While change initially can feel like a setback, embracing those changes allows individuals to rewrite those setbacks as a stepping stone to discover new opportunities and become more confident. Growing up in Lynn, Massachusetts, a small but diverse community, I was surrounded by people that made me feel comfortable and understood. Coming to Bryn Mawr was a big and hard transition for me, given my prior environment, from being around people from multiple different backgrounds to being one of the only Black students in every class. As a first-generation college student, I also had to learn to navigate college without guidance from family members who never got to experience it for themselves. I did not have access to private tutors or advanced academic resources that many of my peers had. Because of this I experienced and still do have feelings of imposter syndrome.
An experience that highly resonates with this was having to take the Quantiitave Seminar course my first semester of college after failing the quantitative readiness exam. I had viewed this as a setback because I believed that it was a dig at my intelligence. I often would compare myself to other students and worry that I was behind in finishing my credits within less than a month of starting school. But as I continued throughout the course, my view changed. Both the course and the Q-center became a community where I was able to grow academically and personally. Fast forward, I am now a teaching assistant and peer mentor for the course and academic building. This role helped me to support other students who may have experienced that same feeling of uncertainty and doubt that I once did. Becoming a teaching assistant has opened the door for many opportunities that have helped me grow in leadership and have allowed me to become more involved on campus. Looking back, if I had never been put in QSem, I would have never become a TA and had not been presented the opportunities that came with it. The change that I once saw as a burden to my college experience became one of the best things that helped me recognize what I am truly capable of.
When embracing change, it is completely normal to be afraid, disappointed, and uncertain of what will happen next. But those feelings should not prevent us from moving forward. When we are so afraid of unfamiliarity, we view it as a setback because we are so focused on where we think we should be going, instead of where we should actually be going. I want people to understand that we won't be able to see the purpose of change immediately, but that does not necessarily mean that it will be a detriment to us in the future. What we consider a setback in a moment is actually helping us become the person we are meant to be.