By the third week of the semester, things start to shift. The sparkle of move-in has faded. Syllabi that looked crisp and exciting now feel heavy in your backpack. Maybe a first quiz has been returned, or the class you thought you’d love isn’t clicking the way you hoped. Maybe the reading piles faster than you can keep up with. In my experience, week three is when doubts start creeping in.
Two myths feed those doubts. The first is the idea that everyone else already has it figured out — the right major, the right classes, even the right career path. The second is that if you stumble early, you’ve already ruined the semester, maybe even your time here. Both are powerful illusions. And both, I promise, are untrue.
Let’s take the first myth. Very few people actually have it all mapped out. The ones who look the most certain are often just better at performing certainty than feeling it. The student who proudly announces on day one that they’re pre-med may still change direction three times. The friend with a ten-year plan may discover a class that unravels everything they thought they knew. Not knowing isn’t a weakness. It’s the permission to explore what Cornell has to offer. It means trying things and following threads you didn’t even know were there.
Then there’s the myth of the perfect start. The idea that if you trip early on, the whole journey is lost. That thought is tempting, but deeply misleading. Beginnings are messy by nature. A low grade on the first quiz, an awkward silence in discussion, realizing a course just doesn’t fit — none of that is failure, but part of the rhythm of learning. What matters isn’t how you begin, but how you adapt and keep going.
I know this because I once believed both myths myself. When I started college in northern France, I chose political science. It seemed like the “serious” choice — the kind of major that signaled stability and purpose, maybe even law school down the road. But curiosity tugged at me. I shifted toward philosophy, chasing questions about meaning and truth. From there, I wandered into history, first tentatively, then with growing fascination. Later, with the help of inspiring professors, I found myself deep in medieval history — kings, cities, manuscripts, the long arc of centuries. It was a world I hadn’t planned on entering, but there I was.
Years later, at Harvard, I wrote a dissertation on World War II and the Holocaust. Part of that choice came from an interest I had carried since childhood; part of it came from the questions that had followed me through every field I tried — about power, about ideas, about how ordinary people behave in extraordinary times. Those questions came together most urgently in this subject. If you had shown that path to my 18-year-old self — the one convinced he was headed for political science, public service, maybe law — he wouldn’t have believed you. The road was winding, filled with detours, and nothing about it was linear or predictable. Yet those detours weren’t distractions from the path. I realized they were the path.
And that’s the point: All of us are living “in-between” in some way. In-between majors, in-between friendships, in-between the selves we brought to campus last spring and the ones we’re still trying to grow into now. The illusion that everyone else is already whole and polished is just that — an illusion.
So if you find yourself anxious this week, know this: you’re not the only one. Nearly everyone around you, whether they admit it or not, is carrying the same questions. Am I in the right place? Am I enough? Will I make it through? Those doubts aren’t proof that you’re failing. They’re proof that you’re beginning.
As I wrote in my first column, beginnings are rarely neat. By week three, we feel their messiness more than their shine. What I’ve learned — through my own detours and through years of teaching — is that openness matters more than certainty. Letting go of a plan, following curiosity, stumbling and then taking the next step — that’s what turns a series of shaky beginnings into a meaningful journey.
As the semester begins in earnest, give yourself permission to be imperfect. You don’t need to have it all figured out. You don’t need to start flawlessly. You just need to keep moving.
It’s okay not to know yet. In fact, that’s where the real learning begins.
Jan Burzlaff is an Opinion Columnist and a Postdoctoral Associate in the Program for Jewish Studies. Office Hours (Open Door Edition) is his weekly dispatch to the Cornell community — a professor’s reflections on teaching, learning and the small moments that make a campus feel human. Readers can submit thoughts and questions anonymously through the Tip Sheet here. He can also be reached at profjburzlaff@cornellsun.com.
