Avni - Week 15: Oh, the Places You'll Go!
The question I ask myself the most: “How would it look on the apps?”
The anticipation of college comes closer and closer, and the future awaits us. But I can’t seem to understand how close we’ve gotten considering this has been the point we’ve been working towards for so long. I find myself reflecting on the times where the expectations have stayed high in our family. With my brother off to his masters at Carnegie Mellon University for AI, and my senior friends leaving high school to great places, my anxiety and fear seems to inch bigger and bigger.
Since the emergence of school from COVID, my mindset has changed its gears to start gearing in a completely different way. Every activity, hobby, and recreation I looked forward to became “How would it look on the apps?” This became a daily question in any of the decisions I made, or any of the goals I set. The way I spent my time became geared towards getting into college, and every time I wasn’t doing something beneficial towards these goals, I felt—and still do—feel extremely guilty about it. Now I don’t paint as I used to, or read books I want to, and instead, I prepare for my debates or research new coding concepts.
However, these changes have resulted in a change of what my still desperately needed breaks look like. Instead of taking time to read ten pages, I start scrolling TikTok for ten minutes, which genuinely has no benefit or upper hand over those ten pages other than being more convenient and less mind consuming. Even though our attention span has become doomed, five years ago I would have felt more bored with the ten minutes of scrolling. My memories are filled with changing activities every two hours, but now I can’t remember the last time I picked up a paintbrush in my high school career, because “Hey, what’s the point if I can’t show it off in my applications.”
It’s honestly ironic how back then, all we craved was a little screen time; now, all we crave is a little freedom from this little itching question of “How would it look on the apps?”
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Hey Avni, I definitely agree that it almost feels unreal how close college applications are to us. Although, in all honesty, I can’t relate to your thought process of “How would it look on the apps?” I agree that thinking about our future and where and what we are doing for college seems to consume so much of our lives and how we think, but the idea of it intervening in every area and train of thought is what I fail to fully comprehend.
ReplyDeleteWhat your topic reminded me of in my own life is how my mother used to always tell me that I shouldn’t quit ballet or horseback riding because “it’ll look good on college applications!” Despite the fact that I eventually quit ballet, horseback riding, art, and most of the other things she signed me up for, sometimes I think back to all those things and how trivial it seemed to me at the time to “do it for the apps” at five years old. My mom isn’t around anymore, but when I look back at those memories, I realize how much our parents try to set us up for success (for better or for worse) with specific trains of thought. Afterall, not everyone has parents that try to instill such a line of thinking so early on.
I also think it’s interesting you brought up that we crave freedom more than smaller desires because if I was still doing all those activities, I’m sure I would feel trapped within the thoughts of “How would it look on the apps?” Thank you for sharing, Avni; I loved hearing your unique perspective!
Hi Avni! I feel like I can definitely relate to a lot of what you mentioned in your blog, especially since we’re getting so close to college application season. I think that you explained this feeling of stress and constant worry really well, and I’ve realized that the most common thought in my head nowadays is about trying to figure out a way to make an activity look good on my college apps. Similar to you, I started to think a lot more about college-related topics after COVID and around the time where we transitioned to high school, where I think I was mainly influenced by the pressure of everyone around me talking about this subject. Almost everything that I do now is done with the intention of having it appear as an acceptable activity that I can put on my application, and I agree with you, I’d much rather go back to the times where I could spend all day reading books or playing outside with my sister. The way you also described the guilt that comes from doom scrolling on social media is something that I can also greatly relate to, and I think that this is something that I really struggle with. Even with my busy schedule, I still have a lot of free time at random times in the week, yet I feel like I never have enough energy to do something actually productive or fun, so I end up wasting all of it by laying on my bed and scrolling through reels. However, I’ve realized that these problems have become a lot better for me now, where everything that I do that’s considered “for the college apps” is something that I actually enjoy doing and hope to continue doing in the future, such as my research or volunteer work. I know that you spend a lot of time doing robotics and other engineering-related activities, so I’m curious: is this something that you also enjoy doing, or are you actually just doing it to put it on your college application?
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ReplyDeleteHi Avni! I can definitely relate to your blog and how much space college takes up in our minds even though we are only in highschool. I think by living in the Bay Area, after you enter highschool, especially in junior year, all anyone talks about is college and college apps. It does get exhausting sometimes and I also find myself spending less and less time on hobbies. I think a lot of this starts when people around you start talking about all their extracurricular activities and what they are doing for college applications, which makes you feel like you are behind or wasting time with hobbies. The atmosphere in the Bay Area is so competitive that it is normalized to not spend time on hobbies like reading or painting, and instead we tend to turn to our phones for a quick break, as you mentioned. While I think that college has a lot of influence in our lives, and people are constantly telling us how important it is, it is equally important to not let it dictate all our decisions. This makes us all so robotic, when we are much more than our stats. When we look back on our highschool years we will be disappointed that we spent so much time as a kid worrying about the future instead of focusing on the present. Thank you for sharing, and great job!