by Stephanie Sides and Joanna Cuevas
Stephanie says: I met Joanna Cuevas a couple of years ago when I was asked to host an intern from the nearby charter school affiliated with the university I worked for. She came to me for 90 minutes a week during the fall semester of her senior year. Since my professional area is communications, we spent most of our time on various kinds of word play and analysis, which I thought would be both fun and instructive. We’ve kept in touch over the intervening time.
I asked Joanna to respond to some questions, admittedly from my 50+ perspective, on how she sees life, having now completed her first year at UC Berkeley where she is studying chemical engineering. She focused on the changes that accompany leaving home and adapting to life in college.
How is your life different now by comparison with your senior year in high school?
The transition from high school to college has not been an easy one. With it came changes related to academic work, personal relationships, and living environment. Looking back, I see that my senior year academically was a period of some of the most intense pressure I’ve ever experienced. I became well aware of the meaning of the word balance. Not only did I have to continue to excel in academia but also learn to cope with the stress of college and scholarship applications. Though I handled the stress that came with it, little did I know that that was not half as bad as the stress that awaited me in college.
From the very first second of my first college class, I plummeted to the ground. I very soon realized high school and college were not the same thing. Although I had come from one of the most academically challenging schools, it still had not prepared me enough to cope with what was coming.
However, this was not the only change in my life. I was now over 300 miles away from home, alone, and with no one there other than the few new friends I was making. This too completely changed from high school to college. All my friends from home I had known for at least four out of the six years I had been at my school. They had become my second family in our home away from home. This was the breaking point. This is when I began to change and realized that I had become independent in the full meaning of the word. I was the only one who could look out for myself and, truth be told, I was the only one I could rely on for anything.
This, by far, was the greatest difference between high school and college. This is the transition that all teenagers, no matter how cocky, confident, and secure they may be, will always fear: Their individual realization that I am no longer a child, I am now an adult.
How has going away to college changed your relationships with your family members and friends?
Family to me is one of the most important things in life, yet I was one of the first to jump at the idea of going to college far away from home. This also meant that my relationship with my family would change drastically. I went from being the overly supervised and protected first daughter to the independent “adult” that came with leaving for college. At the same time, I had to learn how to live alone without my family and close friends around.
What makes you happy?
The one thing that makes me the happiest is when I’m able to see and be with my brother who’s autistic. Those are the most precious moments, when it seems as if nothing else matters or is important. This is when you realize that life has meaning and there really is something or someone to look forward to. It also becomes the driving force behind your success as a student because you know you are not only working for yourself but also for your loved ones. This reminds you of why you went to college and that, once you get out, there will always be that one person who will run up to you as if you were the greatest hero of all.
What do you need that you don't currently have?
Something that I need that I feel I don’t currently have is a sense of where I am going and what is to come. This notion of insecurity especially comes when I start to think about the future beyond the next three or so years that I have left of college.
What are you afraid of (in your life or with respect to the world in general)?
I believe the one thing I fear the most is failure. Failure in college and in the future. I also fear the unknown and what it holds. I like organization and knowing what is coming, but I’m in a time in my life that is lacking that organization, causing me to be fearful and uneasy.
Another fear every student struggles with is whether or not we’ve chosen the right path to take and whether it will bring us happiness. This is the gamble every college student has to take. I know I had to take this gamble, but I still wonder if I’ve chosen right for me.
What challenges do you face that are particularly daunting?
I believe one of the biggest challenges I have is not having the structure I had during high school. In high school it seemed as if everything were planned, and I knew at every second what was going to happen next. In college, however, this isn’t the case.
I also face the challenges of academics. Many times, when I’m sitting in class with so many other smart students, it seems as if I don’t belong because I am not as smart as those around me.
How are you like/not like your peers?
I feel that I am like my peers in that we are all in college because we are trying to succeed. We are all smart and motivated students.
However, I also feel that I am different in the sense that many students also come to college to have a lot of fun. I feel that this is the one thing I don’t get to do at all. I have a greater sense of pressure on my shoulders because I am the first in my family to go to college, and there is always this unspoken added pressure to be perfect and focus on school at the expense of everything else, including personal balance.
I also feel I’m not like many of my peers in that everyone else seems so much smarter. They seem to understand everything that a professor throws at them instantly. I, on the other hand, can’t seem to do the same.
How would you like life to be different?
I think that, like most people, I would like to be a lot smarter than I am, ideally with a huge house and a great income. This way I wouldn’t have to worry about where I would be getting the money to pay for college, and I wouldn’t have to be thinking of how much money I can spend while I hang out with friends. It seems that this is when the realization of how every student is different hits me, even though college tries so hard to keep everyone on the same level.
What would you like your parents' generation to understand about your generation?
I think the main thing that parents need to understand is that, just like they had fun in their day, we deserve the same. They also need to understand that things are different from what they were some 20 years ago, and they need to learn to adapt to the new society and what is coming with it.
What kind of mentor would serve you best?
The mentor that serves me best is one who is there to listen to me and advises me on the best way to go about things.
A mentor by definition is a wise and trusted counselor or teacher. However, many times in my experience mentors take the teacher part more seriously than the counselor part. For example, I was a 4.1 cumulative GPA student with absolutely no need for academic help, yet, during my sophomore year, I filled out an application for a mentor. I felt that a mentor was not my personal tutor but more of a personal life coach. I wanted my mentor to be my friend, the one adult I knew I could go to for objective advice on a situation. A mentor is not a tutor and expected to change a child’s life by taking them from rags to riches in academia. A mentor makes the difference by being there for the child as a personal supporter. It is through the mentor’s wisdom of life and the experiences that s/he shares that make a change in the world and the mentee's life. It is the act of friendship that will causes a change in the mentee's life.
Include any other ideas/comments about where you are in life that you think your peers would like to know, life lessons you've learned, etc.
I think what it all comes down to is that, when you become a college student, everything changes. This becomes the biggest transition point in your life when you realize everything depends on you, and only you can make the best or worst of it. You run your life. It is your choice to succeed or to give up, but it’s all you. Only you.
(to read Stephanie's thoughts on Finding a Mentor, click here…)