If you had asked freshman-year me what I wanted out of college, I probably would have given you a list of clubs, leadership positions, internships, and networking opportunities.
I thought I had to do everything. Everyone says to “get involved,” but no one really explains what that means. For me, it meant trying to join a sorority, do Model UN, and do ROTC all at once because I thought those were the things that would make me look more impressive to other people.
It took me until junior year to realize that getting involved isn’t about filling up your calendar. It’s about filling your life with things that actually make you happy.
At the end of the day, I’m glad none of it worked out because it led me to finding things I actually wanted to join. Now, as a junior, I’m finally creating the space and time to do things that I actually enjoy, even if they won’t be the most significant things on my resume.
Dance.
I’ve always loved to dance. Ever since middle school, I would find myself watching those professional dance videos to my favorite pop songs on long car rides, and I would feel a rush rising from my stomach to my head about how amazing it would be to be one of those dancers. So, in middle school, I joined the dance team, and it was amazing to move my body in such a freeing way. Yet, after COVID, I let insecurities and a fear of being seen stop me from pursuing my interests. So, I put down the idea and joy of dance to focus on school and the promise of success.Â
Yet one day while I was abroad, I went out with a group of people to a bar. I was fully sober, like too sober, and I felt this tension within me like I was seeing everything I wasn’t sufficient in in everyone all around me. Despite this, I chose to let go and I went to the dance floor and moved my hips to the rhythm to the point where I felt that head rush I had always felt when watching dancers perform. It was this rush of joy that overcame me. It didn’t matter how good or bad I was. It was freeing and exhilarating.
So finally, my junior year, I joined Passion for Dance, and it’s been absolutely amazing. I go out there every week and learn moves around all these wonderful dancers, and I absolutely suck at it. Yet that joy still hits me every time I get the groove, and it’s been the most exhilarating experience to get to learn something new and be relatively bad at it in front of other people.
If I could go back, I would tell freshman-year me to just get out there and do what’s exciting to her, even if she’s scared—especially if she’s scared. If I had let my fear hold me back like I did when I was younger, I would have never rekindled past passions of mine.
Do it scared. As long as you’re willing to get yourself out of your comfort zone and open yourself up to new experiences, your world will open to endless possibilities.
I found out what fills my cup through looking at my childhood hobbies. I loved to learn, to read, to write, and to dance. So now in college, I have the space to let out my inner child and just dance without shame, without fear, and without judgment. Just pure joy in the movement.
Maybe getting involved doesn’t have to mean joining everything, building the perfect resume, or meeting as many people as possible. Maybe it can simply mean finding the things that make you feel like yourself again.
And sometimes, the things that matter most are the things that don’t make it onto your resume.