Cooper Union: My gift, my curse.

...The prices we pay for being gifted...That was probably the most arrogant statement I've ever uttered in my life. But that talent got us here, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. But that talent failed to prepare us for competing talentswhich we would have to face in the school, some of which we can beat, others which will crush us. How we handle it is really up to us. And how do we?

" I can't take this anymore"
"I'm under so much stress right now"
"I don't think I can last for five years"
"She might be leaving us soon"
"She's in the hospital. She had a breakdown"
"I'm on academic warning"
"I'm just pissed and annoyed"
"I'm just mad the work up there isn't me and I wasn't able to express my ideas"
"I lied to you. I'm in the closet."


These are the words I have heard from a few of my friends this past week in architecture school. I couldn't help but look back at the first day we started: all of us strangers to each other, not knowing what awaits us with those walls, that feeling of excitement of making new friends, of starting college, of wondering who that older blue-eyed hunk is and all the perks that come with starting fresh. Most of us were freshmen, fresh out of high school, where we were la créme de la créme and excelled at almost everything. I remember those days...three years ago as I just stepped into Cooper Union, with my ego bigger than former porn start Pamela Anderson's breasts. But engineering school proved to me that there were a whole lot of people, much better at what I loved and wanted to do for the rest of my life than I was. And in a competitive school where every man is for himself, failure knocks on every door. And when it comes, most of us aren't prepared and each of us have our own way of reacting to it: we cry, we have tantrums, we get depressed, we blame everyone else but us, we try to be there for each other, we fight it... while the rest of us just give up and feel incompetent.
Now that I switched schools, I witness these same faces for a second time, only this time, I wasn't one of them because I was prepared. I knew what was coming. That's why for every tear that I would see drop, I was there to wipe them. For every frown that I saw, I was there to bring them back up. And you know why? Because this is the only way we can survive this: by working together, by helping each other out. That way, that goodness can be paid forward for the next unknowing soul to come through these doors. That way, we grow closer to each. We begin to trust each other. We begin to be become not just a family, but a lot more than that. And of we can manage to do that together, we'll kick the hell out of this insitution and show it we mean business and we're here to fuckin' STAY!!!