This week I had the delightful opportunity to welcome some of the members of the incoming Class of ’14 at International Orientation. I had an absolutely wonderful time with them and thought maybe I should share some of what I told them with the rest of the class. I landed in America on the 30th of August, 2009 and on the day that marked my first anniversary, I had the chance to share my views with the incoming internationals. Here’s my take on my first experiences abroad…
Unlike most people I know, coming to Tufts was probably one of the most terrifying endeavors I had ever taken in my life. Away in a foreign land, my first days on campus were spent cramming what seemed to be a million names while trying to navigate and embed a map of the school in my mind. A good number of hours were spent in conversations revolving around how “cool” my name sounds and where we all came from. I did my fair share of assigning the wrong names to people who reminded me of other people I had met. Thankfully I never ventured to use those names in conversation and could not help but blush to myself when I later figured out I had the wrong name in mind. This trick did not always work though and a number of times I had to bow down in embarrassment when I tried to introduce another friend to the person I was talking to only to reveal that I had no clue whatsoever who I was talking to. I learned my lesson: it’s less rude to ask someone to repeat their name than it is to be caught pretending to know them. I forgave myself; I wasn’t the only one who forgot names in the first week of college.
Then classes kicked in. I walked into Pearson 104, clutching only a pen and a writing pad. After the initial excitement of how nice the classroom was had faded, I found myself a seat somewhere in the middle of the room: not too close to the front in case the professor decides to pick on me on the first day, but not too far in the back so as to still be able to hear him. There were only about four of us who came in early, probably fearing the embarrassment of being late on the first day and I wasn’t sure if university professors were allowed to beat students as a form of “discipline” as my high school teachers had so liberally been allowed to do. Soon the silence began to tug at my mind, adding guilt to my already awkward and uncomfortable body. What if I’m going to need help from these people with an assignment, I thought to myself? Or what if this person could be my undiscovered best friend in the making? I had to make friends as quickly as possible I resolved. I gathered up my courage and introduced myself to a girl who was sitting close to where I was. After a few minutes of small talk, I soon fell silent as a myriad of students poured into the classroom along with the professor. How disrespectful of students to show up after the professor, I said to myself. Soon the 200+ auditorium was almost full to capacity. I hadn’t expected to have such a large class and soon I began to feel like an insignificant other among hundreds; a tiny salmon, no different from the rest; just another number in the university’s database. The lecture commenced at exactly 8:30 with the professor introducing himself by his first name. That was the icing to my cake of confusion. From being a bright young spark at my high school, how was I ever going to raise my hand in the midst of this sea of faces? My accent sold me out as being someone who is not from New England and I wondered what would happen if I mispronounced a word? And what if I said something silly and everyone laughed at me? God forbid! Besides, how was I supposed to address my professor, a full grown adult by his first name? Back in Zimbabwe that would automatically warrant a good beating! I walked out of that classroom vowing to never say anything in that class.
As the semester progressed, I had my fair share of baffling incidents that stemmed from my fear of asking questions: from retrieving shrunken pieces of laundry, shrunk courtesy of the Maytag commercial dryers in my dorm; avoiding using the vending machines and the ice cream machine in the dining hall because I had no idea how they work, to even almost failing a class thinking I was dumb, yet it was only a matter of being lost in translation between metric and imperial units of temperature, distance and weight. I even had a number of classes where there were only ten students sitting around a table and with nowhere to hide from the professor.
Today, I could easily claim that I had it all covered, but the truth is I was afraid and unsure. It felt like I was the only one sailing in my ocean of confusion. But what I can however stand up and testify to today is the fact that there is a light at the end of the tunnel; nobody knows everything and nobody is good at everything. Up to this day, I cannot address my professors by their first names, but I can approach them and ask whatever I need clarification on. I learned that one doesn’t need to have a million friends and one definitely does not need to have them all in the first week, the first month or the first year. All things come with time, even friends. A vital key to remember in college is that asking about something you don’t know can save you a lot of embarrassment in future. All things considered, one should try as much as one rationally can as experience also has its charms. After all, as some people once remarked, “The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one,” and “Only those who make nothing… make no mistakes.” So forgive yourself!
african@tufts.edu 