My road to Brown began with a detour in 1939. In the late summer of that year, my grandfather drove to Dartmouth to start his freshman year. When he arrived, the football coach told him there had been a change in policy, and they could no longer provide the scholarship they had promised. Unable to pay the tuition, my dejected grandfather got back in the car to return home. On the way, he spotted an exit for Providence, and decided to try his luck at another university. He walked into the Brown football office, asked the coach if he needed a left tackle, and said he would do anything-any odd job or chore the school required-in order to get the financial aid he needed to stay. My grandfather was offered a spot on the team, and began his illustrious career as an All-American football player, an actor in several Sock&Buskin productions and, in his senior year, a commencement orator. His heart beat for Brown and, when he graduated, he began a family tradition of Brunonian pride. In the winter of 2007, three weeks after my grandpa died, I was admitted to Brown.
Looking back now, it is quite easy to view my grandfather's decision to take that exit for Providence as a fateful one. However, he certainly couldn't have seen it that way in 1939. At that time, he was just an 18-year old kid who wanted to get a college education he could afford. As young adults, we often crave the cathartic comfort of examining life from the safety of hindsight. Looking backwards, we can mold our lives into straight, smooth trajectories. Professor Arnold Weinstein frequently describes the myth of the resume. He notes that while our CV's package our lives into clear categories like "Education" and "Work Experience," far more has influenced our education than the academic institutions we've attended and each day has required more work than the summer internships and student jobs we list for potential employers. When we look backwards, constructed artifacts like our resumes and transcripts tidy up our pasts, making them seem purposeful and patterned. However, when we look forward, it is really impossible to categorize life while we live it.
Because of the murkiness of foresight, I suffer from a chronic case of "clarity envy." Like many Brown students with a similar ailment, I look at classmates whose courses, extra-curriculars, and summer projects seem to line up into straight paths towards successful, unique futures, and wonder how to streamline my own decisions and forge the "best" path for myself. For example, while I knew I wanted to study abroad, I agonized over what destination to choose. After I'd sent in my deposit for a semester program at Cambridge, I spent a tortured late-night phone call with my parents attempting to convince them I made the wrong decision. How could I have opted to study in an English-speaking country, rather than exploring somewhere truly foreign or perfecting my French skills? It was only after I rowed on the River Cam for my adoptive college, experimented with a completely foreign educational system, and developed an interest in philosophy that continued to flourish upon my return to Brown that I realized: there are no "best" choices.
Milan Kundera must have interviewed a few Brown students suffering from "clarity envy" when he explained that "wecan never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come."[1] But then again, would we really want directions dictated to us, even if they were read by that soft yet stern voice recorded on GPS systems? Imagine: (Imitating the GPS voice) Turn left in 1 year towards the job in Chicago. Turn right in 3 months to move back in with your parents (don't worry it will last approximately 6 months).
While our lives may not stretch out before us like well-formatted CV's or the directions from a GPS system, as Brown students we are uniquely and thoroughly prepared for the decisions we will have to make in real-time. We are all experienced practitioners of course-charting and path-finding. Our Meiklejohns help us plan liberal learning trajectories and link our varied interests in paths that meander across dozens of disciplines. We follow up with professors we admire and classes we've enjoyed by forming UTRAs, independent studies, and independent concentrations. The diverse array of experiences at Brown fills each day with the possibility for a new adventure. Meeting my friend Zana who was raised in Vietnam and now lives in Singapore, led me to visit that tiny, fascinating island in Southeast Asia. Randomly shopping a class in Linguistic Anthropology led me to an international UTRA in London. Reading Morning Mail led me to a Japanese Taiko Drumming workshop where I got to bang on drums the size of golf-carts. While these decisions may not fit into an immediately obvious or direct trajectory, they form the fabric of our unique identity that is woven and strengthened during our time at Brown. These choices may come with uncertainty about the larger path we chart, but they also bring unexpectedly opened doors and opportunities for growth.
As we step through the Van Wickle gates, our choices will evolve from which classes to shop and what room to pray for in the housing lottery to more complex decisions about what jobs to take, where to live, and how to form a family. While we may continue to wish we could wipe the mist off the lenses of foresight, we will not be able to zoom out and know the consequences each choice will bring. Instead of fearing the missed opportunities of the paths not taken, we must have faith in the course-charting skills that Brown provided us. Like my grandfather, we must take full advantage of the highway exits, doors, windows, and even airshafts that are opened by each decision. As the class of 2012 walks down the hill, I hope that, rather than striving to continually make "right" turns (which won't take us far from where we began), we retain our identity as courageous, intrepid, reflective Brown students, and simply continue to march boldly forward.
