My College Experience at NYU

 "I can't tell you exactly what day things changed, and it wasn't necessarily an exact moment either. It was more like when you wake up one day and realize that you're gonna be okay."

I wrote this after my first week of college.  I remember the sleepless nights I had the days leading up to my first day and how I would thoroughly play out different scenarios in my head. My first class, the first piece I would create, my first relationship, living in the dorms, working with choreographers, tests, getting lost on the subway-- everything was new and the possibilities felt endless. I thought I had worked out every possibility for all these situations, but I never imagined that half of my college experience would be during a pandemic, let alone that I would graduate into one. But what's funny is now, I can't imagine my college experience without COVID's influence and the effects that it caused. 

Long story short(and I hope you read the long version of course), I am overwhelmed by how much I truly treasure my experience here at NYU. Of course, there were not-so-great things, which I will touch on in just a little bit, but for the most part, I would say that my experience here has answered a lot of questions I had coming in. These questions were:

1. Who am I and Who do I want to be?

2. What is the effect I have on others?

3. What do I value?

4. How do I accomplish my dreams?

Before I sort of debrief on these questions, I want to first acknowledge what was hard about my experience at NYU. I want to clarify that this is my personal experience and that a lot of these details are based on my choices for my college career. Also, I can't include everything and every anecdote so if you have specific questions hit me up haha. 

Academically, the hardest thing was to double major. And what was even harder was accepting that it wasn't meant to be. It wasn't hard because of the academics themselves but it was trying to schedule journalism classes around dance classes, but because the journalism program is smaller, a lot of classes had limited sections which meant most of them overlapped with my required dance classes. Even after multiple meetings with advisors, fighting to be in certain classes, creating my own color-coded plans, changing the type of journalism I was choosing to study, and taking summer classes, I came out one class short of accomplishing the major requirements. And that's okay because honestly, I learned a lot from these courses, and I learned even more from my peers and working at the school paper. A minor is cool too. 

Mentally, I really struggled with staying confident. I didn't have much to begin with, but I placed my value as a dancer, artist, and person, into what I accomplished or didn't accomplish, as well as what I thought others thought of me. I'm someone who struggles in situations I cannot control, and in those moments, I self-depreciate and spiral. I believed that in every game of Among Us, I would be the imposter. I believed that was my role. Dance-wise, I had trouble being bold. I got paralyzed by fear when I didn't feel good enough and I believed that my voice didn't have value. I also was injured quite a lot during my time at NYU, which made me feel even more behind and unworthy. I think as a department, it is slowly but surely on its way towards change. And I hope that as students continue to fight for what's right, institutions will use action to change the parts of their systems that are rooted in oppression. 

WHO AM I AND WHO DO I WANT TO BE? College has taught me that I don't have to be one thing. For a long time, I believed that I was only a dancer. Don't get me wrong, I love that dance is so woven into my identity, but I was able to rediscover old passions like drawing and music, and discover new passions like editing, creating, filming, and having meaningful conversations. I definitely feel that all these different aspects are just parts of me and that I have the agency to decide which ones and how much of these skills "define" me. But outside of skill, a very important role to me is being a good friend, sister, and daughter, and I want to make sure these roles are always above any work role I have. I think I'm just Rachel. A 21-year-old Korean-American artist who is passionate about people speaking up and who is working every day to be a better human. I want to be someone who is empathetic.  I want to be someone that uses her many interests to remind people of their value and the power in their experiences. I'm still working on being confident, taking more risks, and being bolder, but I hope that at some point this will be natural for me.

WHAT IS THE EFFECT I HAVE ON OTHERS? This question has become more and more important to me at NYU as I started to really feel the impact that others had on me. I say this a million times and I hope my repetition doesn't take away my seriousness, but I feel really lucky to have met the people I've met. My co-workers at the Rockwall, you have always been so thoughtful. Carefully listening to others and tending to their needs. I have always felt like I belonged even though we didn't have much in common. I hope to return the favor by being kind to others and taking action when you need me. Tin Tin, Chin Chin, and my other 207 peeps, you have brought me so much joy and love. The power you guys have to make others happy is insane and I hope to instill your youthful joy into other people through my conversations and my creative work. My fellow SADC class, you have constantly kept me in awe with your talent and your individual voices. It is because of you, I've become braver and hope to have a servant's heart. I want to constantly encourage others to be proud of who they are. Congrats SADC 2021.

WHAT DO I VALUE? I knew going into college, I wanted to be a platform for unheard voices, but I didn't exactly know what that meant. Especially after the events over the past year, I've been able to have a better understanding of how race, gender, (dis)abilities and sexuality can hinder someone from being viewed and treated as a human. I value equity, accessibility, and education, so I will constantly learn and do what I can to advocate for change. I also value quality time with people. I think it was inevitable since everyone in middle school called me a "social butterfly" but I have actively tried to hang out with people one-on-one to learn their stories. I am definitely a "let's grab food and talk for hours" type of girl. People are so cool guys. I also value my faith, and I would say that it was definitely tested as I reflected on home and navigated life on my own. But because of that, my faith is MY faith and I love that I'm still learning. 

HOW DO I ACCOMPLISH MY DREAMS? Hah, does anyone know the answer to this question? More than anything, I actually still want to be a dancer in a company. And what was made clearer in my experience at NYU was the type of dance and movement that I want to do. I think it also taught me that there is no "right" or single pathway to accomplishing your dream. Because of COVID and money and things, the path to reaching my dreams isn't exactly clear yet, but I'm trying to trust that I will end up where I'm meant to be. For now, whatever job I have, I want to have time for dance and I want my job to be related to dance or the arts and have some sort of activism component. Is that too much to ask for? Maybe. But the opportunities that happened in college for me just fell into place. Being in an off-broadway production happened because the choreographer just happened to be there on the first day of school. Being hired for the school paper as an illustrator after having one baby graphic journalism class happened because I happened to be friends with a dancer on the team. Drawing the cover for a published book,  joining an organization for Artists of Color, dancing for other peoples' projects, work with my dream company-- it all just sort of happened. To quote Oprah, "Luck is preparation meeting opportunity," and though to some extent I was kind of prepared, I never could have imagined what was in store for me during my time here, so I'm gonna keep preparing and hope that opportunity comes soon. I was okay during college, so I think I'm, no, we're gonna be okay.