I’d like to begin with a hearty “welcome back!” to my fellow Stern students. I could open with a multitude of clichéd lines about embarking on a new semester or, with what bittersweet emotions we leave our summer oases and return to our collegiate lives. However, that is not my intention this semester. This semester, I am here, as the editor of the Opinion section of The Observer, to create a culture of empathy, exploration and conviction. The Opinion section is a forum for honest thought and reflection, discourse and debate, but most importantly, a place for respect of our fellow students’ ideas.
Whatever the conversations may be, I want the Stern community to be one of mutual respect, intellectual engagement and personal growth. That is why I ask that whomever may have stumbled across this article, while seeking some solace from the hustle and bustle of the first week of classes, please, engage in this conversation. As students, we have the unique perspective of leaving our younger selves behind while approaching the murky destinations of our futures; the best part being that we have each other with whom to share this multilayered experience. Whether the topics of discussion be glorious and celebratory or, mournful and troubling, this is where those topics can and should be given voice.
To empathize with the genuine struggle of transitioning, I will share some of my experience and thoughts. During my first year at Stern—a “true” freshman who had not attended a seminary in Israel after graduating from high school—I stepped into an unknown world. This world, for the following three semesters, proved to be the most socially challenging setting in which I had ever found myself. Experiencing the isolation and confusion of any college freshman, I watched packs of young women flag each other down in the school cafeterias, reuniting after mere months of separation. I scanned rooms, looking for familiar or friendly faces; (many were). However, very few of these kind faces were directed towards my insecure, apprehensive expression. This challenged me – a once-introverted second child from a small town – to build a home at Stern. The way I witnessed it to be for other students, I too wanted to begin creating my (until-then) imagined life. Granted, it took many rejected transfer applications, visits to other schools, and stressful evenings of anxious uncertainty to find myself where I am, but in the end, I am here. I am here because I essentially chose to be here, and I chose to confront the challenges that surface; I chose not to run away, but to invest in my contradictions.
I, having chosen this path, will be one of the many who declares, “Here!” at Stern College for Women, beginning on August 24th. Students confess to their physical presence, their identities within their academic world and their willingness to learn. Despite this confession, are we really present in this alternate world when we have just come from the bliss and freedom of the summer? Returning to the consistency, structure, and perhaps conformity of the academic year can feel suffocating at first, however, a way to remedy this discomfort is to verbalize it. Being the Opinion editor, I urge you—reader who sees these words and is moved to write his or her own thoughts—share them with this community. A thought is not a shared reality until it is articulated, but, once that is done, there can be understanding.
Having now completed my first two years of Stern, I am a junior who now calls this school my home. Yet, it becomes unfamiliar territory each fall when I return from the meditative moments of summer. Regaining the steady pace for the sprint of an academic year, I struggle to incorporate my “summer-self” into the previously existing “Stern-self.” I suppose I am fortunate to have such impactful summer jobs that I must rethink my identity each fall, but that does not lessen the strain of doing so. What if my newly developed “summer-self” comes into complete conflict with last year’s “Stern-self?” What then?
My answer to these concerns is the following: We all live within our own contradictions. Whether those contradictions be those of living within the dichotomy of Modern Orthodoxy and a secular culture; wanting to pursue three areas of study yet only having time for one or two; or wanting to live minimally whilst living in this metropolitan epicenter of consumerism; we must accept these contradictions. By denying the fact that we constantly live with discomfort would be dishonest and would only exacerbate the resulting symptom of isolation.
Therefore, I choose to not only discuss my contradictions and struggles with my peers, but I choose to share them here, in the forum of the written word, so that others can see that this is a safe place to be vulnerable, to be sincere and to be imperfect. We may be new or renewed versions of ourselves each fall, but let us share in this struggle, for struggling aloud is far better than struggling in silence.