Imperfecting myself at Stanford

After fantasizing about how perfect Stanford was going to be my entire senior year of high school, my first thought upon landing in SFO was: “I am so f—ed.”

Just hours ago on the plane from Istanbul, I was journaling about my aspirations and dreams for the next four years — yet I had underestimated what it was going to take to adjust to a country that I had never been to before and settle without my parents. I had an overwhelming feeling of unfamiliarity and alienness. Even the tiniest, simplest things, such as how traffic lights worked and how supermarkets were designed, felt weird and foreign. 

Immediately, I realized that I didn’t like feeling weak or vulnerable. That is something I learned along my Stanford journey — to never run away from my rawest feelings. There’s such a different level of comfort that comes when you admit to yourself that you are “totally screwed.” I didn’t internalize that back then. 

When I realized adapting to a brand new culture was not gonna be as fast as I saw in the typical college movies, I wasn’t scared. One way or another, I knew that the journey to finding myself — potentially a new self — would be unpredictable but thrilling once I embraced the struggles. 

When I arrived at my freshman dorm and saw I was going to have three other roommates, I knew I was in for a ride. Everything was beautifully chaotic. Remembering those times makes me feel like a grandma now. But even though the whole journey was so fun, I remember experiencing this endless identity search within myself, trying to define where I fit in and who I should be. That “should” slowly evolved into a “want to.”

I got into Stanford because I was a perfectionist. Yet, I am leaving as the opposite. I am messy and experimental. Yes, uncertainty gives me anxiety, but also I love to define myself differently every single day. I don’t know what it feels like to have no chaos inside me, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Even when I am at peace, there comes another “what if…” that can pull my life to an entirely new direction and I’ve finally become brave enough to act on it.

Stanford made me love failing. In some ways I never truly felt “failure” before Stanford. Now that I feel like I failed 24756 times, and still show up for the next time, I have proven to myself that I will always have my own back — which brings me great comfort and tears down the imposter syndrome that tries to creep in my mind.

Stanford brought my creative side back to life — a part of me that I pushed down in high school because I thought it required academic sacrifices. I was wrong. At Stanford, whenever I was drowning in p-sets, the urge to shoot a short film or write a song had never been stronger. The inspiration to make art would entice me the way a chocolate dessert tempts you when you’re on a diet — and I would always give in. Whether it was a documentary filming, poetry, music production, or photography class, art was my escape. Whenever I felt like I was drowning in lines of code, I grabbed my guitar and wrote a song about a recent interaction in a few minutes (I may have done this about someone you know, who knows), which I would then play to my mom on FaceTime.

Every memory is deeply engraved in my mind, every detail feels beautiful, and every meaningless thing feels ironically metaphorical in this place. I remember feeling the ruthless wind at one of my many Carmel road trips. I remember pitching to the investors at 7 a.m. on the day of FashionX Runway, then deciding to remake my entire outfit minutes before the show, and somehow not feeling anxious about it. I remember playing a fratboy (KSig…) in Gaieties, and getting crush posts on Fizz for my boy version, and not for myself (very interesting). I remember sending “COME TO MY ROOM RN” texts to debrief with friends till 4 a.m., knowing my neighbors were listening the entire time and telling all my life’s secrets.

I remember going on a therapeutic Dish hike after one of the most chaotic nights of my life, meeting strangers on the CalTrain, pretending to care about football, being annoyed that I have to say “soccer” instead of “football” (can we please settle this debate), skydiving in Monterey, avoiding opps in the dining hall, never getting another flavor besides Chocolate Gooey Brownie at Salt & Straw, the silence on campus and the majesty of MemChu while walking back from LAIR at 11 p.m., the TAP fries on a night out, the silly Full Moon on the Quad stories, the many fountains hopped, concerts attended, stories collected… the list goes on. 

But these great moments also came with life testing my limits and breaking point, like the experience of receiving the most terrible news of my life from my family that was 13 hours away. Getting the long awaited phone call of my godmother passing. Getting on the earliest flight to have the most miserable 13 hours of my life. Barely making it to her funeral on time. My two realities crashing — being wholeheartedly happy at Stanford and my life in Turkey completely changing within 13 hours.  Remembering the memories of me reading my godmother my Stanford application essays, except for the one I mentioned her in, because I didn’t want her to know that I was scared of her dying. Remembering her plans to come to my graduation. It will never happen. 

I will still overthink anything that ever happened, never happened, or I am hoping that will happen — but I truly, truly learned that nothing is really that deep. Whenever I am too stressed, I remind myself that, at the very best, 80 years from now, bugs will be eating my skin and none of this will matter. Which makes everything beautiful in a way; we have so much room to screw up, fix it, screw up again, love, feel, cry, create, swing in between inferiority and superiority complexes like the Newton’s cradle, convince ourselves that we have a bigger purpose, give up, get back up, repeat. 

I am inspired by seeing the generational jump in my family. My grandma is a middle school dropout, my mom went to college in Turkey without being allowed to pursue the major she wanted and here I am getting my bachelor’s and master’s in fields I chose completely freely. Maybe my daughter will get a Ph.D., but I unfortunately don’t have that passion for academia in me. I want to acknowledge that I am here because of the sacrifices made by the ones who came before me.

I feel like Stanford, especially senior year, has a lot in store for me. There is still so much I want to do. I wonder how I will be feeling when I re-read this again in June. I’m sure getting my master’s next year will be a completely different experience as well.

I know that I somehow ended up at the right place. I made a lot of great decisions, and also really bad decisions, and as cliche as it sounds, I wouldn’t have done it any other way. I got to know some of the most amazing and inspiring people ever. Undoubtedly, many of my life’s most unforgettable memories were made here. I have truly transformed as a person.

When I look back at the scared 19 year old girl at SFO by herself, I understand her, but I feel completely different. If I could time travel, I could tell her it will be okay and that college is going to be the craziest, best time of her life — but I think she has to find that out on her own. 

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