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I came into Brown with a plan — and that
plan changed. This isn't as much my line as it's all of
ours. We were gently nudged away from one concentration when we couldn't even sit through
the introductory course's introductory lecture. And then we stumbled into the most unexpected
of disciplines when a professor's shopping period pitch inexplicably spoke to us. The
question nagging at each of us now is: Does the Brown mentality — the figure-it-out-as-you-go-along
approach — translate into the real world? For the last four or so years, the Brown community
has unconditionally trusted us. As President Paxton described earlier this year, Brown
students are trusted to conduct themselves with "constructive irreverence." We challenge
assumptions. We bend rules. We demand overrides. In short, we're irreverent, disregarding the
linear path in favor of our path. And we have — or we had — the luxury of being so
bold because our president, our professors, and our peers trusted us.
Well, the real world threatens to be far less trusting.
In early September, as much of the Brown community gathered on this very Green for Convocation,
I was facing a brown-bagged lunch at a lonely desk in Washington. I spent my fall semester
on a leave of absence interning in D.C. And on that particular day, the second of my new
job, I was still navigating lunch-break protocol. Could I go for some comfort food, or was I
expected to go for something healthy? Was I expected to work through lunch, or could
I talk with friends? So, I settled on trying to look busy as I ate my lunch alone, and
I felt incredibly uncomfortable. This rather pitiful scene conveniently reflects
just how down I felt at the moment. The catalyst for my woes? A piece of advice that
I'd received from a superior the day before: "Keep your head down and do good work," she'd
said. As good as that piece of advice was — as
good as it is — it just wasn't for me. For the previous three years, I'd been unconditionally
trusted. We've all been unconditionally trusted: trusted to figure Brown out as we went along;
trusted to come up with our own method when the existing one didn't quite work; trusted
to understand that failure wasn't an option — "no credit" was. And so I witnessed, many
months before graduation, real world values being at odds with ours here at Brown.
"Keeping your head down," it implies insecurity, yet the success of our Brown educations hinged
on participating confidently in the process. We likely made more decisions in our first
semester here at Brown than we did throughout our entire high school experiences. And I'd
venture to guess that, if you're anything like me, we made some bad ones before we made
good ones. But eventually it worked. It worked because
it didn't. We adapted. The biggest distinction I've noticed between
Brown and everywhere that lies beyond those gates is this allocation of trust. It's inherent
here. And thank goodness for that, because we needed that trust given how much we were destined
to experiment, explore, and likely to fumble throughout our time here. We needed that support
to push us through our inevitable periods of uncertainty.
When I told people outside of Brown that I planned to take a semester off from school,
they regarded me with more than a healthy dose of skepticism. People asked a lot of
logistical questions: Do you have a job? Won't you graduate late?
My peers at Brown — you guys — asked questions of a different nature, ones that opened up
conversations. You wanted to talk about what I hoped to see, to feel, to find. "What will
you do first?" you asked. The important distinction here is not that
Brown students ask exponentially more interesting questions than everyone else, though that
does tend to be true. More significant is the fact that my Brown peers regarded me with
that underlying sense of trust — trust that, if I wanted to, of course I'd find a way to
make my time off worthwhile. Here's the good news: Even outside of Brown,
trust can be earned. Trust. Can. Be. Earned. The Brown mentality can come with us everywhere
we go next — if we're smart enough to wield it wisely and if we adapt our tactics to fit
our new settings. We certainly had to adapt when we first arrived at Brown, and we can
do it again now that we're leaving. We can do it without relinquishing our newfound confidence
and creativity. Now, I wouldn't be a Brown student if I didn't
tow the line between independence and insubordination. But, in learning how to strike that balance,
I've come to appreciate that it is possible to keep one's head up and do good work.
So, in the face of that demoralizing advice that I got in Washington, I decided to adapt
the words of wisdom to better suit my needs. I didn't expect the workplace to operate like
a Brown seminar, but I did expect the freedom to keep my head up — so I could see where
I was going and see where I wanted to go next. Adjusting to the new environment took time,
and it wasn't easy. My voice started off more than a little shaky, and my first few ideas
simply missed the mark, and my jokes, they fell flat, again and again. But I kept at
it — kept seeking to learn and adapt even when feeling a bit uncertain. I had to earn
my coworkers' trust before getting a seat at the proverbial table. And, eventually,
I did. Now that we're graduating and so on the brink
of starting something new, we're at risk of being timid, of introducing only the most
polished versions of ourselves to the world. It's these moments — when we're tempted
to keep our heads down rather than bring up our out-of-the-box ideas — that it's most
important for us to think back on our Brown experiences. If the cushion of trust was what
made us so bold here, we must walk out of the Van Wickle Gates with an unshakable trust
in ourselves. Everyone else will come around in time. For now, we can all agree on this:
Whether we'll be teaching or investing, or in a coffee shop or a board room, it'll be
worth bringing ourselves to wherever we go next.
Congratulations Class of 2013. Woo!