April 17, 2004
Whatever Color I Might Bleed
Surprise, surprise. After visiting Smith, which I loved, I still am not sure what to do at all. On Tuesday I am meeting with my English teacher from freshman and junior year to help figure out all of this, and hopefully I will walk away from it with some kind of conclusion.
The best word for it all is fear. It is probably my own fucked-up mind, but for a second let's blame this on my academic system. It seems so often that there is a right or wrong answer and for some reason I am afraid I am going to make the wrong choice.
If I choose Smith and realize later on that Syracuse is really a better choice for me, all of my perks for Syracuse are gone. And really, if I go to Smith and realize that it is not the right place for me, regular Syracuse, even with New House, probably is not for me either. But with mentorship and honors and everything else, it may be.
If I go to Syracuse and the right choice is Smith, I can probably transfer but I will have missed out on all of the freshman year fun stuff (depending on when I transfer, etc), there may be trouble with some of my credits transferring, and if I want to gain leadership positions I will be a year behind everyone else. I will also lose STRIDE, which is giving up the opportunity to be a research assistant for a professor, potentially getting published (academically) before I hit senior year, and maybe even speaking at national conferences, i.e. doing a bunch of stuff usually reserved to grad students as an undergrad.
Emerson sent me a course catalogue. Cue the laughter, I am more ego than they think and they do not have a chance. Plus Syracuse is a much stronger school, even without the scholarship. And Barnard and Smith are flat-out better schools, so bu-bye Emerson.
Smith's housing is just as nice as everyone told me it would be. Like the regular dork that I am, I went to the rare book room and asked to see Sylvia Plath's journal (ahh, not even behind glass, just right in front of me, turning the pages and all of that...) and a letter by Virginia Woolf. I accidentally ended up touching the Virginia Woolf letter when flipping the two transparencies it was pressed between but obviously not sealed.
The other thing that really impressed me about Smith is how many international students are there. It really makes the school so much cooler and just a more enriching experience, more than I think most would anticipate. My host's neighbor/first year roommate is from Bulgaria. She has a fantastic accent for one thing and is flat-out funny for the other thing. I also had dinner with a girl from Poland.
The oddest part to me was probably the transgender presence, which I did not quite anticipate. I knew it was extremely liberal and that there is a relatively large lesbian and bisexual community, but I was unaware of the transgender. I am not sure if I agree with people who decided to become men attending a women's college, since the school is not set up to give them the best experience for who they are like they are for women.
More controversial was that there was a transgender person running for president of the student government. Fortunately they were not elected. And that sounds like a bigotted statement, but in addition to my earlier stated reservations, in the larger perspective it is a good thing. First of all, this individual was not that great of a person and was involved in a scandal involving giving illegal substances to some first year students. Beyond that, the person does not have a stellar attendance record, which while that does not determine who a person is, it is important for leaders to lead by example. Also in the larger picture, many of the alumni were PISSED at the idea of transgender leadership, since they want women leading a women's college and everything else. I'm sorry, but a pissed off alumni association is not good for anyone; I understand they are trying to make headway in a civil rights sense but considering that their attendance is somewhat dubious as it is, this only stresses the situation. This person seemed simply too radical to relate to most of the students; if the student government had more influence, it could have ended up in transfers, etc.
Maybe I am completely wrong on all of this. But even if I do not go to the school, I am relieved for its sake.
The classes offered are wonderful, as to be expected, and I even enjoyed sitting in on an Urban Economics class. There are stables and I absolutely love the idea of Thursday candlelight dinners and Friday afternoon teas where you get to know the people in your house well. In a nice detail, most people comfortabley leave their dorm rooms unlocked and leave their bathroom supplies in their own personal cubby. It is amazing that there is so much unconscious trust, especially in such a diverse community if there is anything to diversity creating hostility.
And actually, there probably is not. Going to Smith I would be exposed to so many different kinds of people from different backgrounds and with different personalities and preferences that any kind of adjustment I would need to be unphased by all of it could happen in college, where one should grow and learn. Later in life I would have an easy time recognizing the talents of others and I would never have to get caught up on someone being transgender or anything else because I would know someone, probably be friends with someone, who was similar and know that the stereotypes may contain some truth but they are not the whole story.
While at Smith, though, I kept on comparing everything to what I would get at Syracuse to play devil's advocate with myself. I ended up saying a lot of it outloud to my host, Azizah (awesome name, no?), and later explained to her to ignore most of what I was saying because I was trying to talk myself out of everything to see if it could be done.
Next Friday there is a tea for admitted Smith students here in town. I want to go. But I may also want to bleed orange for a whole lot less money...
Love,
Mandy