Overwhelmed with my first week of work at Amherst, I took a seat for the first time at the Black Sheep only to glance over at an older man sipping black coffee and reading what appeared to be piano sheet music. Here I was a newly transferred student to Amherst College, trying to make sense of the words in my new text book that I naively overpaid for at Amherst Books, and this man was casually reading sheet music like a newspaper. I’m sorry, where am I?
I went to an all-girls high school, where whites were the minority and where it wasn’t uncommon for someone to bring a gun to your basketball game, but it also wasn’t uncommon for your best friends to be just as poor and ugly as you-but it didn’t matter because no one looked good in a maroon and plaid uniform. I then went to a small school in New Jersey my freshmen year on a full athletic scholarship to play basketball (viva la mini Italia) where it wasn’t uncommon for your suite mate to spill blueberry Brunettes over your paper and it be perfectly acceptable for both you and your professor. Or for your English professor to cancel the final paper, because everyone voted to talk about your first year run-ins with the local police instead.
No, we’re not in Kansas anymore I realized.
So here I was, back in a new town and a new school. And if you’re anything like I was when I first transferred, you’re feeling a little on guard, a little bruised, and a little apprehensive, all entangled with excitement and hope. Not quite a freshmen and definitely not a sophomore, you’re flooded with the same anxieties and uncertainties you had when you were seventeen applying for colleges two years ago. Who will your friends be? Who will you eat with? What classes will you take? How did you get in again? But then you remember to relax and breathe. You’re finally in the clearing, and for the first time in a long time it seems like you can finally say to yourself that you made it.
I too questioned the Administration’s decision to invite me to attend Amherst College. Someone has accepted all that you are and all that you will be. Some of us have been through bad first year experiences at other schools, community college, homelessness, gap years and working. We represent the United States and other international nations. Our path to Amherst wasn’t conventional, but we were never the cookie-cutter type anyways- because we’re used to carving it out for ourselves. I remember how I had cried when I received my acceptance letter. Someone was willing to give me the chance I deserved.
I sat on my living room floor with my million pros and cons list: ‘stay’, ‘leave’ ‘stick it out for another year’, ‘transfer to the local public university’, ‘live in a van down by the river.’ But after hours of contemplation my mother couldn’t stand to see me so conflicted any more. So she came over to me, cupped my puffy face in her hands and said, “If we eat beans and rice for the next three years, I’m OK with that.” What kind of love is that? I guess it’s the purest form of unconditional love and sacrifice- one that I hope to reciprocate in the future to my parents and to my future children. So with that, I accepted my invitation to join my classmates at Amherst.
So, to my fellow transfers new and old, CONGRATS! You haven’t missed out on much by missing freshmen year. You might be late to the party, but it’s always better to be fashionably late anyways! You are grounded and have seen the world at its best and at its worst. But most importantly, you’re here because you worked your ass off. And maybe as a senior you still have those ‘pinch me I’m dreaming moments’. You can be a double major, a debate club president, a research assistant or an ice hockey captain. You can be anything.
I am forever grateful to be at Amherst College. You will never find the least amount of people who have access to the most amazing amount of resources. I promise that your lonely meals in Val will turn into meals with good friends by your senior year. You have learned to bend where the wind blows because you come from a diverse and rich background. If it’s hard to relate to people when you first transfer, give it some time. There are real humans with pasts and paths just as unique as yours underneath those J-Crew sweaters. You have to be comfortable with the uncomfortable and just like you have done before, give yourself a chance. I am happy to say that my one-foot-on-the-ground mentality has been mellowed out since my transfer to Amherst, but it took a lot of perseverance! So cheers! Cheers to the great years you have left at Amherst and the years you have ahead of you. You made it.