One of the most surprisingly difficult parts of my college experience has been explaining it to my mom. She immigrated to the US from Germany when she was 23, so concepts that are natural and familiar to me aren’t as intuitive for her.Â
Growing up attending American schools, the idea of college, choosing a major, and starting over in a new place was instilled in me from the moment I entered a classroom. Much of my high school experience revolved around where I was applying and how to shape my extracurriculars to seem “well rounded.” It was expected of me to move away from home and start the next chapter of my life. Whether or not I was explicitly told to do these things, there was an invisible force guiding me through them; they felt natural and expected.Â
However, the more I had to explain these standard parts of my education to someone completely removed from it, the more arbitrary it all felt. I began to recognize how much of the college process we internalize. The actual application, the idea that certain schools hold prestige over others, even the uncertainty about my path, were all things that I had accepted as “how it is.”Â
I navigated most of the process alone, since things like college essays and the applications in general were completely foreign to my mom; she was convinced I could go wherever I wanted. I had her sign where needed, but the first time she even found out where I was considering going was when I made her drive me to Los Angeles to tour UCLA.
When we got there, she was astonished. The campus is beautiful, obviously, but one of her clients had told her it was a good school, so she had practically already decided I was going there — she even bought me a sweatshirt.Â
When I got into UCSB she was excited for me, but she was equally excited about the fact that she could visit me in Santa Barbara and go on wine tours in Santa Ynez. The reaction made it even more clear that the definition of college itself depends on personal experience and cultural upbringing.
My mom’s perspective is drawn from the fact that she didn’t attend university in Germany, where education is focused on specialized academics and campus social life is far less relevant. Generally, students choose a very structured path from a young age and stick with it until completion. She said she didn’t go because she found it “boring and strict,” and chose to become a hairstylist instead.
To me, the “college experience” revolves around personal development, building relationships, and strengthening my future. To my mom, it was simply that her daughter was moving away from home. The contrast made me realize that an experience I always thought of as “normal” was actually just shaped by my environment, not something that was inherently natural.Â
When I actually got to school, this realization was further emphasized, especially through Greek life, which revealed that even social experiences can be structured through expectations and norms. The idea that for a couple weekends, I needed to dress up and visit each house at certain times throughout the day to meet all the organizations felt meticulously organized.
As a campus collective, we treat the process as “normal” but when I had to sit down and try to explain recruitment to my mom, she looked at me like I was crazy. From her point of view, I was willingly subjecting myself to a strictly scheduled, coordinated and almost artificial way of making friends.Â
Conversations with my mom challenged my assumptions. I used to think that my idea of a college experience was universal, but I now understand that it was something I was taught to believe. I remember being frustrated that my mom couldn’t wrap her head around what I was trying to explain, but it was because our perceptions of the same systems were completely different.
Unexpectedly, the more I tried to explain something as simple as my major, the more complex it became. She was experiencing college for the first time with me, and through that process, I learned how many things I had accepted without question.