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In the fall of 2015, I entered the McConnell Scholars
Program. In the fall of 2015, I scampered about the University of Louisville seeking
to nestle into a cozy little niche. I began to learn how it feels to
simultaneously have so little and so much expectation put on me, and that
feeling perpetually pressed against my mind. I was used to doing what I thought
needed to be done and saying what I thought needed to be said, and that behavior
earned me the place I occupy in this world. The marvelous thing is that I did
not know I functioned like this, this subconscious evasion of my own
inclinations. When a close friend accused me of ignoring my own interests to
satisfy the desires of others, for lack of more scholarly verbiage, I was shook.
I do not want to tread down a path composed only of other people’s whispered influence. I did not think I was doing that. But you want me to act a certain way, he wants me to be less outgoing, she wants me to keep my life more private, they want me to join this thing that will look good on my résumé, you want me to do what you want me to do. So what do I do?
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| Bridget Kim - Class of 2019 |
After being
pummeled with self-doubt, I realized that I want to live my life in a fashion
that feels right. Currently, “right”
feels fluid. I am not always confident that what I am doing serves me or anyone
else well, and I now realize that means the niche I hoped to find cannot look
like anybody else’s. During the past year, I cautiously nudged the boundary
between what I want to do and what others expect from me. I often get negative
responses from people I care about, and that is the toughest consequence of
cultivating my own needs. But it is all experience I can learn from.
A few months after I entered
college, Dr. Gary Gregg gave me some inadvertent advice. He told me that when I
came in to interview for the McConnell Scholars Program, he could not tell if
he was interviewing me or if I was interviewing him. Maybe he did not really
mean to give me a compliment; he might have meant nothing by the comment at
all. But while Dr. Gregg has many excellent qualities, insincerity does not
play among them. Now, in the fall of 2017, as I inch closer toward obtaining a
degree in political science and a minor in theatre arts, that insignificant
comment has stuck with me. Revisiting it has helped me to better contemplate
the type of person I want to be. I want to be more partial about where I spend
my time and energy. I want to do and say what I want to do and say, and
hopefully I say and do things that benefit a good number of people. While I
will continue to consider what others need from me, you can be sure that I will
be interviewing just as much as I am interviewed.
Bridget Kim, of Morehead, Ky., is a sophomore McConnell Scholar studying political science and theatre arts.
Bridget Kim, of Morehead, Ky., is a sophomore McConnell Scholar studying political science and theatre arts.