In “Frosh Footprints,” Jenny Wang explores Stanford during her first quarter on the Farm, musing on her discoveries and realizations about campus culture.
“I’m going to lock in tonight and grind out that P-set.”
“LOCKING IN.”
“Gotta lock in.”
Aside from trivial greetings like “How’s your day?” and “What’s up!”, these phrases embed themselves into our daily conversations.
Many days, it feels as though we are trained to be a well-oiled machine: rushing from office hours to class to section to gym to club meeting — and shoot! Laundry’s been done for over an hour. Of course somebody threw it out. REPEAT!
Having attended boarding school, I thought the transition to college would be relatively easy. I had experience managing my time while living with friends in a tight-knit environment. The idea of taking classes with professors renowned in their respective fields and meeting peers with similar drive and passion excited me.
Yet, I found college to be so different because every opportunity is available in countless different forms. There is always an interesting speaker, mixer, performance or tutoring session that demands a block of our calendar. The diverse array is simultaneously amazing and overwhelming.
In the first month of school, I RSVP’d to more events than (probably) wise for my individual capacity. I caught myself feeling guilty after watching two episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy,” thinking that I could have spent the time wrapping up my IntroSem application instead. Considering the fact that we are surrounded by a student body selected for our abilities to take full advantage of resources around us, it seems like every minute should always be devoted towards something more.
Amidst the over-scheduling and constant pressure to “lock in,” I decided to take a break.
This weekend, I intentionally gave myself two full days free from work. I walked around Main Quad and laid on the grass at the Oval, trying to see campus through a tourist’s perspective. I biked to University Avenue with a friend, shopped at Brandy Melville, ate mango pudding and enjoyed some incredible beef sukiyaki. I took naps on the hammock outside my dorm. I called my best friend for more than two hours, chatting about life and boys and classmate gossip. I tried out a new church. I painted a Pusheen tote bag. I read “Phantom of the Opera” and finished watching “Oppenheimer.”
Finding time for myself was both challenging and rewarding. It required suppressing the urge to pull out my laptop and check emails every other hour. But the truth is, we all need space to process the rapidly evolving reality. The election just happened. We are confronted with many real-world uncertainties in addition to our academic workload.
And so, perhaps it’s okay to not be “locked in” all the time. College is a time of adjustment — our first taste of adulthood that involves finding a sustainable rhythm. If someone asks me about how my first quarter is going, my response will no longer just be “really busy,” but “busy, but also fun!”