What would I be if I were all that I could be?

With academic and extracurricular options abundant on campus, many students find themselves pondering this question as they advance through their years at Wesleyan. We may seem to have the world set before us here on campus, but hyper-randomized processes dictate some of the most important aspects of college life.

As students participate in pre-registration yet again, many are wondering what kind of educational experiences they are entitled to at a private liberal arts college. The apparent arbitrariness of class size limitations and the nigh impossibility of getting into a non-POI writing class have been enough to influence the direction of some students’ academic careers.

Some students may also question whether school is meant to imitate life. The phrase “this isn’t the real world” crops up frequently in college; life before and after college is portrayed as cutthroat, competitive, and dictated more by financial necessities than by a young graduate’s true interests. Even without having experienced this post-graduate life, I can say that there are some aspects of college that are so artificially “fair” that they start to become unfair. Dozens of first-year students are admitted into writing courses every semester and discover too late that they could care less about the genre at hand, or about writing in general.

Many students will say that “it wasn’t meant to be” and take any in-school disappointments as preparation for those “real world” disappointments that we are always told will follow. However, when in the real world are such disappointments bracketed by the extensive opportunities that we are afforded at Wesleyan? Aside from compensating directly for the opportunity missed—as has been helpfully accomplished, in the case of creative writing, with weekly informal workshops as well as Professor Amy Bloom’s table talk sessions—a student who is having trouble getting into a particular class might take the time to try something else that they have always wanted to do, even if it has nothing to do with her major.

We don’t want to be fearful. As a first-semester freshman, I was afraid to change the lineup of courses once I’d gotten four, and ended up not using my time as effectively as I could have to explore different fields and departments. I encourage everyone to counter the sometimes-cruel impartiality of early course selection with their personal agency, creativity, and dreams.

So far, however, I’ve yet to meet someone who outwardly feels that they have struck a balance between following the path they originally planned and striking out on a new academic adventure.

Ultimately, we exist in an artificial environment that is also ruled by the “real world” power struggles within the administration and by the unpredictability of the computer, algorithm, or sorting hat the University employs that determines students’ class line-up.

Though we should recognize these hurdles and understand that we will never completely overcome them in our academic career, we can utilize the multitude of choices available at this university to make up for the opportunities potentially lost amongst the obstacles.

Perhaps this hybrid environment within our college bubble is actually a better preparation for the harsh “real world” than we think; we just might have to look for valuable moments in unusual places.