Hopkins is a diverse university where an incredible mix of cultures, academic interests and personalities coexist and thrive. Here is the section where you can publish your unique thoughts, ideas and perspectives on life at Hopkins and beyond.
I wake up to the gentle sound of rain outside. Movie posters and postcards from my recent travels litter the walls and a soft, gray light escapes through my curtains and into my room. I’m making breakfast when I hear a familiar tap on my balcony door.
I’m a very anxious person. I worry about future finances, the weather tomorrow, my talent as a writer, how much people will like me — and of course, the possibility that the world will end by the time I’m 28.
Whenever I told people I was studying abroad, I felt like I was lying. I felt as if I hadn’t done anything to deserve such a rare once-in-a-lifetime experience — the kind most people don’t get. Ever since I met with my academic advisor and realized I could study abroad and still graduate on time, I had been set on going somewhere. I wanted something completely different from everything I knew.
Going into this summer, I knew it wouldn’t be about writing, but I told myself it would be — as if saying it could make it true. Honestly, I had hardly written in the winter and spring of 2023. At first, it was because I was busy adjusting to my life in a foreign country. As winter faded into spring, it was because I was grieving the loss of my cousin to leukemia.
My grandma, my baa, is the strongest, most beautiful woman I know. She married young, didn’t finish school and immigrated from India with her six children. We jokingly called her a family man. She made time for her 14 grandchildren, spent her days calling each of us before and after school and would ask for updates on our well-being and our friends. She was, and continues to be, my dearest friend.
We’ve all done it: woken up some 15 (or 30) minutes too late, scrunched our eyes in exasperation at the steps of our morning routines that must now be skipped in order to make it to class on time. In high school, we were all guilty of it — exhaustion compounded after a particularly heavy week of assignments — and those extra minutes in bed felt like a worthy trade-off for having to eat your breakfast while walking out the door. But all of this changes when you get to college.
As I am sitting on a park bench facing the runway at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, the ground begins to shake. As the plane thunders down the runway, the roar of the fan blades overpowers the sound of my camera’s shutter, as I gather as many photos as I can in the few short seconds it spends on the runway.
Growing up, I used to feel anxious before the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. The thought of spending hours at my synagogue on an empty stomach made me feel uneasy, and I always found the holiday to be a lengthy challenge that I just had to push through without question.
There is a tiny little square of my computer screen, tinted light blue and gray, where I can see the silhouettes of people walking into my quiet level of the library. I don’t look at it often — usually, I’m too preoccupied with the blankness of my Google documents — but when I do, I can see so much. They’re just silhouettes — not people, really, not until they come into view — but without the face, you notice so much more.
As I start my senior year at Hopkins, I’m already thinking about the end of it. It feels like I reached this year in the blink of an eye, yet at the same time, high school feels a million years away.
Though people always tell you to think positively, this is often a hard thing to do in practice. In the past, when people — typically my mom — would tell me this, I would roll my eyes or ignore them. To me, negativity has always felt much larger, making it considerably easier to focus on.
It’s my last fall semester at Hopkins, which is a bit surreal. It’s exciting, yet daunting because once this school year is over, I have to be a real adult. In an attempt to cross over into the real adult world, like many others in their last year at school, I am applying to graduate programs and jobs. This process is immensely reflective.
I spent the beginning of my sophomore year in a bit of a tizzy. As an international student coming in only a day before classes started, there was the beast of jet lag to contend with. But I'd come to expect a couple of 3 a.m. wake-ups with the 12-hour time difference from home. Sure, there was all the chaos that came with unpacking and move-in, but who wasn’t dealing with that?
It’s my third year as a First-Year Mentor, and this year, my mentees — unintentionally, I’m sure — made me feel ancient. Over lunch at Nolan’s on 33rd during Orientation Week, I gave my mentees my perspective on the social scene at Hopkins, and one made a comment to the others about how I have years of experience here. As in, “We should listen to what she has to say.”
Moving to a new country is a popular ambition — one that comes up often, whether during a holiday when a friend insists that they “could totally live here” or in the midst of the dreaded “post-college” talk with your parents as you attempt to plan out the rest of your life.
I have always had a hard time saying goodbye to things. Moving from country to country throughout my life — from Korea to Japan, Japan to Scotland, Scotland to Hong Kong and Hong Kong back to Korea — I was constantly forced to leave my friends and memories behind. With no time left to process the change fully, I have had to cling to the memories of the past.
And, as quickly as ever, a new year at Hopkins has begun. It feels as if summer never happened — the Hopkins Student Center construction looks the same as it did in April, the sun still shines relentlessly (maybe too relentlessly) and the campus bustles with new and familiar faces.
I’ve never been a very superstitious person myself, but I look back fondly at this story as a reminder that even when a loved one is not physically with us anymore, they still remain a part of us. Whether that be through the memories we carry, the signs we see or the emotions we feel, we hold onto our loved ones eternally.
A cruel irony that is only understood after your second year: The best time to be at college is when you’re not there. Such is the tyranny of the academic calendar. The nicer it is outside, the less time you spend there.
Adjusting to college seems, to me, like becoming an adult. Now, this over-simplified view of college might also have to do with the fact that I’m not an adult yet — not legally anyway — and I never really had to live independently up until now. But perhaps because of this, these first few weeks of freshman year seem like an entirely different lifetime. Or, in less dramatic terms, a new era of my life.
