Swimming Upstream

The concluding sentence of my supplemental essay for my college application read, “In college I hope to stretch my range, continuing to diversify my human experience.” Having grown up in a bubble on the west-side of Los Angeles, I always figured that going to college would be a culture shock. Not only would I be in a new city, but I would be meeting thousands of new people with lives very different from my own. Little did I know, the culture shock would not come from interacting with a diverse student body, rather nearly the opposite. Coming from a radically progressive city like Los Angeles, I figured that I had been raised differently than most students. But as we had chosen to go to the same school and were fairly equally driven, I assumed that our values would be similar enough. This was my first mistake. In raising me, my parents always tried to push against the social culture that would attempt to subject me to forms of submission and passivity. Whether it was on the surface, like being conscious of how I presented myself on social media, or more deeply-rooted, like holding high standards for myself morally, I was raised to be a force against the contemporary culture. But such a task is difficult to uphold when the challenge of fitting in feels like a far more pressing battle.

Moving through high school and into college, I could feel my understanding of myself and of my position in the world around me begin to waver. I felt the tug of underlying pressures telling me to hold myself in a certain manner in conversation and pretend as though I cared about things I considered trivial. I had to learn how to convey a very curated and meticulously crafted image of myself to others. For me, these social forces made each decision feel like choosing between individuality at my own risk or sameness with the comfort of being a member of the group. I remember ordering a particular costume for a party on my mother’s Amazon account and receiving a multi-paragraph email expressing her disappointment. She thought that I was feeding into the social culture that she had tried so hard to remove me from.

But in reality, it took me a long time to feel the gravity of her messages, and I still don’t think I fully have. Being a teenager, hearing my mother tell me not to wear something only made me want to wear it more. In my mind, my mother’s labeling of items as “demeaning” or “objectifying” women just demonstrated that she simply did not understand that the times have changed, and so has what is considered appropriate. Feeling very spirited a few days later, I responded to the email. I concocted a polished argument that the nature of the women’s rights movement asserts that women should be able to wear whatever they want and that they should not let stigmas proliferated by men infringe upon their actions or right to choose. When she didn’t respond to this email, I felt that I had won.

Much has changed in the weeks since this exchange. I have become increasingly aware of a core facet of my college’s culture that, quite frankly, has made me despise many aspects of the institution itself. Universities pride themselves on being progressive oases where diversity and individuality supposedly reign. Unfortunately, this sentiment is not echoed within the overarching mentality of the student body. Though students may be ethnically and geographically diverse, the people universities attract are virtually homogeneous in thought — or so they become after a period of time. Each student prides themselves on their ability to be versatile and flexible, easily letting go of previously held perspectives that differentiate them as individuals in favor of being accepted and getting by unquestioned. The social culture at my school seems to reward those amorphous individuals who can easily receive and discard personas in order to blend in. It endows success to shape-shifting chameleons rather than people. And because of this, maintaining a strong sense of self and powerful identity feels nearly impossible because who doesn’t want to win the game? I came to school eager to find an eclectic group of individuals and have instead met a student body who, whether by choice or submission to the pressures of conformity, have lost any distinguishing spark.

Unfortunately, losing your sense of self cuts much deeper than an email from your mother grieving your adherence to unfavorable social norms. The nature of how one connects with others and develops relationships is irreversibly changed. Rather than two complex individuals with varying perspectives and experiences interacting, interactions are reduced to shadows of people trying to find ways to relate. Depth in conversation and relationships is hard to come by. How are you expected to get to know someone personally and figure out if you’re compatible if every conversation seems to follow the exact same script? For the entirety of first semester, I felt that I would never find my people here because all of my interactions were so superficial. Luckily, that sentiment has since changed as I have spent more time with people and forged more significant relationships. However, the truth is that it is impossible to relate this way with everyone at school.

The reality of being part of a broader community, like that of a college campus, is that one must be content in being reduced from a complex and thoughtful individual to a superficial snapshot or reputation. And this is dangerous. When your interactions with others are predicated on their shallow understanding of you, at some point you begin to feel as though that narrow identity is actually your own. You are taught to enter conversations with the same few questions, asking how someone’s summer was, how their work is coming, or whether they will be going out that night, and a perfectly draw up response encapsulating your last four months, complaining that you are drowning in work, or fervently declaring that you would never miss a night out. And such begins the reductionist nature of campus cultures. Each person goes from a multi-faceted individual capable of establishing real relationships with others, to someone captured only by a handful of adjectives. I believe that finding profound and meaningful connections in college is probably the most challenging task any student will have to face.

But alas, I am not an optimist. I do not foresee college culture changing anytime soon. For those whose stomachs churn at the idea of relinquishing their perspectives and ideas, I lament the decisions you have yet to encounter. It is so easy to submit to the prevailing culture, so I do not blame those who do. I, too, find solace in groups and would sometimes prefer to be simply pass under the radar. I have spent the last few months reflecting on whether there is any solution or remedy to our reductionist social culture and have yet to reach a conclusion. I am unsure of the future of our society that feels devoid of true interpersonal relationships and lacking in depth. But for now, I can only hope that those strong enough to swim upstream are not swept away by the current beneath them.

By Isabel Friedman

Duke student, not much of a cheeky tagline person