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Lauren Brill shared a letter in the Magical Moments group 1 years, 11 months ago
I didn't think I was smart enough to go to Columbia
To The Unsealed Community,
When I graduated high school, I honestly didn’t know what to expect from myself.
After getting waitlisted, I got accepted to Columbia in mid-June of my senior year of high school. At the time, Columbia ranked top five in the nation. And while I was thrilled to be accepted, there was a part of me that was unsure if I was worthy of the admission.
I told my family I wasn’t sure if I wasn’t smart enough to go, and I was considering going elsewhere.
My brother, who had just graduated from Columbia, responded, “If you don’t take this opportunity, you will regret it for the rest of your life. I promise you will be able to do the work.”
I trusted my brother and decided to attend, even though I was scared and uncertain if I would measure up to my peers.
My first year at Columbia was by far the hardest. My grades depended on papers, and I wasn’t the best writer. Not to mention, we had to take many required classes – some of which I found pretty boring. But I muscled through it, and I was determined to thrive.
Thankfully, Columbia had a writing center where tutors looked through your paper sentence by sentence and provided feedback. I spent hours each week at the writing center, and after a year or so, my writing significantly improved. So much so that in the last two years of college, I received an A on every single paper I submitted.
It’s hard to believe that I almost passed down an incredible opportunity because I didn’t believe in myself.
Now, whatever challenge I face in life, I still don’t know what to expect from myself. But my experience at Columbia taught me that if I push myself and work hard, I should always expect to surprise myself.
We are all capable of way more than we even know.
Always believe in your greatness,
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OMG, that sounds like me a little, You were much younger than I was with these thoughts, I was older with these same thoughts, not thinking at my age I could get into a college and complete it. It was my fault, I kept pushing college back for years, and once I got in my 60’s, I decided to go and all I thought about was, there’s no way I’m going to be able to do this work these young people are doing. Over the years, I’ve forgotten a lot about school. I didn’t think I can earn a degree. Didn’t think I can I can learn it all, keep up, esp with writing papers, I use to hear my daughter complain about while she was in college. I kept saying to myself, I won’t do it, I can’t do it, It’s no way, but I did. I took that chance and I kept saying to myself, if I can’t do it, I’ll just stop. But as I took the classes, I tried my best and Yes, the first year was definitely the hardest one. Once I got through it, I kept telling myself, you’ve started now, why stop. Don’t start something, if you’re not going to work hard completing it. So, I fought tooth and nails to get through it and once I got in the last year of college, I just couldn’t believe I was there and was about to graduate at 66yrs of age. Yes, I complete college at that age, along with many younger ones. I did, you did, we can do it, as long as we push ourselves. Congrats to you!
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