Choosing your difficulty

Claire Doll
MSMU Class of 2024

(6/2023) Junior year is always the hardest. Of high school, of college. You’re one step closer to the next phase of life, and everyone’s always asking: "So what are you doing after college? How do you feel with one year left?"

When I reflect on the 2022-2023 school year, I think back to where I was in August, moving into my first college apartment. I think about the friends I had then, and the friends I have now. I think about the personal and social changes as well as the academic ones. I think about the early mornings that gave way to late nights with a whole bunch of blurriness and exhaustion in between.

This year, I began my first student teaching internship at a high school just down Route 15. I expected to fall in love with it, as one does with any new journey. "Teaching is a fulfilling passion," they say, but they also say, "You’ll never get paid enough, it’s extremely hard." I think both sides are right. While I would struggle to wake up every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 5:30 to teach (unpaid, of course), I would also find great joy in being called "Ms. Doll" and interacting with such joyful, hilarious teenagers. There were some great days, like when I taught the lesson about blackout poetry and when I received positive observations from my supervisor; and there were some not-so-great days, where I would drive home crying simply because it was hard. Student teaching is hard.

But that wasn’t all. This year, while also beginning my career, I worked as Editor-in-Chief of the Mount’s literary magazine, Lighted Corners. Over the course of nine months, I built a team of excited staff members, organized and reviewed submissions, led meetings, edited like crazy, and designed an entire layout. Even with the help of my staff, the project still seemed impossible. That was hard, too. I’m entirely proud of the creation and happy to see it in print, but it was a challenge.

And then add the classes. Three English classes that, at the end of the teaching day, I had to do homework for and read chapters and write papers that I would not do so well at. It was discouraging. All of it was.

You might be thinking: This is a super negative article. What has gotten into you?

And you may be right. I’m complaining. Junior year was hard, and I have since been spending my days reading in bed because of the sheer exhaustion, and don’t even get me started on my second teaching internship in the fall, and—

Life is hard. Everything about it is hard. I think that’s what I learned in my junior year of college.

But I also believe that life is choosing which difficulty you want to endure. While it is hard to student teach, it is also hard to sit around all day and do nothing. It is hard to not have passion. I can’t imagine a life without passion—without waking up in the morning and pursuing something you love.

In my junior year of college, I found my passions. I can honestly say that I love standing up in front of a class full of students and teaching them about my favorite things: poetry, grammar, reading novels. I love designing lessons and doing not-so-well and receiving feedback and doing it all over again in a better, more creative way.

I also love writing and giving others the opportunity to write. I love mornings and nights spent curled in bed, journaling or editing a poem or simply reading. I love publishing literary magazines and being published in literary magazines and seeing others see their work in print for the first time.

I love spending time outside and prioritizing my mental health. I struggled with anxiety this year, but I soon learned that to live, you must accept everything—the good, the bad, the beautiful, the mediocre. Life is not the highlight reels on Instagram, but rather the little moments that hide in our days.

And I love my people. My family, my friends, the people who helped me through terrible times, who gave me flowers on my first day of student teaching and wrote me notes every single Tuesday and Thursday for my "school lunch."

Without the difficult, I wouldn’t experience the beautiful. And I know this is cliché, and everyone says this, but it’s true. An easy life is one void of meaning.

My advice for incoming juniors is to savor the challenging moments, because you see immense growth in this. You will lose friends and gain friends and make great strides in your career and also fail, a lot. This semester, I’m losing my 4.0 GPA. And I also realized that it doesn’t matter, because grades do not determine or create experiences. This was a tough pill to swallow for me. I have spent my entire school career working terribly just to see A’s lined up on my report card, and let me give you a tip: it’s not worth it. Life is better.

You are entering the back half of your time at college. Although you may think this means you’re only halfway there, you’re really not, because the time flies. Pursue your passions—wake up every single morning with something to care about, someone to have your back through the challenges. That is what carries you through life—grades sadly don’t.

As for me, I look forward to my senior year of college. I hope to find even more beauty in the hardships of my teaching journey, and I hope to paint my final semesters with colorful experiences and meaningful people. At the end of the day, and in sixty-something years, we are not going to remember how hard life was. I doubt anyone ever thinks that at the end of something. You remember the good—you always do. You remember the people that loved you, the passions you cared about, the little moments that made you smile at the end of the day.

So choose which difficulty you will endure and live.

Read other articles by Claire Doll