‘VU2021’

Harmonic Notions

May. 15, 2017—Jeremy Mani, ’18 College of Arts and Science College can be an overwhelming experience. In the swirl of planning your classes, being pre-med for at least one semester, figuring out to do with your life, making friends with everyone on your floor and changing your mind just as fast, and just trying to adjust to...

I Live for the Stage

May. 15, 2017—Akash Majumdar, ’19 Vanderbilt Performing Arts Community I live for the stage. Every time the curtains rise, I experience a surge of adrenaline combined with the desire to resonate with my audience. While preparing to make the journey from Kolkata, India to Vanderbilt, I rummaged through Vanderbilt’s 500+ student organizations, trying to gauge my potential...

Beyond Brotherhood: Being in an NPHC Fraternity

May. 10, 2017—Gregory Rudd, ’18 Completing community service on early Saturday mornings; communicating with administration and faculty to program events; throwing parties and having to work the door the entire night; working with alumni to coordinate reunions; following the wishes of the Office of Greek Life even when they are less than agreeable. Being in a fraternity...

I fell victim to the belief that the presence of diversity was enough; I had never stopped to consider that diversity is only valuable when differences come in contact with one another.

Multicultural Leadership Council

May. 10, 2017—Jacob Pierce, ’19 Student VUceptor, College of Arts and Science I don’t do many class readings, but one in particular has always stuck with me: “diversity loses its force, however, if in the same space, different persons or activities are merely concentrated, buch each remains isolated…Differences have to interact.” I never expected my view of...

Walking Fast and Slow. Learning to “Profiter”

May. 2, 2017—Elizabeth Winter, ’18 College of Arts and Science Student VUceptor It’s hard to escape a conversation in Aix-en-Provence, a small city in the south of France, without hearing the phrase “profiter de,” translating roughly to “make the most of” or “enjoy” two to three times. Whether it’s “profiter d’Aix” (enjoy Aix), or “profiter du soleil”...

“My grades were bad, really bad. I’d been an “A student” all of my life up until that point, even in AP classes in high school, but that first semester in college, I did not make one A. “

From D to Dean

May. 2, 2017—Vanessa Beasley, Ph.D. Dean of The Martha Rivers Ingram Commons When I remember it now, I can still hear the sound of my mother crying. In the 1980s, when I was a Vanderbilt undergraduate, your final semester grades were sent home via the mail. There was no way for students to look up your final...

“The pressure to conform was ever-present, sometimes even self-inflicted, and I endured it for a time. But that didn’t stop it from slowly eroding away my sense of sincerity and purpose and identity as a student and friend at Vanderbilt until eventually I cracked.”

Identity, Adversity, and the Weight of Conforming

May. 2, 2017—“…I thought he was gay…”—five words that haunted me for the first twenty years of my life. I heard them whispered through the halls of my middle school by the “popular kids” that I wanted so badly to impress. I felt their scornful and demoralizing intentions in the concerned words of my Sunday school teachers...

"In the midst of rehearsals, classes, and individual hours of practice, I finally identified my priorities in order to devote time to people, activities, and classes I loved."

Double-Majoring in Blair

May. 2, 2017—The start of my college experience was far from glamorous. I was enrolled in 16 hours but had class for twice that amount of time. Being a part of a campus that felt off the beaten path and practicing hours a day isolated me and skewed The Commons experience I hoped I would have. I...

I woke up early one summer morning with a sense of unrest. Only a few hours previously, we had celebrated my friend’s twentieth birthday; yet, for some inexplicable reason, I felt lonely with a sense of longing for home. Having only been home for three weeks this summer, I dismissed my emotions for homesickness and got ready.

On the walk to Stevenson, I called her, my best friend from Chicago, but I was left with the sound of her voice on the answering machine. It wasn’t until a couple hours later that I would find that that would be the last time I would hear her voice. On the night of June 30th, my best friend had committed suicide. It was the 21st of July, three weeks after the incident.

My entire being went numb while my brain searched for a logical explanation. “I had literally talked to her three weeks ago.” Last phone call: June 29th. “She must have run away from home.” The police had located her body. “There must be a mistake.”

I was stunned – how could this happen? I felt angry – how did they let me live three weeks in oblivion? I felt guilty – how was I unable to prevent this from happening? I was exhausted – how can I mentally process all this when it just didn’t feel real? But most of all, I felt desperate – how can I turn back the clock?

I spent the last three weeks of summer break with my thoughts. I felt torn between knowing she was gone but feeling like it was all a mistake. In my mind, she is living happily on a farm in Lithuania – her happy place. But maybe I’m just naïve.

My parents were constantly worried about me, giving me passes, every time I did something crazy. My friends always had a sense of pity in their voices, wanting to help, but not knowing how. I was constantly assuring them that I was doing okay. They couldn’t understand that like everything, I wanted to handle this myself.

This is when I admit that I am naïve. I don’t understand how I thought that I could do this without help. Every time I thought I was doing okay, the smallest things would remind me of her, engulfing me back into despair. It became so hard to focus on myself. I slowly became someone I couldn’t recognize.

But finally, time had caught up to me, and I don’t know if it was the stress of the semester or the pressure from holding it in for so long, but I began talking about it with my friends. The more people I told, the easier it got to express myself and my feelings more openly. And yes, the same worry and pity that I tried so hard to avoid were back, but somehow they didn’t bother me as much anymore. I began to embrace these feelings, better understanding the support rather than the judgement behind them.

Being vulnerable is never easy, especially for me, someone who’s always been so independent my entire life. But sometimes it can lead to beautiful things. My vulnerability has helped me understand myself better, build stronger relationships, and overall, experience life from a new, happier perspective.

Losing a Loved One

Apr. 27, 2017—Haneesha Paruchuri, ’19 College of Arts and Sciences I woke up early one summer morning with a sense of unrest. Only a few hours previously, we had celebrated my friend’s twentieth birthday; yet, for some inexplicable reason, I felt lonely with a sense of longing for home. Having only been home for three weeks this...

“I’ve had the amazing opportunity to call multiple spaces on this campus a home, and to meet people with a variety of backgrounds, ideologies, beliefs, and majors, you name it. “

Get Connected: The Many Faces of Vanderbilt

Apr. 27, 2017—Henry Bristol, ’19 School of Engineering When I got to Vanderbilt my freshman year, I had no idea what to expect. Frankly, I had set foot on campus just once before, and made the decision to come here because I couldn’t convince myself out of it. I was hesitant. I still vividly remember that first day...

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