College is somewhere where you learn a whole lot about yourself. A lot about how tough you are, how well you handle stress, how you respond to adversity. It’s a little be scary, but I realize that in the long run it’ll be good to know these things about myself.
There is a joke about Cornell: How many Cornellians does it take to screw in a light bulb? Two – one to screw it in, another to crack under the pressure.
It’s darkly funny because it’s true. Cornell is freaking hard. Coming from an engineer in the midst of prelims, trust me. I feel like every single complaint I had about high school work was ridiculously trivial. Of course, I was having much more fun in high school so at least it balanced out the stresses of everyday life. Not to say that I’m not having fun here. I love the people, the campus, the atmosphere. But I certainly don’t have as much time to myself. If any. I am working CONSTANTLY – and not to get ahead but simply to keep up. It’s maddening sometimes (especially when hanging out with Arts & Crafts – er, I mean Arts & Sciences – majors). The divide between the workloads is deep and wide.
The other hard part is how smart everyone is. It’s the most bizarre feeling to be in the bottom of your class – where I currently sit in the class that was my intended major coming into college. It’s not that I’m stupid (also something I’ve had to tell myself), it’s that everyone else is brilliant.
I’m determined. I refuse to give up. If I fail, it will be in spite of my best efforts, not because I didn’t try. That is my resolution.
Holly! You are a brilliant young women. And your feelings are shared by many of college student that has majored in Engineering. I can remember sitting on the bathroom floor in my dorm then night before my first exam crying on the phone with my mother at 2AM.
ReplyDeleteAnd it is hard to hangout with students that are not engineering. Not to say that their majors aren't hard, but engineering is of a different caliber. Engineering students at SU use to call Newhouse (the journalism school) the 'FUN HOUSE'.
Keep your chin up!!!