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 often try to imagine what my grandma’s teenage years were like. I myself will turn twenty soon, and in my final year of being a teenager, I have been given the grace to do what she never could when she was my age: worry about something as frivolous and fleeting as my appearance.
I’d mastered it: pretending that I was fine. Because the general expectation from us humans is quite straightforward: We cannot display sadness. We shall not reveal our vulnerabilities and weaknesses. No, we must present ourselves to others as optimistic, happy and motivated: always driven, always okay.
I did not learn to love the land that raised me until I had already left. In every introduction during my first week of college, that land haunted me. Like a scar, it was irrefutable proof of where I had been, and it clung to every artifact of my life: my area code, my driver’s license and (most regrettably) my introduction.
While I hadn’t planned to do so during my undergrad, I’m now beyond thrilled to be pursuing a Master’s at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and I’m loving my current program and classes. It’s a testament to expect the unexpected and to make room for new and exciting opportunities, even if they aren’t what I had initially planned.
I desperately wanted friends, both back in kindergarten and as a freshman at college. I’ve always been the quiet kid — the kid who would rather get lost in books than go outside. At college, I was determined to reinvent myself, to be someone everyone wanted to hang out with, to be “fun.”
As I was eating my lunch near the lily pond in the Decker Garden while writing my research paper and watching the new students explore the campus, it suddenly hit me that now I am closer to finishing graduate school than the day I started it. When I first came to Hopkins in 2021, the thought of surviving and thriving in graduate school felt both exciting and terrifying.
There was something about the structure of rap (its rhythm and cadence) that allowed me to speak fluidly, even rapidly. It felt like I had found a loophole in my speech disorder. From then on, I dove into the world of rap. For me, it wasn’t just a hobby but a safe space where I could express myself freely without letting self-consciousness trip up my speech.
I go to school in Maryland and come from Florida, but on a recent flight, I sat next to someone who is in the opposite situation: Her family lives near Baltimore, and she just graduated from a college around 10 minutes from my childhood home. As soon as I realized we drove to the airport from the same neighborhood, I became curious about why she chose to live there.
Sunlight on leaves always reminds me of summer, and even though summer now fades, making room for fall, I still cling to its translucent, yellow-green warmth. So maybe this is my love letter to summer. Maybe this is my way of saying goodbye — and not just to the sunlight on trees or the lovely 80-degree weather, though I will certainly miss them both.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about time. More specifically, how the same volume of time can be compressed or expanded so that a morning can feel like twenty minutes or five seconds or a week, even when the clock is ticking by at the same pace. I’ve been thinking about whether we can control it — not time itself, but our perception of it.
I would have started with “Dear Physics,” but let’s not lie to ourselves here. You are not my dear, Physics. What would be a good antonym for “dear”? Unbeloved? I’ll use that.
My last goodbyes flow out of me like a disappointed sea, breaking and offshoring between the rows of my teeth, shaking my lips. As I see my parents’ faces, I am reminded once again of what must be done. Packing my life into three suitcases, I head off to college once again, with a quiet hope that this semester will be far better than the last.
I remember sitting in my English teacher’s room during the last week of senior year, on the verge of tears. I was having an absolutely horrible day; I was exhausted, my limbs hurt a little more than normal and I could feel a stress headache from the subtly creeping impending doom.
Someday, I will wear my age like a badge of honor. I will have freckles because I am lucky to have time to sit in the sun. I will have emotions so pure and deep and all-consuming that you could trace them in smile lines and crow's feet.
As I enter my final year of university, I find myself in a never-asleep-but-always-tired world, where we have the power to summon the world's knowledge anytime at the tap of a finger. Instantly satiating our curious mind with an answer without letting it wander and dwell on the problem has its own pitfalls.
While worries will always be present, we must remember that college is the time to experience the unexpected and to learn everything that we can about both academics and everyday life. Joy will always follow us, and we must take advantage of every opportunity for our moments of Hopkins happiness.
One thing I never predicted when I started at Hopkins is how much I would change throughout university. It sounds silly, because “of course college changes you.” Yes, I am more independent. Yes, I am more disciplined. Yes, I trust myself more (and also not at all). So, it’s obvious: College changed me.
When I applied to the University’s graduate degree program in the School of Nursing, I participated in a video interview, and when asked about my thoughts on diversity, I proudly held up my great-grandfather’s copy of his Hullabaloo yearbook and explained that he was among the first Asians to graduate from Hopkins.
The last year and a half seems like a blur. I couldn’t keep up with life. My homesickness reached its peak and the pressures of graduate school crushed me — I was struggling to find a way to fit into this world. I always assumed I was strong enough to handle the challenges in life because I was forced to be like the role models I grew up seeing. I never shared my fears with other people and always put up a strong face, but that only led to loneliness.
I’m sitting here writing my last piece for my column in The News-Letter, and I am at a loss for words. I’ve thought about this moment for a while: what I’d write in my last piece, where in my life I’d be and what closing words I’d share. While the last four years have shaped who I am and influenced who I have become, I’ve come to the realization that, at my core, I’m the same I’ve always been: discovering myself through my writing and growing from my experiences.
