “American University” was a 100% match for me. For months I didn’t take it seriously because how could a school called “American University” have a top program in international studies. Well, about a week before I left for my visit to Johns Hopkins, I finally looked at American University’s website and was interested in the variety of majors that they had to offer. I liked the idea that it was right in Washington, DC, and it did have one of the largest programs for international studies in the country. Finally, I gave in and scheduled a tour since I would be going there the weekend I toured Hopkins.

I toured American before Hopkins and fell in love with the campus. AU made me feel like they wanted me to go there. On the other hand, the people at Hopkins sounded like they only wanted you if you were planning on majoring in engineering. They didn’t even have a brochure of information to give people even though there were 500 people touring the campus that day.

Flashforward a little over a year later, and I started my first year at AU.

Throughout that year I explored DC for the first time. I went to museums. I went monumenting at night. I went to a concert on the National Mall, and I went to the Cherry Blossom Festival. I went to Nats games and walked around Georgetown. DC was now my playground.

Throughout the first semester I explored different friends’ groups. I didn’t know a single person who currently went to AU or had attended AU in the past, so I was on my own to make friends. Throughout my first semester I craved the experience of going to parties on the weekend. Unfortunately, my cravings at the time couldn’t be satisfied because AU’s party scene for underclassmen was exclusive to those who had connections to fraternities – something I didn’t have – and I didn’t feel like I fit in with the Greek life scene. I also worked at athletic events which meant I usually worked on Friday and Saturday nights and during the day on Saturday and Sunday – basically the same times that other people were going to parties or going out with their friends in DC. Because of this, I didn’t have an established group of friends until the second semester.

Throughout the year I explored different activities. Going into AU, I was excited to join the yearbook staff, but after submitting my application, I found out that they had officially ended the yearbook. Instead, I ended up getting a position on the e-board of the new Photo Collective as the design editor. However, that only lasted a semester because it required me to use Adobe InDesign which I had no experience using, and I didn’t have the time to teach myself. I also would be in-charge of coordinating the first photobook to be published in the Spring and that just felt overwhelming, so I ended up resigning at the end of the first semester. I laugh at this now because I often forget that I was not only a member of Photo Collective at one point – but I was on the e-board. I also attended College Dems meetings, went through recruitment for the honors co-ed fraternity at the beginning of the second semester, and towards the end of the year, I joined the Africa Initiative which pushed for more African studies courses at AU.

For most of my first year, I wasn’t sure where I fit in. I didn’t feel like I truly fit in with the politics scene; although I went through recruitment for the honors fraternity, I never felt like Greek life was my scene; and even though I enjoyed my international studies classes, I didn’t feel like I fit in with the other students in those courses either.

Finally, towards the end of my first year I felt like I was finding my niche. I had a solid group of friends I hung out with regularly and was going to room with the following year. I switched my federal work study job from working at athletic events to tutoring students who were below grade level in their literacy skills which freed up my weekends to spend time with friends. I became comfortable navigating DC on my own. I became an active member in the Africa Initiative. And to my surprise, I decided to change my major during my second semester. After taking a politics of education themed writing seminar, I realized my passion for helping improve the education system within the US. I had also taken an African literature course my first semester that helped me fall in love with reading and analyzing literature. With those two combined, I switched my major from International Studies to Literature with the goal of becoming an English teacher.

Despite having found my niche socially and realizing my true passion, I had a wake up call with my academics that semester. After doing very well in Macroeconomics my first semester and getting a 100% on the final, I became overly confident when it came to Microeconomics. I thought I understood the lectures, so I barely studied on my own and never once attended the TA sessions which were extra credit. I ended up getting a C on my first exam. This was hard to swallow, but I knew I only had myself to blame because I didn’t study. Regardless, I still didn’t attend the TA sessions and ended up with a B- for the semester.

My Politics of Education Writing Seminar gave me the biggest wake-up call though. After earning a B on a paper that I spent about half the semester working on, I was devastated. Writing had always felt natural to me. That semester I worked harder than ever on that paper, and yet I earned a flat-out B. I read over my paper several times and read the comments my peers had given me over and over again, but I still just couldn’t make sense of it, so I went to talk to my professor. This was the first and only time I ever cried during a professor’s office hours. She went over my paper and reassured me that I was one of her top writers. She told me that she and her office mate (who had been my writing professor first semester) discussed that while my writing seemed to have plateaued at the beginning of the second semester – my writing had significantly improved over the course of that semester. Through my tears I told her just how exhausted I felt, so she told me I should go take a nap before my next class. She also reassured me that if I got an A on the final paper and let her know that I had helped another student with their paper, I could still get at least an A- in the class. Reflecting on this specific experience, it reveals a lot. It reveals that I had not left behind my high school need to get an A on writing assignments or feel like I was one of the best writers in the class. This experience reveals that I still found my worth in my academic achievements regardless of my lack of motivation to do well in Micro.

Compared to the next three years, my first year doesn’t seem that eventful or meaningful. When I first started thinking about that year, I wasn’t sure what to write because at first glance nothing significant happened that year – I felt like I was just wandering around trying to find where I fit in at AU. But now that I’ve dug deeper into the puzzle pieces of that year, I realize that while they don’t connect into one big picture, the experiences I had that year would set me up for the rest of my time at AU.  

“I’ve learned one thing, and that’s to quit worrying about stupid things. You have four years to be irresponsible here, relax. Work is for people with jobs. You’ll never remember class time, but you’ll remember the time you wasted hanging out with your friends. So stay out late. Go out with your friends on a Tuesday when you have a paper due on Wednesday. Spend money you don’t have. Drink ’til sunrise. The work never ends, but college does…”
― Tom Petty