...I probably shouldn't put this on a blog that's linked to FB, but what the hey.
As a lot of people know by now, I'm considering applying for graduate school for next year. And it has been really, really hard.
As I try to sum up the transformative and extraordinary events of the past three years in application essays (more notable, sometimes, for what they omit than what they include), I remember being 18 and applying to college for the first time.
In those days, I was uncertain and unsure about what I wanted out of life, but I was still miles ahead of many other high school kids I knew. I had a vocation - writing - but I didn't know to turn that into a career. I'd written fiction and poetry for as long as I could remember. When I was in sixth grade, I started submitting my writing to literary journals and anthologies. Except for a few acceptances, I was mostly rejected. By the time I hit my undergrad application essays, I had hundreds of rejection letters from some of the best literary journals in the world. I tried to tell myself that it wasn't personal, that one day I'd get better and they'd all accept me then, but of course it was personal. It was the most personal thing that had ever happened to me.
Of course, becoming a good writer takes years and years and years of work, and hours of effort. And although over the years I've put those rejections in context, I can't pretend that even now each rejection isn't a tiny heartbreak. (and I still get rejected most of the time, by the way, and reassure myself with stories of writers like Jennifer Egan, who recently won the Pulitzer Prize at age 50. Success doesn't mean anything, I'm beginning to suspect, unless it comes to you long after you've stopped working for success, and started working just because you can't stop.)
When I was 18, my first-choice college (Columbia) totally broke my heart by putting me on the waitlist. The man who interviewed me for another college that waitlisted me called me afterwards - weeks afterwards - and told me in a tone of shock that he'd described me to the admissions committee as the most talented and qualified applicant he'd ever interviewed. At the time I found his comment reassuring, but as I start this process again I remember it and these old anxieties flare again. I can't pretend that they don't.
Of course, I went on to have an amazing experience at Northwestern. Some of my former professors remain my friends and mentors. The journalism school, as I've mentioned elsewhere on this blog, showed me a path to a future I could never have imagined. I could call it a lucky accident, but that would be downplaying it. It felt like fate, or the hand of a higher power (this latter being something in which I don't even believe.)
So if there's one thing I should have learned from that entire experience, it's that sometimes life gives you what you need, although it may not be what you initially want. But it seems I haven't learned that lesson perfectly quite yet.
One of the best things about the past three years is that they've shown me a path to a confidence and sense of purpose I could never have imagined when I was 18 or even 22. Living in India has forced me to take responsibility for myself - financially, emotionally, professionally. I've been lucky to have the support of an amazing network of editors and employers, and each day has taught me that my value will only increase. It felt so good - so very good - to feel confident about the future. To start to feel like my crazy dreams might be within reach. I've never been so happy or so sure of myself.
But as I prepare for the next stage of my life, I'm back on the precipice of that age-old anxiety. I still feel - even though I am more confident and more directed than ever before - like I'm knocking on a door, and that tiny voice of anxiety says: "what if it never opens?"
On my better days, I know that it will. That no matter what happens, I will make the best of it. I'll make more than the best of it - I'll turn it into a spectacular if unconventional success. That's what I've done with every one of my rejections thus far.
I look around at my friends who are applying to grad school and they seem to share none of my fears. Maybe I suffer an unusually high sense of ambition, or an unusual lack of patience, or just a generally high level of neurosis about life in general (arguable, always). There's another voice in the back of my mind that admonishes me: "Anika, when will you start acting like the leader you want to be instead of an insecure girl?" I don't know the answer to this either. I don't know when I'll stop feeling like that girl, also, at least part of the time. I hope I'm not the only one who sometimes - maybe unfashionably often - looks in the mirror and thinks: "Holy shit, is that me?" Perhaps, to be more philosophical yet, this is a good thing. Being rejected from what you want keeps you hungry, yes, but it also keeps you humble in a way that nothing else can. You're not the best yet - you might not ever be. It also teaches you the value of setting incremental goals, and celebrating those achivements even without losing sight of the grander plan.
The process of becoming successful is really so very closely intertwined with the process of becoming yourself. It's easy to want what everyone else wants, but it's hard to know what you want, and then to articulate it, even to yourself. Recently, I've begun to articulate these things to myself in a whole new way - in several different aspects of my life - with dramatic and mixed results. But I can't pretend that putting myself out there and saying - this is what I want (and deserve) - hasn't been one of the hardest things I've ever done, am currently doing, or will continue to do.
As a lot of people know by now, I'm considering applying for graduate school for next year. And it has been really, really hard.
As I try to sum up the transformative and extraordinary events of the past three years in application essays (more notable, sometimes, for what they omit than what they include), I remember being 18 and applying to college for the first time.
In those days, I was uncertain and unsure about what I wanted out of life, but I was still miles ahead of many other high school kids I knew. I had a vocation - writing - but I didn't know to turn that into a career. I'd written fiction and poetry for as long as I could remember. When I was in sixth grade, I started submitting my writing to literary journals and anthologies. Except for a few acceptances, I was mostly rejected. By the time I hit my undergrad application essays, I had hundreds of rejection letters from some of the best literary journals in the world. I tried to tell myself that it wasn't personal, that one day I'd get better and they'd all accept me then, but of course it was personal. It was the most personal thing that had ever happened to me.
Of course, becoming a good writer takes years and years and years of work, and hours of effort. And although over the years I've put those rejections in context, I can't pretend that even now each rejection isn't a tiny heartbreak. (and I still get rejected most of the time, by the way, and reassure myself with stories of writers like Jennifer Egan, who recently won the Pulitzer Prize at age 50. Success doesn't mean anything, I'm beginning to suspect, unless it comes to you long after you've stopped working for success, and started working just because you can't stop.)
When I was 18, my first-choice college (Columbia) totally broke my heart by putting me on the waitlist. The man who interviewed me for another college that waitlisted me called me afterwards - weeks afterwards - and told me in a tone of shock that he'd described me to the admissions committee as the most talented and qualified applicant he'd ever interviewed. At the time I found his comment reassuring, but as I start this process again I remember it and these old anxieties flare again. I can't pretend that they don't.
Of course, I went on to have an amazing experience at Northwestern. Some of my former professors remain my friends and mentors. The journalism school, as I've mentioned elsewhere on this blog, showed me a path to a future I could never have imagined. I could call it a lucky accident, but that would be downplaying it. It felt like fate, or the hand of a higher power (this latter being something in which I don't even believe.)
So if there's one thing I should have learned from that entire experience, it's that sometimes life gives you what you need, although it may not be what you initially want. But it seems I haven't learned that lesson perfectly quite yet.
One of the best things about the past three years is that they've shown me a path to a confidence and sense of purpose I could never have imagined when I was 18 or even 22. Living in India has forced me to take responsibility for myself - financially, emotionally, professionally. I've been lucky to have the support of an amazing network of editors and employers, and each day has taught me that my value will only increase. It felt so good - so very good - to feel confident about the future. To start to feel like my crazy dreams might be within reach. I've never been so happy or so sure of myself.
But as I prepare for the next stage of my life, I'm back on the precipice of that age-old anxiety. I still feel - even though I am more confident and more directed than ever before - like I'm knocking on a door, and that tiny voice of anxiety says: "what if it never opens?"
On my better days, I know that it will. That no matter what happens, I will make the best of it. I'll make more than the best of it - I'll turn it into a spectacular if unconventional success. That's what I've done with every one of my rejections thus far.
I look around at my friends who are applying to grad school and they seem to share none of my fears. Maybe I suffer an unusually high sense of ambition, or an unusual lack of patience, or just a generally high level of neurosis about life in general (arguable, always). There's another voice in the back of my mind that admonishes me: "Anika, when will you start acting like the leader you want to be instead of an insecure girl?" I don't know the answer to this either. I don't know when I'll stop feeling like that girl, also, at least part of the time. I hope I'm not the only one who sometimes - maybe unfashionably often - looks in the mirror and thinks: "Holy shit, is that me?" Perhaps, to be more philosophical yet, this is a good thing. Being rejected from what you want keeps you hungry, yes, but it also keeps you humble in a way that nothing else can. You're not the best yet - you might not ever be. It also teaches you the value of setting incremental goals, and celebrating those achivements even without losing sight of the grander plan.
The process of becoming successful is really so very closely intertwined with the process of becoming yourself. It's easy to want what everyone else wants, but it's hard to know what you want, and then to articulate it, even to yourself. Recently, I've begun to articulate these things to myself in a whole new way - in several different aspects of my life - with dramatic and mixed results. But I can't pretend that putting myself out there and saying - this is what I want (and deserve) - hasn't been one of the hardest things I've ever done, am currently doing, or will continue to do.
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