Kenny Unplugged

Hey all, my name’s Kenny and I finished my first year at Columbia University almost two months ago (the premature summer beauty of semesters… until, of course, my quarter system friends see me off at the airport in August knowing they don’t have to think about school until practically October). I, like Clarissa and Tyler, hail from Davis, CA, a hamlet of a NorCal town dominated by a bike-, cow- and nature-loving university. Life as a kid in Davis was awesome (imagine feeling like the king of the road, alright the bicycle lane, by the age of 8), but when time came for me to decide on a college, I knew I didn’t want to be accused of being regionally discriminatory (only a slight lie), and so I explored my options on both coasts (let the merited assertions of my Midwest/South ignorance begin). I considered and weighed schools equally on both seaboards and across the educational spectrum (more about that in future posts) but ultimately found myself captivated by the immense, almost gravitational, pull generated by New York’s status as the self-proclaimed massive center of all things art, architecture, business, music, intellect…and the list goes on. I also was looking for a school that would challenge me intellectually and where the coaches were interested and wanted me to run for them, all criteria which Columbia fit perfectly.

To make a 9-month long saga short, neither the school nor the city have disappointed me a bit. I struggled through some rough patches with ramping up to being a college-caliber runner, but things ultimately began to look up and as a whole, my entire first-year experience was phenomenal. My goal with this blog is to try and demonstrate to any high schooler reading it that there doesn’t, and in my opinion, shouldn’t, have to be any one route that an aspiring future college student should feel compelled to take in order to find the perfect school for themselves. I’ve never known what I really wanted to do with my life post-education, and I think I personally have been better served by my uncertainty. Likewise, I have plenty of friends who have known what they’ve wanted to do for the rest of their lives since grade school, and they’ve turned out pretty well so far, so please don’t take my advice as gospel (though I doubt you are or would)—there are practically infinite ways of reaching the exact same place or career, and no single one really trumps another.

If you’re reading our blogs as part of being on the Brightstorm site, you are obviously committed to improving your quantitative self for colleges, but I sincerely hope that college hasn’t become some sort of be-all end-all or ultimate determiner of the rest of your life in any of your minds. And, if it has, I hope my blog will put you somewhat more at ease. High school can be really enjoyable and very open-ended in terms of what you have to do or are able to do, and I hope all of you continue to enjoy it or possibly learn to do so in your remaining time there. I’m sure I’ve already exceeded my word limit ten-fold (in fact, Tyler’s[link] been asking me for the last ten minutes if I know that blogs are supposed to be short and sweet) but I look forward to giving all of you an insider’s tour of the life and times of a typical college student and the route I took to get there.

Keep it real,

Kenny