The Graduate

“You’re different. So are we”

–The previous school motto of Sarah Lawrence College

The previous school motto, as seen above, was changed around the time I arrived. The students and the administration liked it, but parents didn’t like the pronouncement that their child was “different.” So, it was changed to the less threatening, “Ahead of the Curve,” which made everyone ask, “…are we?” The important thing isn’t that we are ahead of the curve. The important thing is that we are on a different curve entirely. 

My mother knew that I would go there when she pulled up the website and saw the cover photo which featured a bunch of students having what appeared to be a literal drum circle on the campus lawn. My father knew that I would go there when we toured the school together. 

There was a free speech wall where students could write whatever they wanted (so long as it wasn’t hate speech), gender neutral bathrooms, and every girl we encountered had either a shaved and/or pink head, a crop top, or combat boots, or some combination thereof. We knew that I belonged there.

Apparently, I told my mother, although I don’t remember it, that if “I don’t get into Sarah Lawrence, I don’t want to go anywhere.” I do not often put down college education, by implying that I won’t be going to college (my parents wouldn’t have allowed that anyway), but I will take my mother’s word for it. Fortunately, I got in early-decision, so this was moot.

It is a small school with no Greek life or football team– the running joke is that we are undefeated when it comes to football. On top of that, it was a small school in New York that was famous for its writing program. I would have put up with any treatment in order to learn how to write from the very best, but fortunately I didn’t have to. I got to go to the school that was perfect for me.

The universe had spoken. It wanted me there.

The school had such a strong, quirky personality: the way that people would snap instead of applaud when they heard something that they liked because we adhered to coffee house poetry rules, how everyone introduces themselves with their pronouns, how during RA Hill House meetings we would all collectively knock on the table in unison when someone jinxed something, and how every person I encountered knew their star sign, moon sign, and rising sign. 

Everything about the school seemed to scream “no judgment.” It is a school for former, and current, dungeon masters, theater kids, filmmakers, poets, and, my personal favorite, writers. It was, therefore, the place where I most felt like myself. 

I had many good times there: the time that I accidentally leaned back in class at a round table and caught a glimpse of the laptop beside me and saw the picture that his boyfriend had sent him the night before. I was then offered anything I wanted: meal swipes, a vital organ, to pretend I didn’t see it.

I overheard many great conversations:

“So you’d give a frog a lobotomy but not me?”

“My grandparents can be sorted into either bigoted or dead.”

“The media wants you to think that sharks are evil and dolphins are good.”

“My spotify playlist is all just sea shanties right now.”

“I told you, I lost my virginity to Paul Blart, mall cop.”

And, my personal favorite: 

“You’re only into God when you’re not getting [redacted]”

I attended strange on-campus events:

Rocky Horror Picture Show live, The Untalented Talent Show in which one girl performed the “cool girl” speech from Gone Girl and someone else performed the slam poetry scene from 22 Jump Street, and the Midnight Cabaret- which is just sketch comedy performed a little bit before midnight I’m pretty sure. I played lame drinking games with my not-so-lame friends.

Most of all though, I loved my classes and my professors. My writing classes were exactly what I dreamed they would be. My classes were socratic seminar style, so I was graded on the quality and quantity of my contributions. We sat in small numbers at round tables and discussed our own works and the works of others, having our material workshopped little by little.

It’s been a wild ride Sarah Lawrence. I passed every class. I graduated on time. I spent the last part of my freshman year and the entirety of my sophomore year on zoom and the first semester of my senior year in Florence. I was all over the place, in more ways than one, but the school nurtured and prepared me perfectly for my next phase of life.

And now, I have the opportunity to do it all over again. I have recently been accepted to grad school at the Columbia School for the Arts where I will be earning my MFA in Creative Writing in Fiction. I am ecstatic by this opportunity and ready to continue the storytelling that Sarah Lawrence College cultivated. I have no idea what to expect this upcoming fall (my current plan is to not topple into the school sideways and hope that everything goes smoothly) but I know that I will rise to the occasion. 

Wish me luck!

The Tragic Queen,

Raquel