College – Sarah K Peck

The freshman heartbeat (and hello, Fall!)

Posted on September 14, 2010 by Sarah K Peck

Something about the rustle of the wind changes when the summertime ends. The heat is still there, but the undertones of the wind are brisk, cool, and cleaner somehow. I feel like the sky is a bit brighter, even as the end of the day shifts towards becoming darker earlier, and I shiver and reach for my jackets, scarves, gloves, and hats. I’m excited, because the changing of seasons means that it’s time to start school again.

Except I don’t go to school anymore. I go to work, where the seasons are less differentiated within the singular office walls, the time is continuous, and vacation is packaged into a tiny window of ten allotted days for each year, resulting in a never-ending lifestyle that is, (I sigh) work. After spending the first 24 of my 26 years of life heading back to school and reaching for new school supplies, opening up new textbooks, and starting new classes, it’s hard to shake the fact that I’m living in the “adult” world now, and that the changing seasons don’t mean much more than a continuation of the same day-in and day-out work effort.

Looking out the office window, I still remember the freshman heartbeat – the feeling of leaving home, wandering a large, beautiful campus on your own, setting up the dormitory bed and peeking out the window to make friends. I remember watching crowds of people laughing and congregating in front of buildings, and quickly becoming a vibrant part of the student activities’ center and classrooms. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment when I, as a freshman, transitioned from a careful, watchful observer to the faithful student who associated this new place – and the assemblage of buildings, lights, classrooms, open spaces, and houses – as a “home.”

For me, my college campus became my home after I took a long plane flight back to California after experiencing my first snowy Ohio winter. It was great to be home, but I was – I was ME, new and different. I was on my own, independent, changed somehow. I no longer lived at my parents. I made my own schedule. I slept when I wanted, walked where I wanted to go, and studied under my own accord. I had made a home for myself on the large blue couches in the library, met fellow students and smiled shyly at boys that I thought were cute, and had interesting discussions with professors. I made the swim team and practiced for hours under the tutelage of the head coach, befriending fellow teammates and sharing in the camaraderie of early-morning practices and groaning at the late-night parties across the hall by the football team.

The fall, to me, is more ingrained in my mind as the true calendar than any other calendar I follow – moreso than the New Year’s (Jan 1) or the Fiscal Calendar (July 1). In the fall, even the trees shake off their old looks, let their leaves drop to the ground, dig down their roots and set in for winter, prepping for a hard winter and a fresh start in the spring. I can’t wait to crunch through the fall leaves, try on some new boots, and possibly get a haircut to celebrate the changing of the seasons.

And so, in the spirit of heading back to school, and with a nostalgia for fall, I’m doing the same thing this fall that I’ve done all of my life: taking out my notebooks and pens, writing down my to-do lists, and setting my goals for the (academic) year. Fall is a time for goal-setting, for reflecting on past accomplishments, and for cleaning out the closets and dusting off the old bookshelves. It’s a time to look back on the goals from those long-forgotten New Year’s Resolutions, and to perhaps check-in on our progress we’ve made so far this year on our rusty old resolutions. Just because I’m now a “grown up” and I go to work doesn’t mean that in my heart I’m not still a student. And, as the perpetual student and dreamer that I am, I like to make lists. So open up a fresh notebook, Fall students, because here comes another goals list for the 2010-2011 academic calendar. I just can’t help myself.

And, of course, my fall reading list (I love reading lists!):

Landscape Architecture, Urbanism and Infrastructure:

The Great Urban Transformation: Politics of Land and Property in China
The Infrastructural City: Networked Ecologies in Los Angeles
Center 14: On Landscape Urbanism
The Landscape of Contemporary Infrastructure
Trees of San Francisco
Smart Growth in a Changing World

Economics, Policy, and Money:

The Forgotten Man
The Diary of a Very Bad Year

Development, Professional Growth, and Business:

Millenials
The Art of Non-Conformity: Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life You Want, and Change the World
Good to Great

And for Fun!

War and Peace
Her Fearful Symmetry
Stones into Schools
Once a Runner

If you know of any great books you’d like to recommend, please share. I LOVE book suggestions. Happy Fall, everyone!

Thoughts on failure

Posted on June 5, 2010 by Sarah K Peck

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about making college and career choices. It was a response to an email I received from a previous student resident of mine, asking my opinion about making college decisions, choosing a major, and building up a life plan. In my response, I talked about failure:

“Failures are not failures, they are successes. If you spent five years learning about something and trying it out and realizing that it’s not for you, it is NOT A FAILURE. You’ve learned, analyzed, grown, deliberated, decided – and chances are you have acquired some useful skills along the way. A failure means that you’ve tried. Appreciate the opportunities you have to explore, learn, and practice. Even if you change your mind again in five years, you’ll still have learned about how to communicate, practiced business, budgeting, managed projects, made friends and new contacts, etc. The list never ends.”

I want to expand on this idea of “failure.” Wikipedia defines failure as “the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective, and may be viewed as the opposite of success.”

I find myself wondering, why is failure such a bad thing? Why is there such a stigma regarding failure, and why do we discourage ourselves from starting, trying, or fixing things because we’re afraid that in doing so, we might fail? I tend to disagree with latter half of the Wikipedia definition – a failure may result in not meeting our desired objectives, yes, but it is most certainly not the opposite of success.

Some further thoughts regarding the idea of “failure,” in no particular order:

The only failure – ever – is a failure to try. The most lingering disappointments, I find, are from opportunities that I’ve ignored or challenges that I’ve declined to embrace. The tough stuff is what teaches us about ourselves, expands our life experiences, and allows us to change and grow.

To try – and to “fail” – is to FALL, not to FAIL. To try, no matter how unsuccessfully, is to learn. You might consider the opposite of failing rather as “falling.” That is, sometimes we fall flat on our face. We go all-in, back to the wall, in-it-to-win-it to succeed. And we fall short. Way short sometimes. This is not a failure. The more gutsy the attempt, the more admirable the fall.

Falling is hard. It’s embarrassing, discouraging, and scary to fall — and it can be downright hard. But being in the trenches, learning, is what leads to future successes. Every step forward gives you the chance to learn and to grow. We get feedback on how we are doing, we learn more about ourselves, and we discover our capabilities. And, if we’re lucky, we know better (albeit somewhat painfully) what steps we need to take to improve our performance for the next time.

Learning takes time. A friend of mine had the best advice – it’s now a favorite quote of mine: “When you learned to walk and talk, it didn’t all go well at first .. at least for a while. We’re silly human people and we need to practice things before we do them well.”

The concept “failure” happens when our expectations are not in line with our effort. We feel “failure” most poignantly when our expectations are not in line with our effort. At times, you may find yourself faced with the harsh reality that what you’ve expected or anticipated hasn’t turned out how you thought it would. The bigger the discrepancy, the more uncomfortable and disappointing the failure can be. By not recognizing the steep learning curves around us, we can become discouraged by our lack of expected success. “Success” takes more than belief, courage, and hope: it also takes hard work, effort, and often incredible amounts of perseverance and energy.

Focus on the positive, even during downturns. Be thankful for chances, opportunities, and challenges. Even if you hate your job, are stuck in a terrible relationship, are a million miles away from your home, or undergoing an arduous challenge, there are still positives. You have your job. You are exploring and you are learning. You are meeting new people. You are stretching the bounds of what you know, how you perform, and what you can be. And thus, my last random quote on failure:

“There’s nothing more to live your life by, that wake up each day and say yes, this I will try.”

And thus, I am thankful for failure, thankful for falling, thankful for opportunities. I’ve learned to walk, talk, and read. For now, I can only ask: What’s next?

Choosing and switching a college major

Posted on April 10, 2010January 8, 2012 by Sarah K Peck

Hi Sarah,

I’m a junior in college, and that essentially means that I’m supposed to have my life figured out, but I feel like that’s not true at all! I am still undeclared in my major, although I’ve been focusing on economics and international studies during my first two years. I’ve been looking for jobs this summer and each time I interview with a consulting firm or a bank I find myself sitting there thinking about how I don’t want that to be my life. Last summer I was working at the American Embassy in Paris, and looking back I realize that what I love so much about it was being exposed to all of the contemporary art galleries and exhibits which really solidified my passion for art.

I feel like it’s too late to switch my major, and I feel like it’s not a good idea to pursue something new because I’ll be so behind and I’ll be at a disadvantage. The fact is, I don’t know what’s out there. As youthful and naive as this may sound, I’d really like to use this summer to explore the design field and be able to know at the end of that experience whether it is something I’d still want to do after college. Is it too late to switch my major? How do I know what field is the right field for me? Why am I having such a hard time choosing?

Thanks,
Having a hard time choosing my major

Dear HARD TIME CHOOSING:

I’m going to offer you a few random pearls of wisdom that I’ve heard from friends and learned along the way. Tuck these in your back pocket for the extra-stressful days.

It’s never too late for ANYTHING. If you want to start singing, dancing, running a business, publishing, investing – it’s never too late. Don’t feel like you missed the boat because you haven’t started yet. Instead, celebrate all that you have learned so far, what you’ve been exposed to, and how that has helped you understand yourself better. Have you ever met someone who started something in their 50’s, and thought, I want to be like you? The most amazing people in our lives are those who try everything and never give up on their dreams. Don’t be held back by your own doubts and thoughts – too often what holds us back is some mental story we’ve created about why we’re “too late” or not qualified. Just do it, no matter how hard or scary it is.

Failures are not failures, they are successes. If you spent five years learning about something and trying it out and realizing that it’s not for you, it is NOT A FAILURE. You’ve learned/analyzed/grown/deliberated/decided – and chances are you have acquired some useful skills along the way. A failure means that you’ve tried. Appreciate the opportunities you have to explore, learn, and practice. Even if you change your mind again in five years, you’ll still have learned about how to communicate, practiced business, budgeting, managed projects, made friends and new contacts, etc. The list never ends.

Take baby steps. You are not alone if you get really overwhelmed with the feeling of “I don’t know what I want to do with my life, ACK, why can’t I decide and why does it seem like everyone else knows what they want and I’m the only confused/depressed/scared/anxious one?!” When this happens to you, remember to break down your life plan into tiny, concrete pieces. You sound like you are a planner – and I am one, too. When I get obsessed with making a plan I have to remember to slow down, chew my “food,” and take it one bite at a time.

Full disclosure: In my mind, my life plan sometimes gets on a high speed train and sounds something like this: “Okay, first I’m going to work for 3 years, then I’m going to take my license exams, after 4 years, I’ll start my own business, when I’m 35, I want to be running my own firm, and when I’m 43, I’ll have 3 kids, a husband, and I’ll be the dean of a school, and be wealthy and comfortable, and …” [Yes, my life plans are that ambitious. It’s exhausting.] Unfortunately, I have to remember the next nugget:

Life doesn’t always go according to plan. The flipside to being so motivated, inspired and planful is that it can stress you out and make you really anxious in the present moment. The best advice I heard was recently was a gentle reminder that sometimes life doesn’t go according to plan. That’s part of the fun of it! It’s unexpected, scary, hard, overwhelming, and wonderful – beyond what you can even guess. Can you imagine if your life did go exactly to plan? How boring would it be to know every detail in advance, and never be able to stray from your plan!

Be grateful for choices – and don’t be afraid of making a decision. Make a decision, based on the information you have, and follow through. Indecisiveness can be a true wall that holds us back. When I get a case of the “what should I do” anxieties, I am reminded of a good friend of mine from college. She told me of the extreme lengths her family took to get her to the United States to be able to study, and how she was the first woman in her family to get a degree. I agonized over “picking a major” and after a few months of indecision she finally looked at me and said, “For crying out loud, make a decision already!” It was funny at the time but it was also a reality check: No one decision will ever be a “perfect” decision. We may move forward with doubt, but in the end, we should be grateful that we had the choice to make the decision in the first place.

On those notes, good luck choosing your major! Enjoy learning, enjoy your time at the University, and don’t be afraid to try anything you want to try.