Convocation Essays
Finalists’ essays
Keynote Speaker: Ariel La
Class: Sophomore
Silver Spring, Maryland
Major: Psychology and Communication Arts
When I learned of my acceptance to The University of Wisconsin–Madison, I was overwhelmed first with utter excitement, then with considerable anguish. Would my family allow me to attend a university 1,000 miles away from our home in Silver Spring, Maryland? My parents survived the Vietnam War and came to the United States as Boat People. Brave as they are, they were still worried that UW–Madison wouldn’t provide me, their youngest daughter, with the support of great family, friends, and most importantly — good food.
To inspect the university, my mother accompanied me to SOAR. While I was registering for class, she called to inform me that she had skipped the parent program to explore the campus and had figured out several critical things: One, the Chinese food in Madison isn’t horrible, but the Pho, a Vietnamese noodle dish, is. Two, she befriended two Cantonese women to be my “Wisconsin Aunties”. And perhaps most importantly, three — she found a rice cooker for $9.99. In that brief phone call, I realized that my mother had found me family and food. There was no longer a reason to be worried about her little girl at school so far away.
I realize that I am not alone. Okay, so not every one of you has been sent to school armed with a rice cooker, but I can say that every single one of you had to leave family and friends behind. This leads me to my first piece of advice: Keep in touch with your family and friends. No matter how busy or tired you are, call, text, email, skype, write letters. When you’re feeling homesick or want to vent about a particularly hard class, they will be there for you — I mean, they already have for as long as you’ve known them. You are starting a new life, and your loved ones should be a part of it.
My second piece of advice is to experiment, discover. My first few months at Wisconsin were spent carving out a new niche. My roommate and I rearranged the room at least half a dozen times before it became a home. I stalked vendors at the Farmers Market and tried several cups of coffee along State Street before deciding that I like Expresso Royale’s best. I studied in the den, my room, other people’s rooms, the dungeon, the laundry room, the lake, on Bascom hill, and in every library before figuring out which places were best for which subjects. I found not just friends- but a close family I now feel at home with. And every day, I jogged on the Lakeshore path, risking respiratory failure, because Lake Mendota is so beautiful, it took my breath away.
Once I created a home for myself, it was imperative that I got creative — that’s my final and best piece of advice, get creative. My roommate and I used the lids of our gladware containers as plates and my extra sheet doubled as a picnic blanket for sunny days on Bascom. You can get creative with schoolwork too. Dream up a daring thesis for your English class, explore every way to solve your math problem, and most importantly, think of inventive ways to study. This lesson, I learned the hard way. One bad grade persuaded me to purchase rainbow highlighters, use flashcards, make up songs, harass my TAs and Professors, and look into the numerous tutoring programs dying to help me. My study innovations paid off, helping me learn bounds of information and great grades.
Another way to get creative is to take advantage of everything Madison has to offer. You didn’t just enter a prestigious academic university, you have just plopped yourself in the lap of opportunity. No matter what your interest, you will find an organization to your liking. We have everything from the Psychology Club to Ski Club to Pineapple Appreciation Club. And don’t be afraid to try new challenging things, especially if it might interest you. Over the course of my freshman year, I told my parents I have “finally picked a major” about six times before I accepted that I was really just undecided. However, I kept taking classes and volunteering in different fields until I knew for sure that I am to major in Psychology and Communication Arts.
To think, the journey I have just described to you began one year ago when I was sitting in the Kohl center just as you are now. I remember this ceremony bringing upon the reality of The University of Wisconsin’s profundity. I mean, I am walking the very ground where Psychology icon Harry Harlow conducted his famous primate study on attachment, the very ground where John Muir fathered the principles of the modern park system.
One year ago, I sat intimidated by the brilliance of the individuals of this University’s past and present. Then, I realized that I shouldn’t be intimidated by these amazing people, this institution, or the new experience before me. I should be proud, you should be proud, to be a Wisconsin Badger.
Keynote Speaker for Transfer Students: Shaini Kothari
Class: Senior
Hometown: Mumbai, India
Major: Medical Microbiology and Immunology
I thought I knew what I was getting into when I was admitted here last fall. Having completed the first two years of my undergraduate studies in Mumbai, India, I was all set to start my junior year in UW–Madison as an international transfer. I thought it would be a breeze. I was so wrong.
The first thing that struck me about UW was the enormity of everything; the appalling number of students, the huge classes, and the vast campus. I almost felt like an insignificant drop of water in this huge ocean called UW–Madison. Everything seemed to intimidate me, was I taking the right classes, am I going to make any friends, am I speaking the right “lingo”, is this the right way to do things, etc.
Sometimes, even simple things confused me. I had no idea what a GPA was, why classes were so informal, how the roads were all going the opposite way, the cars were all left hand drive, why color was spelt without a “u”, the whole idea of a take-home exam, the obsession over coffee and so many other things. But out of all of this I learnt my first and most important lesson: I must never stop questioning. No matter how stupid the question was.
Independence was another thing I learnt. I was making my own decisions, none of them too big but nevertheless my own choices. Simple things like what I want to cook, what classes I want and need to take, how I want to manage my time, and most importantly, am I making the right friends or am I becoming a victim of the very prominent peer pressure, seemed to vex me. Another brutal yet important lesson: nobody was going to hold my hand and guide me, I was on my own and my decisions were my own. So, I had to make them wisely.
At the beginning, I missed having hot meals cooked by my mum, going out with all my close friends, cramming a week before exams, having my own room, and the warm sun that always shone on me in Mumbai. But in turn, I learnt how to cook a fairly decent meal for myself, made a couple of close friends who I know will stay forever, learnt that I do need to study regularly to keep up with the competition in all my classes, lived the dorm and apartment life rooming with the best room-mates I could ever have, and began to fall in love with the snow, even though you can never have enough clothes on! Some days, at the beginning, I asked myself why I had even bothered to come here, and whether it was worth it, but as each day passed, I began to appreciate and be grateful that I was given this excellent opportunity to grow and learn in this university.
Slowly but surely I was leading the typical American college life, hanging out for hours by the lake doing absolutely nothing, complaining everyday about how tough the Organic Chemistry class was, waiting for that one sunny day to laze on Bascom Hill, going out in pajamas at midnight on a school night to have Insomnia cookies, practically living in College Library during exams week, falling in love, having a heartbreak, only to fall in love again, sweating it out at the SERF, being a part of student organizations, volunteering a lot, collecting all the freebies that people love to give, depending on bus 80 as a lifeline, braving cold winds just to walk on the frozen lake, getting my first job at the library, and adding “shoot” and “dang it” to my daily vocabulary. Red was my new favorite color, the Farmers Market my Saturday morning hangout and Starbucks, the place where I blew all my salary. The feeling that I was an insignificant drop in the ocean vanished as I realized that it was each of these drops that collectively made up the ocean. No matter how small I was, I was a part of the whole, and I made up the whole.
Everything seems perfect now, though I do regret not having come here earlier. Every time I enrolled for classes, I would see tons of classes I wished to take but I had no time to or they wouldn’t fit into my schedule. I missed out on a total of two years where I could have taken all the classes which I could not. There are just so many options to choose from, I would have loved to experiment. And as a result I have always been a wee bit jealous of freshmen. But I’m glad I did get at least the two years I did, and I try to make the best of what I have got!
A year has gone by. This Fall I will be a senior. It is hard to imagine that in another year I will be graduating and entering the “real” world, as they say. But I am confident that after graduating from here, with all that I have learnt, in class and outside, I will be able to look at the “real” world in the face and say, “Bring it on!”
Essay finalists
Becca Chimis
Class: Senior
Hometown: River Forest, Illinois
Majors: Psychology, History of Science, Medicine, and Technology
UW–Madison was always my first choice for college — and yet I knew so little about it. When I sent in my letter with my intention to attend the university, my head was awash with facts and numbers. There were x number of students in the current freshman class; there were twenty-some student dorms from which to choose; the catalog was stuffed with eight thousand possible courses; there were over a hundred majors open to me, as well as seven hundred student organizations. And the most important number of all? I would be there in eight short months.
I didn’t know how to prepare for college. I have no older brothers or sisters and while my mother tried to counsel me in the best accoutrements, I felt clueless and somewhat lost. I had been overloaded with information from all sides (from friends, family members, teachers, etc.) about how important college was and how to make the most of it, and yet it all made me feel less ready. I felt as though all of the advice would slip through my head and I would just stumble through my four years and try not to make too many mistakes.
My first few days were very difficult. I got there early because I was working in housing, and the dorm was full of Badger Buddies and house fellows. While everyone was very friendly, it took a few days to feel less like an outsider and more like a member of the community. The other part of the puzzle was the huge and endless amount of choices: which student organization should I choose? Should I choose just one, or jump in and try five all at once? It felt as though I was expected to join one or more of these groups, and I felt buffeted about by the competing advertisements and meeting times.
As classes started, life got more hectic but somehow more manageable. Classes give you a rhythm, a way of planning your days and outlining your activities. Classes are something you will always have as a constant. Hence my first piece of advice to all of you: while planning your schedules every semester, in between fulfilling your requirements for your majors and your breadth requirements, take a class that you really want to take. If it fills a requirement, that’s great, but if it doesn’t, that’s okay, too. Be it a comparative ethics class or a class about radioactivity, take something that you find thought-provoking. A diverse class schedule is one of the things that have made my college experience that much better. My other piece of advice about classes is to always sit in the first or second row, especially if it’s a large lecture class. I guarantee that it will make it easier to listen to the professor. It’s also easier to get to know the professor that way: asking them questions during lecture and chatting with them afterwards makes the class more rewarding, trust me.
Still, I wasn’t sure how to enjoy myself at college. I felt loaded down with work and responsibilities and I couldn’t help but miss the ease and comfort of home. So I think I held myself back my freshman year; I felt as though I wasn’t doing enough of the right things to have fun, so I shrank back and kept myself from doing things because I felt like they were over my head. I didn’t join the Forensics team and I didn’t go ice skating at ten o’ clock at night. I didn’t apply to be a writing tutor and I didn’t participate in the Community Forum meetings.
I want to tell you all something from the perspective of someone who’s been in the back row: stand up and walk to the front. I wasn’t happy my freshman year here, and it’s because I thought I wasn’t doing everything right. While I was correct in a small way (there’s no way to do everything right), I was more wrong. I’ve read some stories by some very admirable people who jumped in head-first to their freshman year at this university and found something they absolutely loved. So I ask you all to do that now. Don’t feel pressured to join everything: that’s how I felt and it caused me to just step farther back. If a flyer catches your eye or a sidewalk-chalk advertisement makes your eyebrows inch up in interest, go. Participate. Don’t worry about not belonging or not being the right kind of person to go: everyone else is thinking the same thing. You will find something that you love, because on this campus, it’s impossible not to.
At UW–Madison, everyday college components become extraordinary. Classes taught by world-renowned professors in subjects some have never even heard of. Dorms with hundreds of activities every week and fantastic house fellows. Sports teams whose fans bring down the house every week with their team spirit and enthusiasm. The most amazing friends who will support you through the hard times. Oh, and have I mentioned the indescribably delicious Babcock ice cream?
I sometimes reflect on the college-by-numbers image I had prior to coming here. What I’ve learned about those numbers is that while they may look intimidating coming in, they are hints to a multi-faceted and beautiful university experience. The trick is distilling those numbers down into something that you can take in and interact with and enjoy. It doesn’t happen immediately, but if you open yourself to the world around you here, it will. If you friend says, “Do you want to go ice-skating at ten tonight?” don’t say, “Well, I don’t know how,” like I did. Go and learn! If there’s a meeting for a particular group that looks like something you might be interested in, walk right in. UW–Madison is your oyster. Love it and relish it always. Welcome.
Jaime Bell
Year: Senior
Hometown: Oak Park, Illinois
Major: Spanish, Portuguese, and English as a Second Language
Entering my senior year here at the University of Wisconsin, with commencement now in plain sight, I feel the pressures of a graduate world now, more than ever before. I find myself confronted by questions regarding my long-term future, outside of UW. What’s more, I attempt to envision what I want my life to look like in ten, twenty, even thirty years from today, and I struggle to make the decisions that I believe will lead me there. Searching into the future, and constructing a plan to get you there, is certainly no easy task. I would imagine most of you already know this, however, for you have gotten yourself to this campus. And for that, I would like to congratulate you. You too have looked to your future, planned accordingly, and arrived here, and that is no small feat.
With that being said, however, I am going to offer you a piece of advice that may come as a surprise. It may also come as a relief to know that my advice is both simply stated and simply taken. It is as follows: Now that you have successfully arrived here at UW, get lost. I know what you are thinking, getting lost is quite the opposite of what you intend to do, especially in your first few weeks on a new campus that you know little about. In fact, most of us dread getting lost; it is, oftentimes, uncomfortable, stressful, and even frightening. However, as hard as you might try to convince yourself otherwise, your freshman year will be quite chaotic and, at some point, you will get lost regardless of your attempts not to. New scenery, new acquaintances, new classes, and new experiences will ambush you left and right; chances are, they already have. Since there is virtually no way to avoid it, I encourage all of you to embrace the chaos that is freshman year. Take advantage of this precious opportunity to get lost because, if you allow it, being lost can be one of life’s greatest pleasures.
For just this year, or even just one semester of this year, allow yourself to drift from any path that you might have already created for yourself. As you choose your classes for the upcoming semesters, abandon the idea that you are here to receive a degree in one particular discipline or another. Instead, as you scroll though the timetable, look for those classes that ignite a true interest, those that touch upon a deep curiosity. When you sit in a class, enraptured by a professor who is speaking on topic that you are genuinely interest in, you will lose yourself. The outside world seems to quiet and you are no where else but right there, in that classroom.
Realize now, that when you are lost, you have the unique opportunity to concentrate on the present. Recognize that the university allows us an escape from most obligations other than to be a student and to learn. College is not just a means to an end, but an end in and of itself. Be here, to be here, not to get somewhere else. And do so by allowing yourself to get lost. In truth, getting lost only means that you have granted yourself the opportunity to explore.
I am an anthropology major. But before committing myself to anthropology, I first imagined myself a dietician, a historian, a social worker, even a linguist, along with considering half a dozen other professions. As such, I’ve taken many classes that are not a requirement of my major. But in doing so, UW has allowed me to be a number of different people, all the while a student, and along the way, I have discovered who I am and who I want to be.
Absorb Madison for all that it has to offer and in turn, it will allow you to be all that you can be. Remember that once you get lost, you can always turn around and choose another path. As songwriter Bob Dylan said in 1971, “A lot of the time you just have to go down many roads to get where you’re going… The important thing is to keep moving”. It is my experience that even a hundred paths may lead you astray, all of which are worth exploring if just one leads you to something incredible. Freshman year is about getting thoroughly lost, so that eventually you can enjoy the triumph of being found.
Hannah Karns
Year: Senior
Hometown: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Major: Political Science and International Studies
As a freshman, I was kind of clueless. I mean, I took the typical advice to heart — you are going to encounter a wide variety of individuals with perspectives and experiences that differ from your own, all-nighters are not a good idea, and the tomato sauce, cheese, and crust of a pizza don’t count as a balanced meal. But it didn’t quite prepare me for campus. Although each of you will have a unique experience, I would like to offer my two cents and answer the question: What do I wish I had known as a freshman here at Madison?
I wish I had known that the 80, one of the many free buses on campus, has a very simple route. Fearful of looking like an amateur bus rider, I chose to climb Bascom Hill. Every day. Although this could arguably be a huge lapse of judgment on my part as it is quite the little hike, I became acclimated to campus very quickly. This dreaded hill has been a part of some of my best memories — rolling down a section for a Homecoming activity — and some of my most embarrassing moments — sliding down it after a heavy snowfall. I have since learned to use the 80 with confidence but I learned to appreciate the campus by walking around.
I wish I had known that you need to check the weather before you go to class. Merely peering out the window is not sufficient to determine what Mother Nature is going to throw your way. I learned this the hard way when I exited my freshman political science seminar in November to discover that it had snowed. A lot. Trudging through the three accumulated inches in my clogs, with snow clinging to my thin sweater, I learned the value of weather.com and have never turned back. I encourage you to do the same.
On a similar note, I wish I had known that this university rarely closes due to weather. That means when you wake up at 7am to attend your first class and see a blanket of snow covering the campus, you have to strap on the weatherproof winter boots — Uggs won’t make the cut — and brave the windchill. If you have a morning class, they may have shoveled or you could be the one plowing the way for your fellow students. I learned from my first semester scheduling mistake and never signed up for another 7:45am course. But if you like imagining yourself as the guy in Man vs. Wild early in the morning, more power to you.
I wish I had known that you need to make a connection with a professor as a freshman. Now, currently working on fellowship applications and applying for graduate schools, I have come to realize that I have an academic reference deficiency. Please learn from the mistake I made, and develop a relationship with a professor this year. Go into their office hours and start a conversation. Yes, ask for clarification regarding a concept or for additional help in reviewing for an exam, but go beyond this. Build a relationship. Developing a connection with a leading academic in your field of interest will be incredibly valuable throughout your time here at Madison and beyond.
I wish I had known that it is incredibly difficult to balance two internships during one semester. Yes, I made the mistake of overextending myself. Perhaps I was overwhelmed by the plethora of activities and involvement opportunities. After all, we have over 750 registered student organizations. However, you can join them slowly. The organizations will still be there! Believe me, it will make your experience that much more worthwhile and lessen your stress level considerably.
I wish I had known that football tickets will never be sold in the same way twice. As a freshman, I entered a lottery. As a sophomore, I woke up early to purchase them online. As a junior, I once again entered into the lottery system, crossing my fingers that I would continue to participate in Jump Around. As a senior, I logged on a computer in London in time to see “server too busy” over and over again, only to finally make it through after 45 agonizing minutes in a library. And the distribution system for football tickets will probably continue to evolve during your time here. My recommendation is to watch uwbadgers.com beginning mid-April. The only thing that has remained constant is the student drive to get season tickets and I have to assume that the trend will continue.
Finally, I wish I had known that you are supposed to climb into Abe’s lap in your cap and gown. As a freshman, I thought that you were supposed to whisper your dreams into Abraham Lincoln’s ear at the top of Bascom Hill at the conclusion of your freshman year, so that they would come true. Thirteen of my friends and I sprinted to the base of the statue, boosted each other up one at a time to voice our life aspirations, only to discover that this ritual is a rite of passage for the end of your experience here at Madison, not the beginning. Legend has it that you won’t graduate if you scramble into the statue’s lap too early. Well, I am (fingers crossed) graduating this year, but I would highly recommend not taking the risk that I accidentally did. Wait until you graduate to participate in this tradition or prepare yourself for the consequences.
I have made some mistakes while here at this university. And it’s inevitable that you will too. However, the most important thing is that you learn from those missteps. As a bonus, you will have a few great tales to tell. I encourage you to embrace all of the opportunities available to you here — remember, only one or two at a time. Good luck on your adventures and welcome to Madison.
Steven Olikara
Class: Second Year
Hometown: Brookfield, Wisconsin
Major: Political Science with Honors and Environmental Studies Certificate