Defining You by Andy Zhang (17, California)

You sigh as you hop into your bed, and think about how, after a long day of Zoom classes, you have to stare at your computer screen some more as you write college essays. On top of homework, chores, and other responsibilities at home, you also have to figure out how to write 500 words about why you want to move from the temperate Bay Area to plow through six feet of snow to attend class at the University of Michigan. You want to just write, “Because I want a college education and I want to make money when I grow up,” but you know you can’t write that, because you’ve put in too many hours and you’re too close to the end to let your frustration show now. ​

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As you lie in bed, thinking about how to write that essay, your mind can’t help but drift back to how you have a set of physics problems due later in the week, or how you have to write an essay for AP Literature by 10PM tonight. You get distracted, checking your phone for more headlines about the upcoming election. 10 minutes later, you look back at your computer screen to see that blank Google Doc staring back at you like a 4th grader who you just tried to explain negative numbers to. You get up and move to your desk. Whatever, you think. You can just copy your “Why this School” essay from another application, and change up the classes, professors, clubs, and programs you mention. You think back to those Legos you played with as a kid, where you used pieces from different sets to build your creations. To you, writing these essays feels similar, swapping out pieces and bricks in the hope of creating something that resembles a Michigan or a UC Berkeley or a Stanford student. After a Zoom meeting with your counselor, you move back to your bed to continue your essay writing. It’s the same routine every day—from your bed, to your desk, to your bed—and it will continue to stay the same for the foreseeable future. 

Months will pass, and before you know it, the election will finally be over. For most of us. You’ll have submitted your early action schools, and the main thing keeping you afloat will be your dad coming home for the first time in 10 months. When your dad comes back, COVID-19 will be spiking in California, and there will be fires all over the state. And yet, these events, some of which will have a global impact, will have less of an impact in your home. Maybe you won’t go on walks as much, but every day, you’ll still be moving like a pendulum from your bed, to your desk, to your bed. 

However, your dad’s arrival will immediately shift your mood and your habits. It’ll rain, the smoke will clear, and you’ll play tennis with him almost every day, driving to the courts by the local high school and hitting for an hour and a half. You’ll notice how much he’s improved during the months since you’ve last seen him. At first, you’ll be rusty and out of shape, but quickly these hitting sessions will become more intense. You’ll rally for longer and longer, and you’ll feel better about the shots you hit. You’ll even bump into some teammates from your high school tennis team, who will compliment you about your improvement. While playing tennis, you'll feel the most relaxed and carefree you have since Senior year started. 

Your dad’s impact won’t only be on the tennis courts though. Dinner conversations will become livelier, and your routine will involve more than just your bed and your desk and your bed. You’ll watch NBA games, discuss politics, and exercise together. Your brother will come home for the holidays, which will fill up the house even further. 

Having the house so full will make you feel surrounded. On one hand, it’ll be good to have everyone in one place—your family isn’t complete without all the members truly at home. On the other hand, you’ll feel that you have less space, both physically and mentally, and being around everyone might be tiring at times. Your dad and you will have a hard time convincing your mom that not everything she hears from Taiwan’s news sites is real, and that China is not, in fact, going to assassinate Donald Trump. Your work on college essays will become even more tiring than before. You’ll get into a particularly big argument with your mom about applying to new schools just days before their deadlines, but it’ll feel good to work it out as a family, and your sense of who you are will become clearer than before. 

When you were 13, after you graduated from middle school, you didn’t know what you wanted to do. Your mom wanted to move to Palo Alto, as it was closer to her workplace and she wanted you to start high school there. However, you didn’t want to leave the friends you’d made in middle school, and start anew. You spent that summer in limbo. You went through the motions, going to summer camp and hanging out with your friends, not knowing if you were going to see them again after summer. You didn’t want to think about it, immersing yourself like a deep-sea diver in coding camp and Counter Strike. Near the end of summer, your mom and you toured Palo Alto high school. You felt out of place, not because of the kids there, as they were nice enough, but because of your friends’ absence. You didn’t want to start all over again, knowing nobody. 

Before the UM essay, you were writing your CommonApp essay; before that were your UC Personal Insight Questions, and even before that, you were filling out your activities and extracurriculars. Along the way, you wrote multiple times about a club your friends and you founded: Math Mentors. 

It feels fraudulent to write the same story over and over again because you haven’t actually taught Math Mentors since school shut down in March of 2020. Every time you write it down, you feel further and further away from the actual experience, and yet closer to an understanding of why it was so important. Math Mentors went into Washington Elementary School, offering one-on-one math help for students who were struggling. You helped change their feelings about math, trying to replace their apathy and diffidence with excitement for the subject. You worked with one student in particular who initially struggled with math a lot. But by being patient and making math more enjoyable and easier to understand, he gradually started to thrive. Your relationship with him helped change his relationship with math. And it taught you the rewards of helping others. You remember how happy he was to see you every week, running up to you and dragging you to his desk. 

As you sit on your bed and try to write this essay, you miss those types of personal interactions you could have before COVID. Thinking forward to when you end up at college, you anticipate that moment when you'll be able to sit at a cafeteria table with friends. You realize that the you, portrayed in those 500 words you’re writing to the University of Michigan, isn’t going to be the you that actually attends college. You will be defined by the connections you make, the activities you participate in, and the memories you create. 

You imagine yourself as a college freshman, living in a dorm with a bunch of other people you’ve lived with for a couple of months. You’re sitting in the common room, complaining with your dormmates about how your CS professor assigns too much work, or playing a friendly game of pool or ping pong. You pull out your phone, gleefully showing your friend how bad you’re smacking him in fantasy basketball. As you talk about where you want to eat lunch tomorrow, or how an upcoming test is going to kick your ass, you find that your dormmates can relate, and that they’re going through many of the same things you are. You realize that you’re fitting in well, and college is starting to feel more and more like a second home. 

Sitting on your bed, thinking about where you’ll be in the fall, you realize how far away that seems. When you’re confined to your house for most of the day, and stuck writing words on a Google Doc, it’s hard to imagine meeting new people and having a good time. And yet, those images of the future you give you hope, something to look forward to. They remind you why you want to go to college, inspire you to finally finish this essay. They reassure you that eventually you won’t be only moving from your bed, to your desk, to your bed. Instead, you might be throwing a frisbee around on campus, or studying in a library surrounded by peers, or playing pickup basketball with friends, or even still going from your bed to your desk, to your bed, but with a lot more new experiences and places in between. You find that it’s easier to keep plugging away at the present, when you can imagine a better future.

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