Senior Reflection: The Final Fall Semester

T Senior Reflection: The Final Fall Semester By Samantha Shih T he first day of my senior year, I pranced around all day with a face-splitting grin spanning from ear to ear. With a bright red t-shirt, and a pair of jeans that hugged just right, the entire year was mine for the taking. “Come and Get Your Love” by Redbone bounced off my eardrums and put a little spring in my step that can be described as nothing short of cartoonish. Think Spongebob and Patrick delivering the Krusty Krab pizza on a bright Morningside Heights morning, as opposed to a pastel-colored afternoon in Bikini Bottom. I made it to my senior year a completely changed, yet still entirely the same, me.

Throughout the years, I have been challenged in such a variety of cruel, nuanced, and beneficial ways. While there have been many valuable lessons learned within the four walls of the classroom, I have come to discover many crucials aspects of my identity in the most unorthodox places. Whether perched on the end of someone’s bed, wistfully plotting revenge schemes on the subway, or wandering through the West Village zillowing townhouses in the shrouded darkness of the night, I have grown beyond the boundaries of my wildest imagination alongside the other 8.623 million humans in this steely city. Senior Reflection: The Final Fall Semester Senior year is a little bit different for me compared to the past few years at Barnard. Every day feels like the most pristine opportunity to get caught up in my feelings. If you know me, you know that isn’t too much of a stretch, but senior year can mean a lot of different things for different people. I am not sure if we’re supposed to feel ages wiser as veteran navigators of this tumultuous system of academia. If we wear the coveted crown of seniority, does that mean we are supposed to have it all figured out? While the near and distal future is a beast I am not quite ready to battle, this year is going to be about learning to define yourself by the grace and speed of the bounce back, not by the size of the success. Senior year is about hovering in the gray spaces of the unknown and terrifying. Spend time with the kind of people that love with such unconditional might that their mere words ground you to the earth like the ancient roots of the Daddy tree that all the kids climbed on in your neighborhood cul-de-sac. In fact, this year, for me, has been accentuated, complemented, and made utterly unforgettable by my experience as a senior interviewer. In this role, a small cohort of us get to serve as representatives of the school, as well as of our own individual sto-

ries and experiences, while interviewing current high school seniors. We try to gauge their potential to grow into bold, brilliant, Barnard women. There is a rough skeleton structure that I have in the back of my mind when I am conducting interviews, but each one is as unique as the girls that I meet. Over the course of an entire semester pianists, authors, physicists, and wrestlers have all carved out a chunk of their day to share their story with me. In a matter of seconds, I try to read as much as possible from that person in order to meet them at their level of energy and style of communication. Above all, I work to make the interview a space for these young women to show off their origin stories. I know I am doing my job well when I see their eyes dance and hear their voices crescendo as their profess their most passionate ambitions. In return, I share my adoration for Barnard and my own musings on my journey. I have spent days in fogs of funk, numbness, and frustration and had my entire mood pivot during an afternoon in the office of admissions at Barnard. Instead of a peer giving me a portion of their attention in passing, or having to struggle to articulate heavy emotions swirling around in my head, I dive head first into showing up completely for another person. I envelope myself in reading their cues, learning their story, and digesting all the concrete and abstract information they gift me. Under the best circumstances, the interviewees do the majority of the talking. I get to sit there and bask in what it feels like to sprint the 50 meters freestyle, travel to Scandinavia to sing at the induction of a political figure, or act alongside Kate Winslet in an HBO drama. I vibrate with giddy gratitude as I get to have that magic click with someone so young, on the precipice of such greatness, as I myself am nearing the end of this chapter in my life. This may be naive, but I chose to hold out hope that there will be opportunities—though much more rarely—to connect with another human soul in the vast unknown of the world outside of Barnard’s gates. Life is nothing if you don’t get to share it with family, friends, and even more importantly the young, wide-eyed hopefuls who dream of treading along the path you have paved so gallantly.