“You’re as shy with that shading as you are in person,” my seventh-grade art teacher said to me, looking down at a portrait of Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day I’d lovingly sketched from a Rolling Stone cover.
I looked down at Billie Joe, too, at his uneven eyeballs and two-dimensional, charcoal-less nose. Instead of vowing to shade the crap out of that picture, to show my art teacher he was wrong, I accepted my fate and sat quietly through the rest of the class.
I’m quiet. And even after four years in college – it’s where you find yourself, become a new, better you, right? – I’m still quiet. Sure, I’ve improved, but I’m the same person. You aren’t entitled to personal growth just because you got that acceptance letter to NU.
Hey. Just talk. Just say anything. You did the reading. Er, some of it. JUST SAY SOMETHING, GOD.
These thoughts went through my head every discussion class, as that token boisterous freshman raises his or her hand to make a fourth irrelevant comment linking the reading to his or her vast knowledge of “the NGO sector,” aka a summer spent volunteering in Africa and taking pictures with elephant herds. I cannot imagine how that freshman has the strength to say all those things. Raising my hand once takes a leap of faith, a rejection of the principles I’ve founded my personality around.
Part of what motivates my shyness is the fact that I doubt what I have to say matters to the people around me. I’m not sure if this is how other people in similar situations feel – I’m sure these personalities have diverse origins. But that feeling fuels both a fiery hatred and a reluctant admiration for the Overexcited Freshman Discussion Participant. Overexcited Freshman, I hate every word you say. But not only because it’s dumb – because I can’t even say anything.
I’d like to say that during my time at Northwestern I’ve proved that art teacher wrong, that I became an extroverted, story-telling vocal magician during college. That would be a pretty uplifting (if boring/unoriginal) article to write at the end of my Northwestern career: Unassuming, Derpy Girl Becomes Chatting Champion. Or something.
It’s true, Northwestern doesn’t hand shy kids a big ol’ bucket of new confidence. But one thing it actually does is give us the chance to make our own kind of courage. At Northwestern, I’ve forced myself to do things that terrified me, like leading a meeting, joining a burlesque show or traveling to Doha, Qatar to do journalism.
Yet, 390-level discussion seminars remained the bane of my existence. I had to raise my hand and participate two times a week? Listen to Overexcited Freshman Discussion Participant twotimes a week? Regardless, this class sounded cool – terrorism! – and I couldn’t let my nervousness stop me from taking something fun that also fulfilled a requirement. Taught by a funny, personable PhD candidate, the class piqued my interest enough that I forced myself to participate pretty regularly for a few weeks. I’ve gone through enough classes talking sporadically to know that usually TAs and professors don’t really care if your participation drops off. But the PhD candidate teaching my winter seminar did something that amazed me: He reached out and emailed me, saying he was concerned I’d stopped engaging. He asked if anything was wrong and asserted I should start participating more in the future. Sure, he probably meant to remind me of the participation grade I was ignoring. But I felt an understanding there when I responded, telling him my apprehensions, and he told me he’s the same way and just wanted me to do my best.
The same way? Really? It’s moving to think fascinating people like this guy or my peers have the same trepidations I do. But sometimes you can’t tell because they’re so good at challenging themselves in the areas where they want to grow.
So no, I don’t think Northwestern grew me into the person I aspired to be. I think, instead, it gave me some sort of rickety playground where I could discover which slides and swing sets made recess most productive. I haven’t successfully murdered my inner shy-person, but I have developed the tools to challenge that person on a regular basis.
I wish I’d known that nothing I get inherently from being at Northwestern will give me what I need to grow, to talk, to be a contributing part of a class or campus dialogue. Like all shitty but overwhelmingly important things in life, you have to do it yourself.
Anna served as News Co-Editor, Assistant Managing Editor/Copy Chief and Managing Editor for North by Northwestern.