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| Paige Brewer |
This fall, I have frequently reflected on what it means to me to be a sophomore. It applies to my role as a student, as a McConnell Scholar and as a youth at this point in my life. Sophomore literally means “wise fool”: in Greek, sophos means “wise,” moros means “stupid.” It’s an oxymoronic concept: how can you be wise but foolish at the same time?
I recognize now that my personal self-awareness has grown exponentially since I entered college over a year ago. The impetus of much of this personal growth was the McConnell Program: the scholars, mentors and new ideas I encountered as a bright-eyed freshman changed my way of thinking, as one shifts the gears to increase the efficiency of a machine. Last year, the gears of my mind were shifted. I now think more deeply and critically about things than I used to, and in this sense, I am far wiser than I used to be. I’m so grateful to the people and the ideas that brought about that change in me.
However, the terrifying thought arises: what now? What does this mean for the person I am now, the person I used to be in the past, and the person I’m going to be in the future? What does this mean for the classes I should sign up for, how I should treat other people, what I should plan to do with my future? It’s as if I have been given the tools but don’t know what I should do with them. My gears are shifted, but I haven’t figured out what I’m trying to create.
This is an exciting but often difficult and frightening interim period. With adulthood right on the horizon, I know it is there but I don’t know what it will bring. I look back on who I used to be, and I could never have predicted I would be the person I am now. Sometimes I imagine what it would be like to meet my younger self as I am now. She wouldn’t recognize me; I am nothing she could have imagined or expected. Therefore, how could I have any expectations for the person I will be in a year, in five years, in fifty years? If I have changed so unexpectedly thus far, how will I change even further down the road?
These cogitations describe my sophomore standing: I am a wise fool. I see so much more than I used to but still know how blind I really am. Every day, I think about what’s important, what’s truthful and what’s a façade. What this will mean for the person I will be in the future, I have no idea. It’s a learning experience in and of itself to figure out how to operate in such a time of self-aware uncertainty.
Paige Brewer, from Campbell County, is a sophomore McConnell Scholar at the University of Louisville.