College?

This evening, Mr. Wang came over and talked through a presentation about preparing for college. It was a truly eye-opening and humbling experience.

My friend Winnie also came for the lecture. Originally from China, Winnie lived with a host family in Canada for a while before coming to the U.S. through my dad's immigration service. She's attending my school currently, and it's her Junior year, the busiest year of high school. It's no wonder that she is in need for college counseling.

Prior to Mr. Wang's arrival, I was asleep on the bed. I had a track race at 7:30 this morning, but stayed up late last night to play games on my phone. Yep, the problem's still there. And I was also enjoying myself in bed until it was 12:30. So I was exhausted, from both the race and the lack of sleep. Dad interrupted my nap so I could hear what Mr. Wang has to say. So I, quite reluctantly to be honest, got out of bed to meet our new counselor, also teacher, also consultant. My unwillingness came from both the fact that I wanted to sleep, and the fact that I didn't like to think about my future. However, now that I reflect, the lecture was so worth hearing, I was grateful my dad awakened me just in time. It changed so much. So many of my perceptions, plans, and attitudes.

Mr. Wang himself was simply a parent of two children who have gone to college. Preparing his own children for college, all the research and knowledge involved, gave him enough experience to teach others about the college application process in America. Alan and Judy, the two children, didn't go to Ivy League schools and weren't the absolute epitomes of students. But they were successful and fulfilled. Mr. Wang knew many students who came out of this high school and went to top-notch schools such as Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. The schools that every student wishes crazily to go to these days. He knew what they had to do to get there.

The problem is, I was not like the other kids, and I didn't want to go to a "good college". While I was seeing my peers stress out about work, I thought I was cool for being different and so relaxed. That was a very self-centered thought, and I realized that, but thought it was okay because "that's just me" which is all the more self-centered. Add on to my ego all the cases I've heard that make good colleges not seem that good - the Harvard graduate that came out as a janitor and such - and it's easy to see why I'm not so ambitious about college. I realize now that those are just very rare and exceptional anecdotes that can't really be taken as dependable statistics. But of course I looked them up deliberately to feel good about myself.

When asked about my dreams and ambitions, or what I want to be when I grow up (a very popular question from adults, no matter my age), instead of replying with a firm idea like most kids seem to do, my answer can only be "I don't know." I haven't really thought about my future, and I don't like to think about my future, because it gives me a lot of pressure.

My vision for the future is just like my eyesight --- blurry and getting blurrier by day.

At the beginning I wasn't nervous. I still felt like I have so much time until college and it's too early for me to worry. I was hoping that what he was going to say does not apply to me, and at first it didn't because he was talking about the actual procedure which is more for the interest of Winnie who has only a few months until she needs to apply. That was a relief. But it was when he said he's "gonna be frank" that I became tense.

"You know, you're in your prime right now. The high school years are the crucial years that will determine how your future plays out," he said. I stayed silent, aware that I had been wasting much of my time on meaningless web-surfing and gaming. Ashamed of it. Guilty.

"There are two types of colleges in America: the 'for all' ones and the elite ones," he explained. "The 'for all' colleges are for the purpose of bringing an education opportunity to everybody. The elite ones, on the other hand, are made to develop the very best students. Ivy League is for the elite.

"You can choose to not study for that test, slack off in class, play games instead of doing homework when you get home. That's fine. You'll go to a mediocre college, be an average person and live a so-so life for the rest of your lifetime. But why settle for that when you have the ability and the opportunity? Why not set Ivy League as your goal when you can?

"I know many students - and they were very bright and smart, mind you - who decided to go the 'average' path, only to regret their decision 10 years later. All of them told me the same thing, that their lives could be better had they worked hard in their teenage years.

"So think about it. Really think. In life you have to dream big, even if it seems too ridiculously big to accomplish. At least you have the desire, and that gives you the possibility. If you don't even dream, how can you expect to achieve?"

That hit me right on the point. It reminded me of what I wrote earlier, the giving up that I despised. My original principle of life is essentially giving up! I can't give up on life at 14. That's horrible. Obviously the expectations I had for myself were not enough. I thought that I could be the sole person to make and evaluate my own goals, but that's not true. The world just doesn't work that way, focused on individuals. If I want to live a good life, I need to make money. Money comes from other people. So simply pleasing myself is not enough to support a good life; I need to be able to please other people. Just like I've been pushing myself physically through running track, it's time for me to push myself mentally and meet higher expectations.

On the stories I've heard about good colleges being not so good - what if they're not true? What if they're just lies made up by butthurt students or parents thereof who weren't good enough to be accepted by good colleges?

Anything is possible; things are what you imagine them to be.

I accepted the stories as evidence for my own comfort. It was confirmation bias, only believing what I want to believe, like Oedipus which we had read about in English class. It was wishful thinking, which I have way too often. What I could've done was dismiss them as tell-tales and NOT use them as an excuse to have low expectations.

I tried to comfort myself too much. That's another problem. I make myself too comfortable, and then I'm in trouble when I step into the real world, out of my comfort zone.

Then Mr. Wang showed me something that shocked me even more. He displayed the college resume of her daughter Judy, with all the extracurricular activities in which she had participated. From a lifeguard at the Lifetime gym, to the captain of the Science Olympiad team, to even a supporting actress in a Chinese soap opera, she's been them all. Her list of activities alone filled up 2 pages. And he said, that's not the best resume the school has seen. That's right, she didn't go to an Ivy League school, even with a near-perfect 99.5 GPA and all those impressive extracurriculars. I had no idea that that was how high the expectations are. Damn. I stayed silent for the rest of the presentation and kept on thinking about what I have to do. I'm a mere nothing right now, compared to the elite students. I surrounded myself with too many bad people in the past which contributed to the illusion that I was the best. The right thing to do now is to surround myself with people who are better than me so I can improve.

My parents and I were thinking the same thing at the end of the lecture: I need to get away from the games. They're ruining me. Wasting away time, my most precious resource, that I can be using to actually do things. So I took my phone and deleted every single game on it. Yep, I actually did it this time. This is going to be the start of something new, the beginning of a more productive life.