shifting seasons by Mel N. '24, MEng '25

mementos

high school has been on my mind, lately. it’s been almost five years, and only now do i feel comfortable dusting off the little box where it lives in my mind and peering at what lies within.

some of this unboxing was literal — i visited my family’s place in vancouver over winter break. our belongings are still mostly sealed away in boxes and suitcases, since my parents are overseas and i’m in boston, so most of these old memories have been left to gather dust over the years. after i burned through my high-speed data for canada, there wasn’t much to do on my phone so i started poking around the house.

there were lots of goodies that were a pleasant surprise — a plethora of beautiful vintage bird stamps, two bags full of my old copic markers (expensive!), a couple prints made by my old watercolor teacher.

old things i found

and then there were my yearbooks, and the various memorabilia associated with my school. if i’m remembering correctly, my graduation gifts consisted of a bizarre assortment: a cigar, a blue cowbell, 2020 glasses, cheap branded headphones, and a bundt cake. i found the headphones and the cowbell and the rest were either eaten or lost to the tides of time.

one item in particular stuck with me. every semester, for teacher-parent conferences i guess, teachers would write comments about how students were doing and what they were learning. i skimmed through many iterations of “a pleasure to have in class” and “needs to be more confident” before i saw what my sophomore year biology teacher wrote.

“one thing is clear: mel loves biology.” he talked about how my eyes would light up at anything we talked about in class, my extensive yet beautiful notes (back when i was into that sort of thing for studygram/studyblr), and his confidence in my potential as a scientist.

i felt my eyes burn, and i put it down.

i’ve always struggled with believing people when they say they believe in me. this was especially hard around graduation — it was a blur of festivities, photos, and encouraging cards that was over almost as soon as it started. somehow, it felt almost shameful to admit my grief when everyone else seemed so excited and happy. i didn’t want to spoil it for anyone.

in my last group therapy session, and my last lab meeting, people kept telling me how proud they were of me, how much i had impacted them, and i cried a lot, and i let people assume that they were (mostly) happy tears.

i spent the summer and fall semester trying to work through those emotions. what i landed on was that when the people i trust say that they believe in me, i owe to myself and to them to believe them. i trust that they wouldn’t lie to me, so i have to trust that they’re telling the truth — that i am capable, that i can do it.

this is something much easier said than done, and i ended fall semester on a bit of a low note, but break gave me the time i needed to reflect.

i’ve come so far since my shy, awkward high school self. being at mit has helped me come out of my shell more than anything. i’m so much better at identifying what i need, and how to go about fulfilling those, and how to help others fulfill their needs too.

connecting

somehow, i ended up being a teaching assistant for a 3 month biology class aimed at high schoolers. after the first couple sessions, i started feeling so grateful for all of the wonderful professors and instructors i had when mit was online, because engaging high schoolers over zoom is like trying to get a stray cat to come closer. sometimes your efforts and “pspsps”s will work, and other times you’ll just be met with complete and utter silence.

but, hey, i get it. turning on your camera and talking requires a certain kind of confidence that comes from learning to care less about what other people think, and that’s something i didn’t gain until college.

so i adapted. every time we went into breakout rooms, i’d start by asking them how they were doing on a scale of 1-10, and how well they understood the content we just covered on a scale of 1-10. it was kind of like a twitch stream, except the chat was only visible to me, because they would just send me direct messages instead of typing it to everyone, but i could still work with that.

and then i’d go into asking if people had questions, and answering the questions i did get to the best of my ability. i tried to always keep it real with them, because that’s what i always appreciated about my favorite teaching assistants. and i also tried to never make anyone feel bad for not answering — i’d always try to rephrase the question multiple times, something i noticed a professor of mine doing in a class i was taking that semester.

towards the end, even though i had no idea what most of these kids looked like, i felt like i was getting a sense of their personalities and strengths, and they were (maybe) warming up to me.

after it was over, i received a very sweet message from one student:

which…

being a high schooler is tough, man. being a high schooler in an online class that you may or may not be invested in is even tougher. i’ve been there. but i’m glad i could make a difference.

reconnecting

i only talk to two people from high school. granted, my school was tiny; there were around 90 kids in my grade. i lost touch with most of them because i moved right after graduating, and i also don’t use instagram all that much these days — mostly because scrolling feels more like a chore there than anything.

with the two people i do talk to, it’s very sporadic and we often go long periods without exchanging any messages. but we still somehow keep each other updated on the important things.

in the past couple of days, the stars aligned and i ended up reconnecting with both of them.

quinn was my partner in crime when it came to high school journalism, and i ended up getting lunch with her over the summer in minnesota when i visited with chris (the first time i returned in almost four years). she has a penchant for sending wonderfully hilarious and informative audio messages, which i’ve always loved about her, and i was lucky enough to get a series of them yesterday. i listened to them on my walk to campus to pick up my monthly t-pass (since you can get a discounted pass as an mit student, and especially as a grad student as long as you make a request ahead of time) and my meds. it made me so happy.

ryan was the first friend i made in high school and we were quite the dynamic duo. we got up to all kinds of shenanigans — depleting snack bins that were technically off-limits and driving circles around my block, talking about everything and anything in our little teenage lives. i was in the central square target buying cat food and listening to pearl jam when i got a call from him. there was some brief reshuffling in which i had to call him back because my airpods weren’t putting anything through, but then we were talking like old times again while i walked up and down the home aisle, trying to balance everything in my hands and also musing on whether i should buy a plastic wastebin to wash my bulky wool sweaters in.

(i did not end up buying the wastebin, but i did buy a tub scrubber with a long handle, so i’m hoping that i can get the bathtub really clean and do a big wash session in there instead.)

it felt really good to hear their voices again, grainy and crackled through my phone. they both sound older and wiser. we’ve all grown a lot. and this is famously a strange time in our lives — we’ve graduated from college and we’re trying to figure out what our next steps are going to be. but just as i said to ryan, no matter how confusing things get, i know we’ll always be in each other’s corners through these changing seasons of our lives.

so, for 2025 i’ll love my friends, try new things, and get a little silly with it. i’ll handle the roadbumps as they come. i know i will.