Looking it Over Again

ISTANBUL — One of the biggest advantages of going abroad is to be able to take a look at the world you thought you knew and experience it through a different lens. When away, most of the time it’s business as usual but, every now and again, something will come into clearer focus about the place left behind. Over the past few days I’ve been thinking about the paths taken in our college years and what those different paths mean. So please, come along with me on this hypothetical voyage...

College is the time where people come out of the molds in which they were formed and begin to decide for themselves the type of person they’d like to be. Just the act of choosing colleges, for instance, is something that takes a tremendous amount of thought concerning which direction you’d like your life to go in — and I’m not talking path of study here.

I don’t mean to generalize but I think the following holds true to some extent for most of us. We’re here at Cornell (or at least you folks are, I’m just there in spirit) and, as professors here (Cornell) are fond of saying, choosing Cornell means delaying gratification. We work hard and thanklessly. We party — but only on the weekends. And, we pay tremendous amounts of money for the privilege to attend, leaving many of us saddled with incredible debt upon graduation.

The gratification that comes along later often means success in the machine- becoming doctors, going corporate, going law, heck even going corporate law. It’s not a bad existence and I think it has its merits but let’s look at the other side of the coin.

If you were to choose to go somewhere slightly less maddening, you’d have to work hard but not too hard, you could party on the weekends (and occasionally maybe on a Tuesday) and, upon graduation, you could walk down in that procession with a bit less debt and perhaps a bigger smile.

After graduating, you’d have less of a leg up in the machine but would still be able to make it. Also, without killing yourself in pursuit of your degree you may have less of an investment in following the path set forth by your education and would be more willing to take a risk on yourself. Risks we know, bring rewards, and perhaps that ability to take risks has led to one of my all time favorite sayings “The people with the A’s work for the people with the B’s who work for those with C’s.”

Catch my drift? I’m not saying that either of these scenarios hold true all the time or that they’re the only way things happen, but I do stick by the examples having higher probability for each type of institution I’ve just associated them with.

Now, let’s take a look at Freshman year. When people come to campus, they come from certain backgrounds and molds and then are thrown together in some crazy first year stew. “The Frosh” then go about forming identities for themselves. Some will party hard, some will do lots of drugs, some will hit the books, some will become socialists and live in Watermargin etc. Your identity in college will then go a long way in deciding which path you will take as an adult.

I’ve seen a similar process go on over here in Bogazici. We’ve got 82 exchange students from backgrounds as diverse as you can imagine. Coming together as a group feels like Freshman Fall all over again. Here more than ever you can blaze your own trail with no strings attached. It also means you can lose yourself. Some will party hard, neglect studies, skip class and travel instead. People will completely change before your eyes- sometimes for the better other times for the worse.

A few weeks ago the conventional wisdom would have suggested always taking the route most beneficial for your future prospects; attend the tougher school, work diligently, be self disciplined and make sure to network. I’m seeing the decisions being made again and, as they happen in front of my eyes, it’s difficult not to at least question the conventional wisdom this time around.

Don’t get me wrong, I still see the value in the conventional route and haven’t jumped off it yet myself. But, if there’s anything that the past few weeks have taught us it’s that there are many different paths to happiness. The “surefire” path is still out there but today looks a bit less enticing — just ask your friend at Lehman Brothers. Can’t find them? I’d suggest checking the couch.

Alex Kantrowitz is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He is writing from Istanbul, Turkey this semester. Check out his blog at smokedturkey.wordpress.com for further coverage. Smoked Turkey appears alternate Fridays this semester. Alex may be contacted at kantro87@gmail.com