Jumbo Magazine - Fall 2023

WHY TUFTS? THE REWRITE

RAGA CHILAKAMARRI ’23

ENGLISH AND ECONOMICS WITH A MINOR IN FILM AND MEDIA STUDIES FROM SHARON, MA

Raga’s Tufts experience was molded by a partly arbitrary decision to participate in the Tufts Wilderness Orientation (TWO) as an incoming first-year, a community that gave her two of her best friends (turned future housemates). She’s been on TWO’s staff every year since, culminating in her role as a coordinator for TWO 2023. On campus, she’s written for the arts and features sections of the Tufts Daily and was a graphic designer for the Tufts University Social Collective. Some of her favorite pastimes are reading (and people-watching) on Prez Lawn, hosting dinner parties in her off-campus house, and exploring the many nearby Squares. After graduation she is heading to Madrid, Spain as a Fulbright Association English Teaching Assistant.

WE ASK CURRENT STUDENTS TO TACKLE THE NEW TUFTS SHORT-ANSWER QUESTIONS

Complete the following sentence in 100 words or less: “I am applying to Tufts because…”

Looking back at these past four years, it’s challenging to discern what exact strands of Tufts shaped the fabric of my experience—a transformative time of unpredictable growth and connection. On one hand, of course, it’s easy to say the people: bright, silly, and kind. But more directly, it’s the conscientious effort towards community building as an ongoing process. Throughout the many clubs I’ve participated in, from the frisbee team to TWO to TedxTufts, intentionality and care formed the backbone for achieving a common mission. The sense of Jumbo pride is collective—we show up for each other, pack auditoriums to cheer on burlesque performances, showcase our friends’ Tufts Daily articles on Instagram, and wait in long lines for the student-run coffee shop The Sink. At Tufts, our campus culture is not merely inherited or stagnant, but constantly revitalized and evolving. To adopt a phrase from TWO, when we Jumbos come together, “work is love made visible.”

It’s cool to love learning. What excites your intellectual curiosity (200–250 words)

On Tuesday mornings from 10:30 to 11:45, my friend Emma and I hold our weekly meetings in the Campus Center. We alternate making the agenda. In her journal, Emma dutifully bulletpoints: “leisure vs. work;” “anonymity vs. familiarity (space & place);” “what does it mean to feel sound?” Both English majors, the classroom practice of engaging with literature—reading, writing, and thinking about reading and writing—seeps into our daily observations. I am in constant search for thematic expressions, collecting scraps of poetry and prose as they emerge, eager to be moved, to analyze diction and extract significance. From this lens, literature, be it 17th-century Renaissance sonnets or the latest Booker Prize-winning novel, pulses with energy and possibility. “Tell all the truth but tell it slant,” Emily Dickinson once advised, and Emma and I eagerly investigate how language, in the crooked angles of complicated syntax or simple diction, works to obscure and reveal its meaning. In fact, studying English is an experience best explained through metaphors. We are excavators standing between concurrent streams of what is stated and what is implied. Or detectives, tracking subtle motifs and inflections of foreshadowing. Archivists, even, mediating language’s relationship between past and present. To put it plainly: the power of literature never ceases to excite and inspire me with its infinite prospects of collaborative reflection and creativity. Pinning down and problem-solving the great mystery of writing through a time-traveling exploration of stories has been a thrilling adventure, every word a choice, a stone to be turned over.