The Quest Scholars Network Blog

This is a very special blog post for me, as it comes just days after my graduation from Wesleyan. What started just over four years ago when I attended a QuestBridge conference at Yale the summer before my senior year of high school ended last Sunday. It's really hard to believe it's all over. I remember giving a speech my senior year of high school saying that graduating was like dying: we were all going to leave the daily lives we had led since kindergarten, stop seeing the same people every day, and live in a new place. In a way, I still believe that, but now that I've been to college I know that there is an important difference - you keep living even after all of those things change. I'm still musing about a lot of graduation things myself, so instead of musing on all of them, I'm going to tell a story.

When I was applying to colleges, I actually only applied to Wesleyan because it was easy. I had. . . Read More

Every time I get asked who I am, I find it difficult to give a straightforward answer. Although my obsession with food and horrible dancing skills may be some things to describe me, defining who I am is still an ongoing process.

But what I can say is that pursuing an education has played a huge role in my journey towards shaping who I will become 5, 10, even 20 years from now. When I step into a classroom, all I see is opportunity — an opportunity to learn something new, apply something I have already learned, and use my acquired knowledge in the real world. It’s a gratifying experience. I can soak up facts like a sponge. I can make connections between subjects like solving a math problem in a science experiment or learning about a poet’s background history in English class. But like almost everything in life, pursuing an education is not easy. Learning material, being accessed on the material, and then potentially having. . . Read More

Now, there are a million things that need to get done on any given day and they’re always different. However, I can give you a rough idea of a typical Tuesday for me! Just know that not every Tuesday is exactly like this one.

8:00 AM - My alarm goes off.

8:41 AM - I actually get out of bed.

The next couple of hours are a little tricky. Ideally, I get ready, grab breakfast quickly, and maybe stop for an espresso - okay, a double espresso - from Chancellor Green Café on my way to being on time to my English lecture that starts at 10:00 AM. Honestly, most days breakfast isn’t a thing I have time for. And I’m usually late to that lecture. Okay, sometimes I just don’t go to that lecture (it’s realllly boring). But I always make it to the espresso!

11:00 AM - French class for 50 minutes. 50 long, vaguely understandable minutes.

12:00 PM - Lunchtime! I head to the nearest dining hall and find a spot. Sometimes I eat with friends;. . . Read More

Being away from Yale (and all my friends) for the summer has been rough. Though I'm very much enjoying my time at home and all the writing, creating, family bonding, and television watching that I've accomplished, after spending nine months on campus, Yale really feels like my home. Granted, by the time school ended, I was ready to leave (spending about 18 hours each day in the library managed to make me feel inclined to leave school as soon as humanly possible). But after a month at home and several Skype calls to friends scattered across the globe, I'm suffering from a very severe and real case of Yale homesickness. And the place I miss the absolute most at Yale is my residential college (the best residential college), Berkeley.

When I describe my college experience to most people, Berkeley pretty much always comes up. I usually just wind up gushing about "my college, Berkeley," and then whomever. . . Read More

Summer is here, and thus begin the internships and jobs for many college students around the nation. With this comes the creation of new neural pathways as we gain new information, have new experiences, and form new ideas. In the spirit of this time I wanted to write about an idea that we as college-aged students and future leaders should strongly consider: crowdsourcing the government.

To make this full leap in thinking I recommend watching Clay Shirky's TED Talk, "How the Internet will (one day) transform the government", and reading the book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain. Additionally, it is important to dismiss the notion that the government we have established is doing well relative to the rest of the world and really demand the most from leaders who make decisions that affect the public at large.

Once this is done I recommend asking yourself: who is. . . Read More

After the grueling stress, the countless hours of studying, and the final breaking point, I thought getting a summer job would just be a simultaneously relaxing and mind-jogging experience. So far that hasn't been the case, but not exactly for the reasons I thought.

Instead of going back to Montana and taking up my job riding my trusty moose into battle against Idaho potato farmers, I decided to take a job at the Thompson Memorial Library on campus.

It's the same place that is on the cover of most of the fliers for Vassar I'd seen before, and I've heard about it a lot on tours. The most important fact I needed to hear, though, wasn't its prestigious history or about its fantastic collection. I just needed up learn it was air-conditioned before I signed up.

Okay, that isn't entirely true (though it didn't really hurt). I worked as a shelver for the library during the school year and I thought that. . . Read More

So, what are you doing next year after graduation? I’m not graduating this year, but I still have to answer the question. Such is the life of the fifth-year student. The joke is that we run our victory lap as super-seniors because graduating college in four years is like leaving a party at 10:30 pm. However, as my senior year draws to a close I am beginning to think that graduating in five years is like leaving the party at 3 am when everyone else went home hours ago. When friends' parents ask me what I’m doing next year after graduation and I say that I will be at Northwestern for a fifth year, I feel like I've messed up in some way because students at Northwestern simply don’t take five years to graduate very often.

On the bright side, I don't have to do this for another year!

I knew when I accepted my internship at NASA that I would extend my time in college by a year. When I first accepted my co-op, I was a. . . Read More

My friend artfully transformed me into a golden retriever. Please adopt me!

ONE

AS A CHILD I was often told that I’d understand as I grew older, but as I've grown older I’ve begun to suspect that I’ve always understood. It’s like when a word escapes me; it’s not that I’ve forgotten how to understand, but that my capacity to translate the inexpressible has momentarily lapsed. Childhood, in this respect, is what I conceive of as one long moment of forgetfulness. My failure to articulate certain feelings in no way impeded my ability to experience them. And so, despite any allegations that I was too young to be devastated, I can say with reasonable certainty that I was devastated that day in mid-June.

It was sweltering, especially for the usually temperate San Jose. As I traipsed down to Jeffrey’s apartment, sweat ran in rivulets down my sides. Rarely did I ever sweat, and, wondering if perhaps my body was overreacting, I took. . . Read More