Defining Your Identity at College

The summer before I came to Harvard, I spent a few weeks trying to decide what my name would be when I got here. I had a lot of idle time at my job as a short-order cook on a ferry in Long Island Sound, enough to mull over the stories I had heard of people coming to college and changing their names. I didn't have a problem with the sound of my name, Alan, and I've never been crazy about my middle name, Eric. After running the choices by some of my co-workers on the ferry, I briefly considered ditching the names on my birth certificate entirely, and switching to Rambo or Fabio or something I thought might be a little more fitting. I gave up on those two pretty quickly, but still, the idea of coming to Cambridge with a different name was appealing to me.

I suspect I knew then what I'm sure of now: it wasn't really the name itself I wanted to change, it was the person who'd wear it on a "Hello my name is" sticker at countless introductory meetings in the fall. I wasn't horribly unhappy with life in high school, but I had learned after four years my own weaknesses, the particular defects of my personality I wanted to leave with my old name in Connecticut. Entering college is one of those precious few transition points in our lives where it really is possible to refashion our identities, and I was intent on taking advantage of it. No one from my high school was going to Harvard, and no one had for several years, which was one of the reasons I chose to come here. I wanted an environment where no one would have expectations of me influenced by what they knew of my old self from high school. I wanted to start from scratch.

Of course, I knew that my name is the most superficial, arbitrary thing about me. The deeper elements of my life that I wanted to leave behind--forgive me if I don't go into too much detail here--would take a hell of a lot more work than filling out a form differently and I knew it. If changing names from Alan to Eric was the only thing I could change about myself that fall, it would be pretty pathetic indeed. Still, switching names was going to be emblematic of the new me, a constant reminder to myself that I wasn't who I used to be.

I spent a lot of my time on the boat that summer--probably more than is healthy--trying to figure out who I would be when I got here. I poured over all the student publications I could get my hands on, trying to fit the Hypothetical me set to launch Sept. 15 into the world of the Harvard campus. Harvard, as it turns out, is the perfect place to reinvent yourself if that's what you want to do. It's a considerable violation of campus decorum to ask too much about your classmates' high school background, mostly because doing so is likely to lead to an onslaught of awards and SAT scores. The other reason, I suspect, is that many people came here with the same secret purpose as me: to leave that old self behind, and never speak of him or her again. The effete intellectual type here might well have been a jock in high school. The confrontational Crimson reporter was shy and reserved. The campus socialite was a high school misfit.

Yet, as I learned during my first year, there are limits to how much you can will yourself to change. I can honestly say that I am a different person today, and the people I knew in high school would not have recognized me after just a year at Harvard. I am less cynical; I am more optimistic about my personal life and about the world in general; I am happier. Only a certain amount of that change, though, is due to my own initiative; the rest, I think, is part of growing up. The more radical changes I though I could make to my personality failed miserably. Again, I won't get into the details too much--maybe because I'm holding out hope that I can leave those shortcomings at Harvard when I go to grad school--but I will give you some advice. You are going to change a lot at Harvard, and most of those changes will happen your first year here. Some of them will be conscious decisions on your part, and you should jump on those opportunities. If you've always wanted to write poetry but never thought it would be taken seriously, do it now. If you wanted to play intramural softball but the nerds at your school (I'm assuming you were one) were laughed off the diamond, this is your chance. If you never felt comfortable asserting your ethnicity, your religion (or lack thereof) or your sexuality, this is your time.

But also recognize your limitations. I came here thinking I was essentially the product of my own choices, and that I could choose to make myself into whatever I wanted. It's not true. There are some parts of your personality you should not torture yourself trying to change, even is this great period of transition and change. You can find a new wardrobe, you can change your religion, you can switch from Coke to Pepsi--but you can never start from scratch. Before you despair, though, consider that this is not necessarily a bad thing. Remember that you must have been doing something right in high school, since you got yourself here.

As for my name, I didn't make a final decision until the day the envelope came from Harvard with the names of my roommates. I wanted to call and introduce myself, and obviously had to tell them what they should call me. It would be no good to call back a few days later and say I'd changed my mind.

As you can tell from the byline on this article, I stuck with the name I've been called my whole life. I don't regret the decision, mostly because I know that the change would have been completely symbolic anyway. Perhaps more importantly, though, it reminds me that despite the changes I've gone through in college, I'm fundamentally the same person I have always been. I couldn't tell you the day I finally accepted this limit, but I can tell you that the sooner you do, the sooner you will be able to take advantage of the great opportunities for personal growth college can offer.

--Alan E. Wirzbicki '01 is the associate editorial chair and editorial comp director of The Crimson.