As most students who flew in from a different area to come to college, I've had my own share of change after coming to college. There were expected culture shocks that I had to get used to as part of coming to a new country and a different phase of life: gender-neutral bathrooms, small talk, balancing work and school. But those were the changes I expected. I am, underneath all of that, a person who resists change. I used to think of change as giving up one's own identity, and that scared me.
Once I got here, with no friends and no family, I had to step (scratch that, jump hundreds of miles) out of my comfort zone just to try to talk to people. I started small, like by responding to people who tried to talk to me. Thanks to Bryn Mawr's welcoming community, that wasn't such a hard job. Then slowly, I found myself being the one who started reaching out to others first and surprisingly, I didn't hate it. I hadn't planned on becoming that person, but it just happened while I was busy trying to survive freshman year.
But I guess I changed in other ways too, without actively noticing it. Thank god someone else did, because one day I called a friend from home who I hadn't spoken to in a while, and as we were talking, they said, "You've changed so much." If they meant it as a compliment, it did not sound like it. After the call ended, I sat down with myself and started tracing back to where it had gone "wrong." At what point did I lose that part of my identity? At what point had I allowed myself to change? Was I still the same person?
To be honest, I still don’t have a clean answer. However, I’ve accepted that this discomfort I felt when I was told "you've changed" is just proof that change is visible, and visible change unsettles people who still know you from last time. I believe everyone who grows changes. The main question should not be about whether a person changed or not. People’s awareness that the change is happening and that they’re the ones driving it should be the main thing we should look at.
For my case, the things that actually changed (staying quiet and not putting myself out there) were not things I consciously chose as part of my identity. They were just habits that made sense because everyone around me already knew me and I never had to try. My principles and what I care about is still the same as the Efrata from back home. That is what makes up my identity and I haven’t “lost” any of it by embracing the change here. I became more outgoing because I discovered that there was another side of me that I had never needed to develop before. I know and want my readers to know too that embracing change does not have to mean abandoning your identity. Being conscious of why we are changing and whether the person we are becoming still reflects what we believe in is what matters.