Over the summer, I went with my mom to Boston and that was kind of the only trip we went on. It was mainly a trip to tour colleges: Harvard and MIT. Initially when I went in, I thought Harvard was going to be cool like the movies and that I was gonna hate MIT because it was gonna be all complete techie nerds. And don’t get me wrong. I am a techie nerd. I love math. I love chemistry, and I think I want to go into engineering. But my persona isn’t like, “techie nerd” persona, it’s more of a “I’m a theater kid” persona. So I wasn’t expecting to find my people there.
So I go walk around Harvard and I hated it. It was so like, I don’t know, it just felt like made for speeches and everybody there who you were asking like, “Why Harvard? Why do I want to go to Harvard?” they were all like “Duh, because it’s Harvard!” And I don’t want to go to a school just because it has a fancy name. I hate the corporate branding. Like, honestly, I kind of don’t want to go to Michigan or State because I don’t want to be branded by that school, you know?
But the difference when I walked around at MIT with pretty low expectations, is I found people who were actually my people. Instead of being totally techies, both of my tour guides were majoring in some sort of engineering, mechanical and chemical, and I’m gonna major in chemical probably. And then they were both theater minors! If you wouldn’t think going to MIT that there would be people who are minoring in theater, but there they are and that’s something that I want to do! So, I don’t know. I was just excited. To see that people like me going to school like that, it’s just cool. When you find a way that you can fit into a group, it’s pretty fulfilling. So, I hope I can go there because I think I might find my people.