[S3E1] We've Been Here Before

[in flashback]JOE: "Straight tequila? Really? You are going to be sorry in the morning."MEREDITH: "I'm always sorry in the morning. But tomorrow is my first day at work, so keep 'em coming."DEREK: "Double scotch, single malt please. [To Meredith] So, is this a good place to hang out?"MEREDITH: "I wouldn't know, never been here before."DEREK: "You know what? I haven't either. First time here. I'm new in town. Never been to Seattle. New job soon. Ah, you're ignoring me."MEREDITH: "Trying to."

[S3E1] We've Been Here Before

I wanted to come over here this morning to tell you... But now all I want to tell you is that I'm in love with you. I've been in love with you forever. And now you have a choice to make. I want you to take all the time you need, I don't want to rush you, but I love you. Just take your time. Because when I had to make a choice... I chose wrong.

Meredith Reynolds:We all need to breathe first and foremost. I think there is a lot of making this process more complicated than it needs to be. And some of that comes from just the general angst of hearing about it all the time, getting questions about it at Thanksgiving of your freshman year of high school of, "Where do you think you're going to apply to college?" Of hearing your classmates and their parents talk about this process and all that it requires. It can drum up a lot of unnecessary angst. And this process is anxiety-inducing and it is complicated, it's unnecessarily complicated, and it's hard and it's stressful, and there's a lot that's out of your control, but rely on resources that you do have. Maybe it's your counselor at your school, maybe it's a parent who's been through this, maybe it's this podcast, or maybe it's a book that you pick up. And trust yourself through this process, because you're going to know if a place resonates with you.

Meredith Reynolds:Oh goodness. I think to your first question of where they get stuck, I think this can feel like they are putting a stake in the ground and they are saying, "This is who I am." And that can feel really intimidating, because it's like they're making a decision that's going to dictate the rest of their lives. It's not, right? But it can feel very big and as if they are saying, "This is who I am and it's not going to change. I'm going to be this way forever." So that I think can feel really intimidating. If you look instead back and you say, "What has been fulfilling and meaningful to you so far?" And everything I hear back has to do with their friends or family connecting with people. Then I say, "Okay. So it's going to be really important that we go visit a campus and pay attention to who the people are around us. And maybe you hang back on the tour just to watch how people are interacting. You maybe try to ask for directions from someone and see how that conversation goes."

So that's the practical answer. I think that knowing many 17-year-olds, I also think you are at a moment in your life where you are expected to be an adult. But in terms of your growth and maturity and development, you're not there yet and that's normal and good. And there's still more time where you're going to be, your brain is going to be developing, you're going to be gaining a more full understanding of yourself. And I think college can offer a really safe space to do that, to discover new things about yourself, to meet new people. You've been in your high school for the last four years and that means you're surrounded by people who have lived very similar experiences to yourself. And college gives you an opportunity to really expand your horizons in lots of different ways. So those are my two answers coming from different angles. I think there's wonderful opportunity in terms of growth, but there's also the practical piece of having that degree in hand when you're looking for a job.

Lee Coffin:I had this conversation with my mother this weekend about my nephew who enrolled at college and dropped out, enrolled at college and dropped out. And finally never went back and he just got promoted to be the assistant manager at a supermarket, and is really excited about that. And I said, "This was the right path for him." He left high school thinking, "I have to go to college," and it just wasn't his jam. He tried, he couldn't focus, he's happy, back to that word. And I use him as my example, because it sounds counterintuitive that a college dean would be saying, "Yeah. My nephew didn't go to college and it's been great for him." It's true. And I think college is a really important prerequisite to so many careers, particularly in the 21st century. And there's no question that the value add for so many of us, and I look at my own life and think, the path I've been on in the many years since I graduated has been really different than the one I think I would've been on had I not gone to college.

When you have a free period or when you have 10 minutes in after school before you have to run to practice. If you can get to school five, 10 minutes before homeroom, these individuals, this is their job is to help support you. And the reason they got into it is because they like teenagers, and they find this type of conversation fun and interesting and engaging. Simply walking into that office and saying, "I have a couple questions. Can you help me?" Is all it takes. If they can't, in that very moment, like I might be on this. I've had a kid since this Zoom meeting come to my door and go like "Hi. Can you talk?"If they can't help you in that exact moment, they will find a time for you to come back. I'm going to go find that kid during lunch and say, "Hey, sorry, I was on a meeting. Do you have the next period free?" They will take it from there. You just have to do the really hard step of saying, "Hi. I need help."

I mean, that's a very different version of what we've been talking about. But there are campuses that will require a whole set of courses that might make you go. And then there are other places where you wander and wonder on your own terms to really, really different examples of an undergraduate experience neither one, good or bad. Different as that faculty has constructed the curriculum and the undergraduate experience. Your opportunity is to try it all along and say, "Yeah. I can imagine being required to take foreign language and calculus and chemistry." I mean, when Mere and I worked at Tufts, one of the requirements that always made kids eyeballs pop was a sixth semester foreign language requirement. And some students would say to me, "Oh my God, that sounds like overwhelming."

Jacques Steinberg:Spanish-speakingSo I think in the spirit of our initial analogy of an overture of a show. We really provided, the two of you have provided our listeners with a preview of what's to come over the next 18 months, the next six months. And Lee has made clear that in the coming weeks the Admissions Beat is going to go deep on a lot of these themes and issues and others, you don't have to pick it all up now. This is not a one and done. But there are two topics that I want to touch on just very, very briefly being conscious of our listeners' time before we sign off on our opening episode.

Jacques Steinberg:So more to come listeners on that subject and so many others. Last question for you both, on a parallel path to everything we've been talking about today. Students need to be students. They're engaged in extracurricular activities for the joy and passion of those activities. They're in class, they're taking tests, they're reading, they're writing papers, they have community service projects they're involved in, they are working. How do you, Meredith, keep a balance to make sure that some of those things that I just mentioned don't get swallowed up by the college process?

Here\u2019s the takeaway. While three of the four major concessions that have been made by Kevin McCarthy\u2014thus far to no avail\u2014have to do with the inside baseball of party machinery on the Hill (e.g., rules for introducing amendments, committee assignments), one has potential long-term ramifications for the kind of congressional candidates Republications will put forward in the future. In short, McCarthy has pledged that the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF), a PAC that helps fund Republican House candidates, will not contribute funds toward candidates running in Republican primaries under two conditions: 1) the seat is open (i.e., there is no incumbent); and 2) the seat is in safe GOP districts.

I think they found themselves in normal circumstances as we, as I tried to illustrate in the book, they had always been segregated. The Mexicans always lived in the Mexican area, part of towns of Texas. So they were in there always in their own little barrios and so for them to be in all Mexican-American unit in the 36 division, it wasn't uncommon for them they just it was natural for them.

And for that action, he was awarded the Silver Star by the U.S. Army. Well, the Russians had sent over an observer and officer. The Russians were really eager to learn about what the allies were going to do with this new front. The Russians had been fighting the Germans on the Eastern Front for years, and here the allies were now moving in into the European continent.

And you'd actually have they actually retreated when he shot it with the Springfield rifle. A couple of the men were wounded. Marcelino Valdez from El Paso also wounded and Rafael was wounded trying to help his buddy, Marcelino Valdez. Rafael was wounded, went back to North Africa and when he came back, it was right before San Pietro and the battle of San Pietro, where he was wounded again.

I want to get into one area in particular where a few of these men were wounded. Manny Rivera from El Paso, Texas, was wounded while trying to take ammunition up one of these hills and a telegram arrived back in El Paso, Texas, notifying that his is notifying his mom and he had been killed in action. It wasn't three days later till another telegram arrived and said, oops, sorry, he's just wounded. 041b061a72