It’s only two days into Week 6 of fall quarter, so imagine my surprise upon receiving an email from my Pre-Major Advisor (PMA) informing me that winter quarter enrollment opened this past Sunday. Did I miss something? Here I am just settling into the rhythm of my courses, beginning to take those first hesitant steps into their content, when suddenly I’m forced to think about what’s coming next.
As a Stanford student, it’s nearly impossible to embrace the present in the face of such a rapidly approaching future. Don’t get me wrong — the prospect of outgrowing three-hour midterms, bike accidents in the rain and 12-cent printing five minutes before class makes me smile with something akin to joy. Yet Stanford outsteps me in leaps and bounds, an emphasis on the future resulting in an all too speedy passage of the present. And it’s not just that the University reminds us of the existence of our futures; it also creates expectations for what these futures ought to look like. These expectations are crystallized in tech career fairs early freshman year, summer internship applications waiting in email inboxes on Sept. 26 and speaker series showcasing a single mode of being.
This pressure raises the question: What inspires students to attend Stanford? Perhaps for some, it’s the extensive research opportunities; for others, the combined athletic and academic prowess. But an unquestionable factor in attending a school like Stanford is what it can mean for one’s future. And so before we even begin college, we are shaping our engagement with the present around our hopes for the future.
Our western models of success are driven by notions of what’s to come. Our culture pushes us to strive for perpetual economic mobility. We can always do, be and own more. Embedded into our lexicon is a dissatisfaction with what is — i.e. the present — and a fascination with what could be — i.e. the future. And so our personal agency and sense of self-worth are derived from the steps we take to arrive at this future. For many Stanford students and indeed for many American people, our steps result in overwork.
During the whole of my freshman year, I kept waiting for things to slow down — for someone to step in and make it all stop. Much to my surprise, the march never ended. And so I was forced to reshape, reclaim and re-engage with the present, not as an entity soon becoming the future, but rather as an autonomous experience worthy of my attention.
Contact Hannah Broderick at inbloom ‘at’ stanford.edu.