When I visited Grinnell as a high school senior, I noticed that the students here were really genuine. Students asked each other, “How did the test go?” or “How are rehearsals going?” not for the sake of continuing a conversation, but from a place of real care. I found that to be very special, coming from a big public high school with 1,800 students.
I decided to commit Early Decision to Grinnell so that it would be my home for the next four years of my life. Here’s me getting my acceptance letter:
Grinnell’s community, especially for choir, is quite different than high school, but in a good way. At Grinnell, the choir community cares about the music that we are making, yes, but we also care a lot about the act of making music. For example, during intense rehearsals when we’d practice long hours with one another, we recognized that it could be fun if we made it fun. And so what could have been a super exhausting and dull experience was instead energizing and a great breath of fresh air. I’d say the playfulness of Grinnell’s community is one of the biggest things that makes my time so worthwhile here.
Two things I learned quickly in college: 1) that routine was no longer as easy but 2) that it also came with its benefits. In high school, I was focused on routine: there was a set schedule I could adhere to every day. But in college, classes and rehearsals were at different times every day!
And so because that set daily structure was thrown out the window in college, I really began to appreciate spontaneity. I'd tell my first-year self that it was okay to not know what I was doing or what I was going to be doing in the next moment; that even if a surprise happens, it’s okay to not know exactly everything that is going on. Happy surprises come your way!
I’ve always loved stories and telling them. I think of theater — one of my majors and my passion for years — as the fictional side of the stories. I think of history — my second major — as the non-fictional side of the stories.
Rarely do my two majors collide, but they did in London! I studied abroad in my third year in the Grinnell-in-London program to study the theater and go to museums. I often solo-traveled to museums and theaters for my interests (pic from Stonehenge is with my class, however), and London was such an interesting place to study stories through both theater and history.
Because London is the place where capitalism was created and everything is so influenced by capitalism’s economic push, all forms of performance, art, and history are touched by this push. Being able to see all the things that people held years and years ago in these museums and learn about the stories of capitalism and the people touched by it were very important experiences for me.
Something funny about me post-London: the trip made me very impatient with impatience. When I went to London, I noticed how British people were really good at standing in line. Why can't we also do that?
I also remember thinking about public transport similarly. I was able to do a lot of solo-learning, going to museums and theater performances and anything in between, using the U.K.'s trains. Wouldn't it be so cool to have that kind of experience without needing a car like we do in the US?
Since I like theater and kids, I put them together for my summer jobs. During the summer after my third and fourth year of college, I taught shows for a group called Footliters Traveling Playhouse, which was a rookie group where almost all of the kids had never been on a stage before. This was really exciting, and I got to apply the directing classes I took in second year to help the kids out in this really meaningful part of their life.
Watching these kids become more confident was the best part of my job, hands down. We traveled across the state to perform on stages, and it made it even more special when they performed and experienced their first shows. One of my students made a paper crown for me, and I still keep it in my room as a reminder that life can be as silly and fun as you want it to be, just like how kids see it.
