I recently came across a list of six reminders for bad times from Tumblr user AngryAsianFeminist that I’ve somewhat turned into six rules by which I live.
1. You are allowed to take up space. You are a human.
2. You are allowed to have a voice.
3. You are allowed to leave whenever you feel unsafe or uncomfortable.
4. You deserve more than someone who doesn’t know how to respect you.
5. You are allowed to put your own needs first.
6. You are allowed to love yourself.
Though I found this list recently, these almost perfectly summarize much of my growth and discovery I’ve experienced over the course of my time at Dartmouth.
1. I didn’t always feel like I deserved to be at Dartmouth. Even before I came, I was antagonized for my acceptance. As college decisions began to trickle in my senior year of high school, I began to hear the oh-so-familiar, “you only got in because you’re black” from my peers.
Nevermind that I had pushed myself to succeed. My achievements were cast aside and belittled to save the very frail egos of some of my high school classmates. I expected, hoped and prayed that it would change at Dartmouth, and for the most part, it did. Yet a handful of my Dartmouth classmates dressed these same insults in fancy statistics laced with condescension.
It didn’t make any sense to me at that point. Didn’t they also get in? Did they need to rain on my parade to make themselves feel better? As a freshman, I took many of these snide remarks to heart and let them eat at my self-confidence. Not until that spring did I realize that I didn’t need to defend my existence here. Neither do you. At the end of the day, there’s no need to reassure those around you that your journey to Dartmouth was more legitimate than anyone else’s. You deserve it just as much as they do.
2. As the middle child of two successful parents and an intimidatingly high-achieving older sister, you could say that “greatness” had always been expected of me. Yet I never took the time to consider I wanted my own “greatness” to look like.
I came to Dartmouth naively planning to become a doctor and immediately signed up for every pre-med class I could get into. I liked science in high school, and this plan sat well with my parents’ vision of success. Before long, I realized that I couldn’t buy into the dream they had for me. My pre-med classes bored me, and I had no motivation to do the work.
Eventually, after nearly a year at Dartmouth, I couldn’t pretend anymore. I needed to change everything about what I was doing, but it would take a few more terms before I would become comfortable abandoning that dream altogether for a new path. I hated feeling uncertain about my future, but I hated forcing myself to follow the preconceived idea of my success even more.
After fumbling around and trying to figure out what I was doing, I’ve become more comfortable with uncertainty and voicing my own desires. My time at Dartmouth would be miserable if I never voiced what I wanted to do. I had to take control over my time here to be happy.
Never forget that your time at Dartmouth has to be of your own making. For that to happen, you have to voice your opinion.
3. Dartmouth can have a way of making you feel like you have to do things for no other reason that it’s just what you do. My freshman year was full of people telling me to go on Dartmouth Outing Club first-year trips, run around the bonfire, rush, take this class, go out this weekend and hike this mountain. If you want to do these things, do them. Many of them have been integral parts of my own Dartmouth experience, but remember that what someone else thinks is a great time won’t always line up with what you want.
I forgot that freshman year, and there were plenty of things I did that I never wanted to do. Don’t be afraid to voice that discomfort. Listen if your subconscious is telling you that something’s wrong. I bought into the idea of having a preset Dartmouth experience more than I considered my own safety and comfort in the spaces I visited and friendships I made.
Don’t let yourself get caught up in all of that. It’s not worth it. If you refuse to voice your own discomfort or fear, you may have some fun here and there, but that feeling will follow you around for the next four years.
4. Not everyone at Dartmouth is going to be your friend. There are people at Dartmouth who may be the complete antithesis of what you look for in a friend, something I failed to realize when I arrived at the College.
I thought I would find a new friend everywhere on campus. It took a long time for me to realize that I was allowed not to like people. I was allowed to hate someone. People here don’t always respect who I am, and I have no obligation to give them the respect that they absolutely refuse to give to me. Never feel the need to back down or stay quiet if you feel victimized by another person. You deserve better than that. Surround yourself with those who respect you as a person all the time. Your time here is too short for anything else.
5. Dartmouth students have mastered the ability of appearing busy, constantly running to some meeting, practice or rehearsal. I didn’t realize how much I had adopted this mindset until this past spring when the large gaps in my iCal made me anxious. I found another extracurricular to fill the time and consequently made my term miserable. I was tired, busy and never found time for myself.
Had I known better, I would have dropped something. Instead, I was stubborn and decided I needed to see things through. Don’t be as bullheaded as I was. Drop something if you need more time for yourself. Ask for that space to take care of yourself — it’s absolutely crucial to surviving at Dartmouth. Don’t do anything that doesn’t bring you some sort of satisfaction. Don’t stick with things because you feel like you have to. You have a short time here, and you don’t want to waste it because of a foolish sense of duty. Find the things here that make you happy.
6. This is perhaps the most important reminder I ever received. Somewhere in my time at Dartmouth, I started looking for places to find a sense of self-worth and value. In order to feel any sort of positivity toward yourself, you have to learn what you love about yourself. Dartmouth won’t explicitly give you the space to do that, but it’s the most important thing I have done to thrive here. Learn why people here give you the time of day. There’s something amazing and incredible about you, I promise. There’s a reason that someone thought you deserved to be here. Figure it out.
’18s, I’m excited to see you begin to carve out your spaces at Dartmouth. This has been a place where I have grown into someone I’ve become proud of, and I hope it can do the same for you. Welcome to Dartmouth.
