My Introduction
Hello fellow and future Jumbos! I just thought I'd introduce myself. I’m Emily! I’m from Long Beach, California, planning on majoring in English and Economics. My personal philosophy is to embrace your nerdiness. Last year when I was applying, one of the essay prompts for Tufts was exactly this, which excited me more than any other prompt from any other school I applied to. I loved the idea of a school wanting to hear about what made me unique. I've always been proud of being a little weird, because life is so much more fun when you let yourself be different and love different things. Yes, I'm a bibliophile, a Whovian, and a band geek.
I listen to Giacchino, Bach, Sinatra, Sheeran, and Lamar. I conducted my high school marching band and sailed my whole life and read for FUN! And if a school was interested in that side of me, the side that makes me Me, then that seemed pretty amazing. When I was applying to Tufts, I asked a friend what the people were like, and she replied "they're weird, but in the best way." And that sounded so spectacular! Why pretend to be normal, to hide the most interesting parts of yourself? When I was narrowing down my acceptances, many of my other choices seemed so homogeneous. Everyone looked the same, acted the same, dressed the same. I wanted a school that would celebrate diversity amongst the students and their personalities, rather than attempting to produce the same kind of scholar a few thousand times year after year. That's what I was used to, coming from Long Beach, California, one of the most diverse cities in America. So that's why I chose Tufts.
Although I’ve legally been an adult since last October, I’ve never really felt like one. My life and routine didn't change—school, homework, marching band and sailing practice. Repeat. But now people tell me, Oh, it's time to grow up! Just wait until you're on your own! That's what you want to major in? Are you sure? Can you really keep your room clean? Do you know how to do laundry? Don't spend all of your money! And it's like BOOM, now that I’m going to college, welcome to adulthood! But honestly, I'm not ready to be a grown-up. Yes, I'll move across the country, do my own laundry, etc, but I still want to be a kid sometimes. So I've decided to do just that. I'm going to continue singing along to the Tangled soundtrack and dance around my room to the Ratatouille score. I'll get excited when the Percy Jackson tag trends on Instagram as it did recently and fangirl about the upcoming Pixar movies. I'll take ridiculous selfies with my best friends and eat cinnamon swirl toast every once in a while. Because yes, it's time to start growing up, but there's no reason to stop being a kid just quite yet.