When I was a junior in high school, I attended a
highly-competitive magnet school which fostered intense, sometimes vicious
competition between its students. We were systematically told that we were the “best
and brightest” of our state, and that we were competing with each other for the
top few, coveted spots in the Ivy League Schools. Being at that school felt
like a nightmare, and the stress was compounded over and over again until I
found myself sitting opposite my toughest professor, crying. I didn’t mean to start crying – as a matter of
fact, I was terrified of doing so because he was known to berate people who
cried. Even in public. But he happened to be my advisor as well, and when I
began to tell him that I could barely eat, let alone focus on my schoolwork, he
interrupted me to say “Well, if you would stop crying, maybe you could get your
work done.”
A few weeks later, as I considered returning to my public
school, this same man would tell me that if I left, no one would remember me.
