Starting your first year of college can be pretty darn exciting, especially when you’re doing so in a whole new country. Most of us have had a similar pre-move-in experience the summer before college: counting down the days until move-in, spending hours scrolling through Pinterest for dorm decor ideas, making lists after lists of what to buy, and figuring out what to bring from home versus what to leave. If you’re as dorky as I am, you maybe even read a book on how to be successful socially and academically in college. Nothing really compares to college anticipation, waiting for the opportunity to finally step out into the world and owning it like the bold, beautiful, brilliant woman you are.
As such, immersing yourself in the brand new, unfamiliar culture of college can be really refreshing when you waited in anticipation of it for an entire summer. However, now that the wait is over, I often find myself reflecting back on all the things that I had taken for granted back in Hanoi and that are not accessible in New York. Here are the top five things that I wish I’d done more of during the summer before moving to Barnard:
- Spend more time with my family.
-
Although this might seem fairly obvious, getting to see my family is definitely what I miss the most about home. From what chick-flicks had taught me, I didn’t think that I was going to miss my family so much because I’d be too busy with my social life. It can be easy to take seeing family on a daily basis for granted when living at home because it can get old, but being in a new environment full of strangers can make you miss seeing a familiar face all the time.
- Eat loads and loads of street food.
-
One thing I’ve found that NYC doesn’t get right is pho. I don’t know whether that’s because it can only be eaten right on a cramped little table next to the neverending streams of motorcycles with the hot, humid air of Hanoi, but I’ve found that eating pho in a neat restaurant just isn’t the same experience. So to all of you future international college students out there: eat all of the ~exotic~ street foods that your hometown has to offer while you still can!
- Read a ton of books.
-
I know what you’re probably thinking — read, during the summer?! Right before stepping into college where I’d surely have to read an average of 50 pages per night?! As I’m sure many of you will agree, though, there is a huge difference between reading things for fun and reading things for assignments. It’s hard to find the same thrill you get from reading for pleasure (yes, there is such a thing!) by reading assigned texts for college. I’ve always loved reading and discovering new books, but only when I have a choice in the matter. Being told to read a book and having to write a 1,000-word response afterwards just isn’t the same.
- Take loads of pictures.
-
I’ve always been one of those girls whose photo library has thousands of photos (and I’m very proud about it). I do appreciate the occasional scroll through my phone’s photo library to reminisce on all the photos I took during my adolescent years, especially the ones with family gatherings. Even so, I’d never truly appreciated this until I became exposed to a strange, unfamiliar setting for longer than a month. I realize now that I should have also taken photos of the daily things in Hanoi, such as the friendly street vendors and rows of motorcycles.
- Learn and appreciate the beauty of cooking!
-
Cooking has always been such a chore to me. Until college, I’d never really been able to understand the “beauty” of spending hours prepping and cooking a meal, only to spend 30 minutes eating and then more time cleaning up. Although the meal plan has been a savior in making sure that I don’t actually have to do any of this, dining hall food has kind of been a mood killer. I am a big sucker for good food (who isn’t?), and the dining hall food is far from what I’d consider to be good food. When my roommate suggested getting together to cook earlier this week I was a bit reluctant, knowing that I’d be absolutely useless to help cook. I found out afterwards that the act of preparing food can be surprisingly therapeutic. I was left slightly shocked at myself for going two hours without thinking about my computer science problem set! This is not to mention the feeling of deep accomplishment and satisfaction one gets from producing something edible.
The list goes on with all of the things I wish I’d done more to truly grasp the beauty and familiarity of my hometown, Hanoi, and to make better use of my time during the summer. But we all know that life doesn’t always work like that, and in some ways all of these overdue reflections have sparked a sense of gratuity for my identity as a Viet gal!