There’s a strange period between getting into college and actually going — a limbo where the semester hasn’t started, but the expectations already have. Opening my acceptance letter was surreal. I reread it nearly twenty times, half convinced it would vanish if I blinked too long. I gushed about it to my family, my friends, my high school teachers, and even my doctor. For a few weeks, I lived in a kind of soft-focus dream — the kind where your future finally feels tangible enough to believe in.
Then came the prep.
Suddenly, Penn wasn’t just a dream school. It was a page filled with daunting club deadlines. A list of Penn-specific acronyms. A crowd of future classmates who already seemed to have opportunities lined up and résumé templates branded with serif fonts I didn’t recognize. What used to be a fuzzy dream started to become very … clear.
And I’m excited. Genuinely, unapologetically excited. I can’t wait for late-night debates, discovering new authors, and wandering around a campus that looks like it was ripped from a brochure titled “Academia Aesthetic.” I want to meet people who challenge me. I want to stay up too late talking about politics or poetry or whether water has a taste. I want to learn things that change my mind. That’s not a throwaway line — I truly want to be changed.
But beneath the excitement, there’s this quiet, persistent voice. It says, “Keep up.”
It’s not Penn’s fault, exactly. This pressure predates the acceptance letter. It’s baked into the application process, into the way college admissions turned teenage years into performance art. We learn to turn ourselves into narratives: curated, compelling, cohesive, with personal statements polished to the point of mythology. Naturally, arriving at Penn feels like the start of a sequel we now have to live up to. And it’s hard not to notice how quickly orientation morphs into optimization. How, even before we arrive, we’re nudged toward positioning ourselves — for clubs, for jobs, for some vaguely defined future that apparently begins the moment we swipe our PennCard.
There’s a lot of talk about finding yourself in college. But the subtext sometimes reads more like, "Build yourself into something useful. Something polished. Something marketable. Something profitable."
And I get it. I’ve read the alumni stories. I know the numbers, the prestige, and the doors that open from here. I understand why people are already planning out dual degrees and researching consulting pipelines. But I’d like to believe there’s still room for wandering. For taking a class that doesn’t “make sense.” For joining a club because it looks fun, not because it’s exclusive. For letting identity be shaped by people and ideas, not LinkedIn templates.
It’s not that I’m uninterested in ambition — far from it. If anything, I packed a little too much of it. I’m eager to grow, to be challenged, and to work hard. I didn’t apply early decision to coast. But I’m also hoping — maybe naively — that success here doesn’t have to come at the expense of slowness. Of presence. Of becoming a person rather than a product.
What I fear most isn’t failing. It’s becoming automatic. Performing instead of participating. Treating curiosity like a transaction. I don’t want every conversation to feel like a stepping stone.
I also don’t want to pretend I have it all figured out. I haven’t set foot in a Penn classroom or stumbled into those unplanned conversations or sat on College Green wondering what just happened in lecture. But I’m already bracing for a pace I haven’t even experienced yet. And that feels worth naming.
So no, this isn’t a pre-college crisis. It’s more of a preemptive pause. A reminder to myself that it’s okay to start unsure. That figuring things out in real time, awkwardly and imperfectly, is kind of the point. I want to give myself the freedom to not know what’s next, and to be okay with that.
Because here’s the truth: I’m walking into this next chapter with nerves, yes, but mostly with wonder. I’m excited for the unknown. I’m excited to get lost in a good way. And I’m excited to write about it — not just the polished parts, but the messy, meandering ones, too.
College doesn’t have to be a launchpad right away. It can be a place to land. To learn. To loosen the grip just a little.
So here’s to showing up with curiosity instead of a five-year plan. To being ambitious, but not automatic. To staying grounded in a place that never stops moving. And to becoming wholly ourselves — unwritten, unhurried, and unapologetically new.
ANANYA KARTHIK is a College freshman studying economics and communication from Aldie, Virginia. Her email is ananyakk@sas.upenn.edu.
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