Before coming to the University of Rochester, I didn’t know what to expect. Certainly, I was excited for the experience. I recall the prior summer being dreadfully long. Still, I could not claim to know exactly what lay ahead of me. That doubt, then, would become integral to my college experience. For the next four years, I would not know what to expect. Yet Rochester assured me that uncertainty, supplemented with academic freedom, would only improve my four years here.
Just the other day, a close friend described college as four of the most unique years of our lives thus far. The nearly unfettered freedom we have, coupled with the close proximity to friends, provides an environment unlike any other we’ve yet experienced. Not a distraction from our lives at home, he continued, it instead serves as a springboard to our futures.
With one year already retired, the thought of my future after college creates the same doubt that I felt prior to college. This time, however, thanks to my experiences in the past year, I have learned that doubt should serve as a tool to better my mindset. My freshman year, I regularly told people over the summer, was the best year of my life. And often, the best memories came not from the planned, regularly scheduled activities, but the random, last-second decisions that I made with friends.
As a student with an interest in economics and politics, I have taken a different academic path than most of my friends. I often realize, in conversations with natural sciences people, that there are countless paths one can take here. And regularly, I hear of people who encountered a new passion after one course, one conversation, one club.
What first seems like a small decision ultimately motivates career changes, ignites passions, and changes lives. Our environment here is so conducive to change. Our nearly unconstrained academic freedom facilitates those decisions. Because of that, I can say that I have learned to appreciate doubt and use it as a tool.
Here I am confident that, my decisions notwithstanding, I will end up occupied with my passions. Doubt only makes my eventual path to my passions all the more intriguing. And for that, I have the motivation to decide freely without the fear or worries of what is next, for surely I will end my journey here satisfied.