I graduated!
Wooohoooooooooooooooooo!
As an off-season grad, a workaholic, and a then-procrastinator, I did not think the word “celebration” would quite capture the experience. My signal for graduation was submitting my essay two days before Christmas. And five months later, at the actual graduation, when the entire campus was filled with sky blue and excited parents, I felt surprisingly at peace.
I started this blog in February with an ambition to finish it in two hours, and it turns out that I actually needed four months. Oops, let me pretend I didn't write that sentence! Patience is a virtue. Everything we do needs time to grow :).
And here it is, my friends, three of my most cherished lessons in undergrad —
When my thesis adviser told me I should contact Joshua Bell (an incredible world-class violin soloist), I thought I heard it wrong. “I am nobody. Why would he want to speak with me?” I tried to argue my way out, reasoning why it was impossible. My adviser did not back down. After destroying my argument with confidence and logic, he briefly paused and said: “Connie, don’t hide behind your insecurities.”
That was the turning point for me. I had no other things to say. All the reasonings I conjured up were to hide my fear, and I knew right then that “fear” itself is something I must overcome.
The other day, I was speaking with my other thesis adviser. I felt it was time to apply to music schools, but I was hesitant. Violin playing was one of my biggest deep-rooted insecurity growing up.
“But that is what you are most passionate about,” she reminded me, “Overcoming self-doubt is always a part of the process. Don’t try to avoid it.”
Right. The problem is not about the conservatories. More determination is what I need — to tell my true self apart from the noises in my head. To say to myself that the noises do not represent who I am. My lesson is to remove this part of self-doubt from this part of my journey.
I can, and I will.
We all have the experience of finding ourselves in a situation we don’t want to be in, but somehow ended up there and couldn’t leave.
Last semester, I was in this one class that I dreaded for three years and kept putting off until I absolutely had to take it, or else I couldn’t graduate. Even though I dropped my expectation to the absolute minimum, the class turned out to be worse. I barely agreed with anything in the assigned readings. I did not know what was happening in the lectures half of the time, and when I did raise my ears to listen, I was often disturbed by what people said.
I complained to my friends every week. In the meantime, I was building up a giant, dark cloud of resentment over my head. Slowly, my creation began to weigh on me, taking over my mind space and draining me mentally, physically, and spiritually.
The highlight appeared at the semester’s midpoint when I submitted an 8-page essay without an argument. How is that even possible? Well, don’t ask me! As someone who generally tries to find positivity in everything, that class was an actual test — I couldn’t figure out why I had to be in that situation and sit through that intellectual bullsh*t.
Gradually, I realized that I was attaching too many emotions to what I had to do. Objectively speaking, I only needed to write two good essays to get a good grade. But my resentment had blurred my perception of reality, making the task much more painful than it was supposed to be. I constantly hoped it would get better even though I knew it was impossible. At that point, I learned to shift my focus away from the content of the course to learning how to craft a convincing argument and kindly state my disagreement (rather than smashing my words on people’s faces without considering what they have to say). And because of that, I wrote an interesting essay with a topic that I loved in the end.
Those emotions that I attached are what I call “dead weights.” They can manifest in positive and negative forms. On a positive note, I’ve received so many encouraging nods for my thesis. I know from the bottom of my heart that it is a worthwhile pursuit. However, amidst a continual cycle of praise and external validation, I somehow experience much resistance and work extremely slowly.
When I look back, several reasons surfaced. Working on a thesis or any project is a big undertaking. The task itself is complex. It’s not supposed to be easy. Sometimes I forget about that and start to get frustrated with my inability. But hey, skills take time to develop. I have to allow myself to try, fail, get back up, and repeat.
On the other hand, I became distracted by the overwhelming support I received. My focus shifted towards “I don’t want to disappoint” or “my future career depends on it” rather than “just go ahead and complete this project.” I lost sight of what was truly important.
The truth is, you know who you are. You know where you want to be. And now, just do it.
During my 4.5 years of undergrad, I thought I would major in Econ, maybe Math, Psychology, or Sociology at some point. Ultimately, my love for Music shined through. When I was about to settle my mind, I added a major in Education right before the start of my senior year.
There was a lot of chaos. I took many random classes, learned, and forgot concepts I probably do not need for everyday life. I followed wherever my interests led me until I distilled my passion for learning into one area of focus.
Would I do it again in grad school? Not to the same extent. Would I recommend this approach to everyone in their undergrad? Probably not — the ability to stay focused on one thing until reaching mastery is admirable to me. It is something that I hope to develop in the next few years. But I also want to remember the lessons I learned at Barnard/Columbia, a space that has encouraged me to follow my curiosity.
The first half of my understanding of “following your heart” is having the audacity to try. It doesn’t matter what you do or what you choose to study. What matters is the attitude that you bring to the experience. Right now, I am working at a start-up. My main areas are sales and marketing. Due to the nature of the initiative, I am also involved in everything else — design, social media, eCommerce... Basically anything that is needed to facilitate the healthy operation of the business. Unlike my undergrad self that approached everything with an incredible drive, I retreat into my little shell, rejecting, if not resenting, things that I do not categorize under my “interests.” It is a mindset I should change. This goes back to lesson #1: the desire to follow my heart is too cumbersome when it is outweighed by resentment and insecurities. If something is hard for you, try it out to see if you can do it. If you fail, then try again.
The second half of this lesson is about having conviction. I am not usually the regretful type that ruminates about “what ifs.” However, there is one thing that I would like to change about my past self: to do fewer things but with more determination.
My family signed me up for many extracurricular activities when I was young. Even though I was well-liked by teachers, I only tried to meet the baseline of excellence — the amount of work enough for the teacher to appreciate my effort. As I grew older, I started to adopt excuses like “I’m not talented enough” or “I don’t have time” to mask my laziness and mediocrity. Even when I finally recognized my passion for music, phrases like these still frequently appeared in my vocabulary. The thing is, there is always someone more gifted and disciplined than me. I can draw inspiration from others, but walking my path is up to me. When I start to find excuses, I am only fooling myself. It is my business. I must take charge and be responsible. So the question is not only doing things with conviction but also becoming determined to do what is right at this point in history.
It doesn’t mean that what is right for you now will be right for you in the future. It also doesn’t mean that you should limit your imagination and only measure your success against specific standards. But you do have to be brutally honest about your motivation and focus. There are noises everywhere that may tell you otherwise. Our job, as hard or easy as it is, is to stay open-minded, tune into our inner voices, and enjoy the process.
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After transitioning to post-grad life for six months, I find it fascinating how everyone talks about the excitement of graduation, but no one tells you what happens next.
There was an intense period of transition, re-position, and self-reflection. Everything was happening simultaneously, spiraling forward, accelerating to the climax. Then, the bubbles burst, reaching a dreary silence: “How would you build your life from this point forward?"
A part of myself did not want to leave. I knew I thrived at Columbia — friends, mentors, community, music...... I had everything I wanted right there and then. Since I graduated in December, every two weeks, I came back, sat in classes, went to many office hours, and squeezed in late night practice sessions at Schapiro even though the place I stayed was almost two hours away.
It was a breather that I desperately needed to separate myself from the work setting that I found myself drowning in. But life went on. I made some progress, bits by bits, dragging myself out of the most painful period that I experienced to date.
Five months later, when I sat with all the amazing Barnard girls in a beautiful sea of blue — the very color that made me fell in love with Columbia at first sight — my head was empty but my heart was full:
“Ah, it is time for me to go. Finally."
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