Old Students

I was kind of zoning out, as I walked into the lecture last Wednesday.  Not really paying attention to my surroundings, I filed into the auditorium, following a large group of Bridge students.  Public anonymity.  Or so I thought.  As I rounded the corner, I heard someone call my name.  And when I looked to see who it was, I saw a student of mine from my first year as a teacher here at Columbia.  She took both of her writing classes with me during her freshman year in 2008, and so now she’s a senior.  I remember her as this bubbly young freshman, an actor who worked in a haunted house and tried to get me to go through it.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t go because my schedule wouldn’t allow it.    

We had a short conversation and exchanged small talk.  I learned that she’s graduating in the spring, and after that, she’ll be heading to South Korea.  I learned also that she works as a campus tour guide, showing around new freshmen during orientation.  “I always tell students to take your class,” she told me, and she even gave me a hug.  It was nice to catch up and see her again.  To be honest, it made my day to know that she was still here and that she remembered my classes fondly.  I walked to my seat in the lecture hall and couldn’t help grinning through most of the talk. 

Seeing students like this, years after they’ve had your class, knowing that you’ve had some sort of impact on their lives is what teaching is all about.  You hope that you can do something like this for every student you see, knowing that you just can’t.  From time to time, I’ll see students from past semester roaming the halls.  It’s always interesting to see which ones stop to talk, which ones say hi, and which avert their eyes and pretend that they didn’t see you.  And now that I’ve been here for four years, I have begun seeing my students at graduation ceremonies.  Now I’m seeing students who I taught as freshmen walk up to receive their diploma: smiles spreading across their faces, tassels bouncing from side to side, posing for pictures, pointing up at the second deck of the UIC pavilion where their screaming parents are sitting.  And you can’t help but think to yourself that this job really is worth it.

One of the things that I can never quite get over is how much those students change in just four short years.  There’s even a huge difference when I see those students as sophomores—as second-semester freshmen, even.  Students enter timid as mice, intimidated by this new experience, uncomfortable in their own skin.  But as time goes on and they start to get the hang of things, their personalities begin to blossom and their confidence grows.  It’s clear that college is a place where one learns maturity and that 18 is not the end of your growth but the beginning of adulthood.

And so, this is what I hope for all of you.  Hopefully, we’ll bump into each other at graduation in four years.  Hopefully you’ll remember who I am with fond memories, and hopefully I will have made some kind of difference in your life.  And hopefully I can think back to how different you are from that first week of Bridge, when you sat there worried that every little mistake might send you packing without ever having been given a chance to experience life at Columbia College.