From The Ritz to the Rubble

I felt alone in a crowd of students around me.

I didn’t know anyone, and to mend the holes that my nervousness had drilled into my calm Monday morning, I put my headphones on and played a lively song to pass the time.

Despite the obvious anxiety that comes with being packed into a room full of strangers I dancing with excitement inside. I would be studying something that I had wanted to learn for a long time. I wanted to be a designer even before I knew what design was. I waited for my turn to show my schedule to get my ID.

Of course, my picture was taken to make me look like a troll.

In retrospect, I probably looked like a lost puppy despite my attempt at trying to look confident. I walked to find my first class and sat down in a room full of people doing the same thing I was: trying not to look nervous, like me, some students kept their headphones on and others were clearly more outgoing and had already started making friends. Not me. I sat quietly, feeling a little jealous of their ability to make friends so quickly.

Finally, Professor C. (as we shall call her) came in and introduced herself. She looked just like I thought a designer would look. Simple black clothes accentuated with a colorful pair of earrings that you wouldn’t see on anyone else. I looked at the projects and was immediately excited. I ignored the due dates that would come to haunt me later.

Professor C. was sweet, but she didn’t play games. She promptly instructed us to launch Adobe Illustrator, and it was at that time that we all were reduced to rubble. Extroverts and introverts, charmers and wallflowers, all became one giant deflated ego and revealing of eager young minds ready to be shaped—to become collaborators, colleagues, and friends that would come to share anything and everything.