First Year’s Finished—What’s Next?

The last. The final. The conclusion.

Wow. One year done? How did that happen?

Our brains have been packed full of analyses of the classics, knowledge of what’s on the frontiers of science (um...), and a whole unique set of other facts and books and lectures. We’re tested on all that stuff. We’re asked to regurgitate, bring to the forefront of our minds, put down on paper, contemplate, and be proud of all of those facts. But the problem with all of that acquired knowledge taking up every brain cell is that it can make us forget to take time to acknowledge, contemplate, and be proud of all of the changing and learning about ourselves that we did equally as much of this year.

Remember, first years, when we arrived here eight months ago? Not the beautiful day, the heat, the cute OL who moved you in, but do you remember how you were? Who you were? My guess would be the changes from the person you were then to the person you are now go much deeper than the facts and “things” you learned over the course of the year. How did you think about stuff? In that moment, how did you look at yourself, watch yourself, judge yourself, trust yourself? How did you think, and what did you think about in the time you spent alone?

One year ago, the majority of us first years were controlled by ringing bells that dictated when we moved from required class to required class. We committed ourselves to school in the morning and left it all behind in the afternoon. Our lives were regulated down to driving curfews, dress-codes, detentions. We didn’t have to think about things like how to divide school time between friends and academic pursuits—lunch periods did that for us. We didn’t have to think about how taking a class now would effect us three years down the line—set curriculums did that for us, too.

And in the blink of an eye, all that was gone. But still, the chief task of our first weeks and months at Columbia didn’t have to be figuring out how to divide up our time now that school encompasses our whole world, or how we dress and socialize and study when there are no regulations.

In fact, most of us probably didn’t directly devote any chunk of time to thinking about those things—we just let them figure themselves out. We can’t stop to think about why we’re choosing time with friends over personal interests, or visa versa. We don’t take a breath to consider why we’ve picked one club over another. We just go. We just do what’s right in that moment.

As we’ve been doing so much, trying so much, and experiencing so much, those decisions have been constant and of the utmost importance—they’re setting the course for the rest of our adult lives. But they were made in split seconds, in secret little parts of our brains while our consciousness was concerned with studying and having fun and immersing ourselves in our new lives. So, as we’ve been doing so much, trying so much, and experiencing so much, have we taken enough time to analyze for ourselves why we’re making these decisions? How they’ve changed us and if we like that?

Here we are, at the other side of the first year—all of those decisions have become part of us. How do you picture yourself now? How do you judge yourself, look at yourself, trust yourself? I bet your answers aren’t the same as they were eight months ago. It’s pretty sweet that we’ve grown up and become new people without even having to think about it, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned at Columbia, it’s that a successful person doesn’t accept that as an answer.

My Lit Hum professor always says death is the one fundamental thing all our texts have in common, but I think it’s something a little different. More than having an interesting story to tell, every Lit Hum author has raised exactly the questions we’ve grappled with outside of class this year. It is through their thoughtfully cultivated personal answers that they are able to find innovative insights. Let Dante and Austen and Woolf know all the “facts” they will, they still wouldn’t be anything without knowing equally as much about how their own minds function—their success comes from their desire and ability to not let the mind work itself out without consciously understanding what it’s doing.

So here it is—the end. The conclusion. Two more weeks of stuffing our brains, making sure we know every little fact. But in the middle of all that, while you’re still here, and you’re still a first year, think about everything that happened to you this year—think about what you liked and didn’t like. Think about what decisions you want to make sure don’t get made without conscious thought next year. Think about what you did just because you did, and what you did because you really wanted to. How did it all happen? How can you make it happen again—and even better? The beauty of our minds is that they can both make decisions when our consciousness is busy with something else as well as allow us to go back and explore those unconscious decisions when we’re ready. So explore. Find some stuff out. It’s a new you—figure out why, and love it.

Ariel Hudes is a Columbia College first year. Undeclared runs alternate Fridays.
Opinion@columbiaspectator.com