Finding a Place for My Mind

GRE, MCAT, and LSAT are simply sets of letters with corresponding numbers, and yet they have such a strong hold on how we judge our intellectual merit. How can we determine intelligence, and what good does that quantification do? My high school was divided between the AP students and the others. As the college process ensued, everyone became even more compartmentalized. You became your applications, the number of schools, the caliber, and the location. As soon as April 1 hit, you were the acceptance letters, the financial aid packages, and the multitudes of collegiate sweatshirts that popped up on torso after torso of blurry-eyed college-bound seniors. I knew my place in the hierarchy. I was going to a private school in Southern California, a dreamy fantasyland of tan bodies, palm trees, and Mickey Mouse ears.

Upon arriving, it felt great to meet so many people that had thought Scripps was just as perfect for them as I knew it was for me. I thought I had finally left the hierarchy behind. However, after the hubbub of orientation week and the 6:01 party calmed down, I began to learn why people really came to Scripps – a surprising number of my friends did so out of default. Regardless of how they felt now, Scripps hadn’t been their first choice, and for some reason that came as a surprise to me. But it also came as an insult. Was I less worthy as an intellectual being if I hadn’t even applied to any “better” schools? Was I less intelligent if I thought Core was difficult; did that mean I couldn’t have made it at a “harder” school? I felt embarrassed to say anything in class because I was sure that all my classmates had gotten into “better” schools and that the classes here were a breeze for them. I hit a low after the release of the first core paper assignment when I spent hours working on an answer only to have my professor reject each thesis statement, one after another. I felt like I physically didn’t have the capacity to understand what he was asking for. In Core I we discussed the definition of intelligence and whether or how it can be measured. The very discussion of those things made me feel inferior. I don’t believe that intelligence can be measured or ranked and yet it constantly is, by the school you go to, the grades you get, even the major you decide to pursue. A ranking of intelligence is unavoidable.

A good friend of mine felt the same daunting feeling when faced with Core I. Her admittance to Scripps came as a surprise and thus a self-esteem boost. However, upon arriving she found the course load and time commitment of Core shocking and intimidating. Once she learned her professor’s expectations and how to navigate the class, she realized that what we were learning was truly important. In an impromptu email to her parents she wrote, “I can feel my brain expanding.” Thinking in a new way made her excited to be learning and showed her that doing well in college is not about being smart enough but about what and how much we can learn while we’re here.

As I walked out of the Core final in December I felt the sense of relief that any student does when finals week is over, but I also felt an immense feeling of accomplishment. As I walked back to my dorm from Steele hall I thought about what I had just achieved: I had proven in the past two hours that I could analyze difficult material by philosophers and authors, could connect all the ranging works, and could synthesize what I had learned into three succinct essays. Walking through Honnold gate onto the grounds of my new home, I realized that if someone had asked me to do such a thing five months earlier I would have laughed. Beyond that, I could see that we had all struggled through this first semester. It didn’t matter where my intelligence ranked with the other women on campus. Knowing that I had shared this experience with such intelligent people made me just as worthy as the rest. No matter how prestigious the schools these women had applied or gotten into were, they are now part of the Scripps community, and so am I. It doesn’t matter where we rank in intelligence, no matter how that is measured, what matters is how much we can grow and absorb, two things that I am confident all Scripps students are very skilled at because we accomplish them through our interactions with faculty and each other.