A Dive Four Years in the Making

I am who I am today because of exactly where I am.

By Coco Liu ’22
Date

Senior year of college is a time to be forward-looking, but I am trying my best to absorb the details of this special little place, like how kids attempt to fill every corner of their lungs with oxygen before they dive underwater.

I was on Zoom for hours this morning chatting with graduate schools, while central Ohio was letting down inches of white fluffiness. This is what Christmas was supposed to look like three months ago, I thought to myself. When I hung up the call right before I was going to walk to my senior seminar, the sun came out. Somehow even with the snow, it reminded me more of late fall than early spring.

I never thought much about Kenyon’s seasonal changes, corn fields, shallow rivers, or even classes or people before I came here four years ago. In fact, I was more concerned about who I would go to prom with and what graduation photos I should post on Instagram. College was always going to happen, a place for me to live the next phase of my life, like what they all said. I did not ask many questions about this place then – what the professors were like, what it would be like to live in rural Ohio – but what I can say now is that I am who I am today because of exactly where I am. Throughout my four years at Kenyon, I have grown in ways that I had not imagined.

I arrived at Kenyon in mid-August of 2018 for the First-Year International Pre-Orientation. I lived abroad for the first half of my life and moved to a suburban town from middle school through high school. As a teenager, I closely mimicked those around me, trying to fit in. But the second I stepped foot on the Kenyon campus, I was greeted with faces from all parts of the world and classmates with an array of interests. They spoke about traveling the world and bartending before college, living through war zones in Palestine, leaving Egypt for the first time and coming to Gambier, Ohio without having known what Ohio really was. I listened to them converse in Urdu, Chinese, Spanish, and Arabic. They were laughing, asking me where I was from and why I chose Kenyon. My peers were unapologetically themselves, teaching me how liberating it was to be my genuine self.

  I am trying my best to absorb the details of this special little place, like how kids attempt to fill every corner of their lungs with oxygen before they dive underwater.

Coco Liu '22

One month into my first year of college, I received a call from my father telling me about a type of bile duct cancer that lived inside his liver. I didn’t know how to respond, so I just held the phone there. Abby, whom I met in Spanish class and later turned out to be one of my closest friends, hugged me tight and told me to write a poem about it. I wrote and wrote and went to every spoken word poetry show that year. I listened to the powerful words my peers shared in Peirce Pub, and I performed my own. The first time I sat on the tall stool at the center of that stage remains one of the most surreal moments I have experienced. It was then – when I saw tears streaming down my audience’s faces – I learned that it was okay for grief to be shared.

The second semester of my sophomore year was cut short because of the pandemic, but in the first semester of my junior year I was back in the Utopia of this small town. Kenyon only invited the first years and sophomores back to campus fall of 2020 to de-densify the college population. I was an exception as one of the few juniors on campus. My dear friend Syou (who now works for NBC in Japan) lived on the Kenyon Farm to take care of the ducks and goats at the time. As a result, I spent more time riding the farm truck and feeding chickens more than I ever intended to during my college career. Most Friday nights, we gathered at the farmhouse making sangria. We must have tried every type of white and red wine over the 14 weeks we had together. That year, I learned that tricking your friend into drinking paprika wine is more likely than you think.

I spent my summer of 2021 in a fairytale. I decided to stay on campus while working at a financial services firm remotely. I lived within a three-minute walk from all my classmates. We made pasta and had putlocks in the gazebo. We played frisbee and sang Shakira every weekend. Every now and then, I walked a cute little dog that kind of looked like a bat. What a life to live!

Early February this year, I received an email from the University of Utah when I was at a round table by myself at Peirce. When I saw the “Congratulations” in the email heading, my heart nearly beat out of my chest. Since the second semester of my first year, I had decided to pursue academia. My nerdiness drove me to join countless psychology research labs and to talk my housemates’ ears off about research methods and potential project ideas throughout the years. I chatted with my advisors (shoutout to Professor Ewell, Professor Dickens, and Professor Glandon) for months on end about graduate school timelines, personal statements, and plans for becoming a fashion designer if I was not cut out for academia. Now, holding the acceptance letter in both of my hands, I am getting a PhD in Management. I get the privilege to be an academic and study how people behave in organizations for a living.

I am starting to find comfort among the cornfields here the way baby birds find safety under the wings of their mothers.

Coco Liu '22

Last night, Abby said to me, The Friday before spring break will be our last weird Friday. It shook me a little, though I always knew college was not forever. While I foresaw the transiency of this phase of my life, I did not prepare for how much this special little place became a part of me. I am starting to find comfort among the cornfields here the way baby birds find safety under the wings of their mothers. Though undoubtedly, like how birds grow at an extraordinary rate to be strong enough to explore the world on their own, I feel the growth of the strength in my own wings. Looking back, even though I did not know much about Kenyon four years ago, it is no accident that I am here now.