Sunspots (https://sunspots.cornellsun.com/tag/guest-blog/)
Dear Freshman Brittany,
Welcome to Cornell! You’re going to change so much over the next three years, and I’m legitimately so excited for you. A lot of your personal growth will pivot around your mental well-being. It will not be an easy or linear trajectory, but it will bring necessary and worthwhile progress. Part of me wishes I could tell you exactly what to do, what not to do, and what I wish I had done.
I have no right to feel guilty when I tell a rocket scientist or a pre-med I’m an English major. And yet I can’t seem to ditch that ball-and-chain question that follows me everywhere I go: why am I doing this? Who will I be helping? I know the generic answers, the ones that bespatter college applications: I really enjoy writing (true), I want my writing to have an impact on the world (good luck with that), I like to read (also true), my favorite author either went here or teaches here (though I cannot possibly live up to her). When I look at what my major has taught me thus far, I see infinite possibility – which is synonymous with impossibility.
“Look, this is the Bill and Melinda Gates building,” my dad said to my mom for the fifth time as we drove past Gates Hall on our way to East Hill Plaza. My parents don’t get to visit often, and I don’t blame them, since they live 2,000 miles away. My dad works as an IT, so he will always feel compelled to tell the whole family where Gates Hall is the few times they visit me. Again, I don’t blame him. I’m a first-generation student and I know my parents did not get the opportunity that I’m getting right now to study Computer Science.