Dear upperclassmen: Thank you for treating us like children

Dear Stanford upperclassmen, 

Though this harkens back to an age gone by, please tell us if you remember this sentiment: 

There is a certain pretentiousness of high school seniors nobody seems to talk about, perhaps because it is mistaken for maturity. 

We argue it’s a consequence of trudging through freshman year of high school feeling infantilized (“Look at the little freshies! They are so cute!”) and when we try to defend ourselves (“Shut up I’m literally taller than you!”) we merely reinforce that resented image of childishness. Only when we attain senior status are we freed of that wretched babying, so inevitably, we role play as mature poets — “It is not an end, merely the end of a beginning,” we declare at graduation with a rehearsed flourish.

Unfortunately, our “maturity” beautifies our worldview — we conveniently forget that freedom is an avenue to actual responsibility. Instead, we think freedom is a ravishingly autonomous mode of life, a tender fruit waiting to be picked and relished till we reach its core. 

But then we enter college and suddenly freedom is not adventurous but terribly daunting. People feel like strangers even after we learn their names, majors and dorms. If we go to the gym, we’ll see people we know there, and a bike will get you to Building 420 but not home.

Then we hear the phrase we never thought we’d hear again: “Aw, look at the little freshies!” But this time we don’t fight it (even though we’ve literally already hit puberty). Yes, we are freshies; fresh out of high school, fresh out of everything, really — we’re kids, just kids, and we’re scared and naive and already Googling the Stanford drop out rate. We want someone to look after us, out for us, baby us.

And lucky for us, Stanford students: you exist.

After all, the world is big and scary — but after that ultra-grand opening speech at Admit Weekend, when you pulled us into your dorms and gave us that beautiful mattress topper to sleep on, it was the equivalent of swaddling a newborn and putting them in a crib. And when you marched us to Arrillaga, saying, “I’m taking my kid to dinner” — it was as if we were frail Victorian children receiving much-needed sustenance. Finally, we weren’t being treated with (slightly overwhelming) gravitas. Finally, someone saw through the bravado and pinpointed what we were.

Yes, we’re just a few years younger than you. Yes, we could probably find the gigantic communal bathroom on our own. And yes, the social ladder in high school was imprisoning and infuriating. We used to hate the seniors looking down their noses at us, calling us “little freshmen,” talking about prom and college applications and a hundred things we didn’t understand. Now you talk about acronyms —TAP, SLE, BOSP — defining them for us, so we’re a little less lost. You talk about internships (turns out LinkedIn is an institution one can never escape), but you also talk about how it’s okay to chill — that college isn’t high school, and the rat race doesn’t last forever. That you can choose friends over a midterm, and surprise, surprise: you will survive. You give us advice on the best dining halls, talk about how to handle homesickness, show us the best places to stargaze on campus. Your words and reassurances — they actually matter. You are Jedi. We are padawans.

In all seriousness, upperclassmen, we appreciate the babying. So here’s to our HoHos and RoHos, for giving us a home during Admit Weekend. Here’s to the editors of The Daily and the staff of the Summer Journalism Institute (they’re the reason you’re reading this article). Here’s to all the upperclassmen, who like us, are also so young and likely afraid and naive and uncertain too, though perhaps a little less than us. Yet they continue to be endlessly kind and compassionate, figures of wisdom, instigators of opportunity and role models to aspire to. 

Eagerness and ambition are hard. Sometimes we need to slow down. Sometimes we must remember that we are young, which doesn’t always have to mean a race to fulfill potential — it can just mean that we know very little, which is difficult in a world where we’re expected to learn everything. 

So please keep showing us what to do; please point us in the direction of our dorms when we get lost on this giant campus; please keep assuming we are more helpless baby deer than experienced students. We are, even if we’re sometimes too proud to admit it. We will need your guidance, at least for these first few weeks, if not longer. After all — before a tree becomes a tree, it’s only a sapling. 

Sincerely,

Sophia and Chloe

P.S. Thank you to Mira for the mattress topper and ube pretzels and midnight bike rides; to Ariana for the surprise YoungArts reunion; to Weber, a fellow Arcadia High School alum, for telling me that I can handle the Stanford workload; to that junior for sharing that the pho at Wilbur is “literally top tier”; to all the acapella groups who made O-Show magical; to the Burbank RAs for offering candy and Studio Bhurbli shirts and sunrise Dish hikes (#burblove); to my SJI mentor and all the cool editors; to the students I will meet and to many more. — Chloe

Thank you Aria for being like my super cool one-grade-above older sister — for giggling with me about boys and SLE and answering all my annoying questions so patiently! Also thank you to Gwyn and Aria for being awesome RoHos! Thank you to Caroline from Carolina for also answering all my “Why? Huh? What? Wait, so….” questions as the most spectaculabalous SJI mentor. Speaking of SJI, thank you to literally every desk editor who volunteered their time for workshops; Kristine and Erin you guys are so cool! I want to be like you guys when I grow up (or reach the ripe age of 20). Thank you to all my RAs, to Javo and Elijah for helping me overcome my fear of the gym and Sarah for FaceTiming me when I was lost. And last but not least, thank you to Tsedal for gossiping with me until 4 a.m. (I guess high school isn’t that different from college) and being such a silly sleeper. — Sophia

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