Molly Supports “give a gift to New York University” on NYU One Day!

In addition to my parents’ hard work and sacrifice that allowed me to go to NYU, I am so grateful for the scholarship I received that was made possible by donors.  I never could have imagined how much going to NYU would change my life and help me become the person I am today.

Check out some fun pics that follow the anecdotes below.

I loved NYU and how it opened my eyes to so much opportunity, possibility and potential as well as diversity of thought, ways of living and being, culture, religion and politics.

I loved meeting interesting and intelligent people from all over the country and all over the world.

I loved the classes, my friends, clubs, sports, events, buildings, dorms, staff, administration, leadership, professors, the athletics facility and the library (the two places I spent most of my time) and of course, our campus, aka New York City!

I donated so I can contribute in a small way to making the type of experience I had a reality for other future NYU Alumni. Please read on as I describe what I experienced in my four years at NYU.

While at NYU, I…

Opportunity

…made it to the state finals for the Rhodes Scholarship, was in the student newspaper for my cleaning business, then got a cleaning job from the dean’s office and several more scholarships, won the National Championship with the Purple and White Dance Team and the Regional Championship with Students In Free Enterprise.  I was also honored with the NYU Faculty Memorial Award, presented to the student who used the resources of The College of Arts and Science to develop herself to the fullest in intellectual, social and personal endeavors.

Celebrity

…had dinner with Nobel Prize winners, CEOs, was selected for the unique internship with WNBC political correspondent Gabe Pressman (may he rest in peace), and saw Sarah Jessica Parker, Eva Mendes, and Chris Noth getting coffee at the same Starbucks that I frequented.  I also considered my professors to be famous.  I still have the textbook from my first economics class signed by the author of the text and my professor for the class, William Baumol (may he rest in peace).  I myself felt like a celebrity being featured in the student newspaper for my cleaning business (see also Money :) and was selected to be profiled in NYU marketing publications.

Fraternity

…had regular amazing conversations with my professors and fellow students and NYU staff like those who worked at the library and the many wonderful security guards and dorm, gym and administration employees, worked at the gym with the other athletes, went to Broadway and off and off off Broadway shows, several because I was going to watch a friend perform

Money

…cater waitered parties that I could not even begin to understand where that kind of money could come from, got well-paid modeling gigs, went to a fancy dinner party at Tavern on the Green, lived on 5th Avenue for two years of my life, and on the 23rd floor of a gorgeous building overlooking the South Street Seaport that would later become expensive condos, cleaned peers’ bathrooms for $10 and on more than one occasion, pulled several feet of hair out of dorm drains that may have never been cleaned before. I was already known as the girl from Nebraska, and after I started cleaning my peers' dorm rooms, I became known as the girl from Nebraska who cleans toilets.

Naivete

…almost got scammed from a guy claiming to do advertising for the Village Voice, accidentally illegally sublet a section 8 apartment from the parents of a girl I mentored in the lower east side, took pills that had ephedrine in them to study one night before I knew what that was and before it was illegal and ended up walking around the city all night

Crazy

…stored my cold drinks outside in the snow during extra long study sessions at the library, had a stranger jump out of a phone booth (yes, a phone booth) to break up a fight between me and another middle-aged man on Broadway and Waverly because he hit me with his soaked umbrella, was saved from a dangerous situation at a club by a woman who I didn’t know

Exploratory

…danced on MTV including at the VMAs, took music, dance and acting classes and tried out for the Knicks City Dancers, went to a foot fetish party, had Dave Matthews try to make nice with me after he offended me by making fun of George W Bush for being a Christian and in recovery (no matter his politics, I didn’t appreciate mocking him for his religion or disease), volunteered and worked all over the city, had a freshman roommate my junior year who told me about Kanye West performing a concert at Columbia and showed me Facebook, this new online networking website for college students (I didn't have email until senior year of high school so I didn’t know what the heck she was talking about :)

Piety and Heresy and back to Piety

…participated in a Bible study group, questioned my childhood religion, questioned all religion realizing it was mostly based on how and where we were raised, and went back to my childhood religion with a respect for and understanding of those who believed differently than I did, all within those 4 years

Diversity

…had best friends over my four years at school who were Honduran American, Russian American, Korean American, and Nigerian

Identity

…was shocked and inspired by so many women being comfortable without make-up and highlights and that nobody else cared or found them any less attractive, and that wouldn’t have mattered to them either.  I was so impressed by the way the students were so mature and honest and confident and comfortable in themselves and both men and women at the University treated me like a fellow human, not treating me differently because of my sex, where I came from or what I looked like.

Funny

Oh wait, one of my classmates was mean to me at first because I had blonde hair (freshman year).  She opened her too-cool-for-me mind after I woke up from a Mountain Dew and Reeses-induced nap during chem lab and belched.  We became best friends within a few months and still are connected to this day.

Tragedy and Unity

There is one event that I cannot describe here so cavalierly and that is something that happened to all of us, the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.  I can’t imagine the horror and pain of the people who were in those buildings or their proximity, of those who lost loved ones that day and those first responders who were running towards the towers to save others.

My roommate’s dad drove us to their home in Staten Island after it happened and I remember him crying on the Verrazzano Bridge as he saw the heartbreaking open space in the skyline.  I stayed at NYU because it felt like something I could do, like some tiny way I could practice courage and patriotism.  I remember how we were all in a daze for a few days but then started to be so kind to one another like we weren’t strangers anymore.  Because an awful tragedy brought space to let our guards down and be almost unconditionally compassionate and/or indifferent the way only deep sadness can, allowing ourselves and everyone else to be human, to just be in our mutual grief, pain, confusion and fear.

NYU was part of this and doing what they could to help the students heal while healing themselves and dealing with the fact that Manhattan is part of the NYU campus and there were dorms no longer accessible.  They were our wounded healers and caretakers, trying to guide young people through a tragedy, rehousing and clothing students who lived in the downtown dorms while still being a University, replacing textbooks for those students who couldn’t go back to their dorms, assuring all of us, especially those who weren’t from New York, that we were safe to obtain an education and asking professors and staff to continue to teach and work in the midst of working through their own grief.  We all have our stories of how this tragic event impacted our lives and NYU’s compassion, strength, agility and resolve are part of mine.

Community

NYU felt like home right away, from the less than 24 hour visit and only visit I ever had to New York City before going to school here, I knew this was where I needed to be.  I felt supported and like I could do anything I put my mind to.  I had to take a break from being my normal go-getter self to struggle and deal with some issues in my life but am so glad to be back involved as an NYU Alumna.

Dreams Into Reality

This was the title of my NYU application essay, the theme of our freshman convocation and what happened to me at NYU.

I love this school.

~Molly