California Dreamin’

My inner voice says ‘head west’ while my parents say ‘stay close to home.’

The writer, pictured, yearns for a college in a different environment than New York—warm weather, laid back, and on the opposite coast.

by Adam Kaufman

The clock strikes two and I am walking out of economics class, facing the weekend. It is a beautiful day, 75 degrees and the sun is beating onto the green grass. I just sat through a two-hour lecture and I am figuring out what I’m going to do with my buddies for the rest of the day.
Should we drive a few miles and relax on the smooth sand of the beach, watching the clear blue waves of the ocean or hop onto the campus bus and head towards the tennis courts? Both seem like attractive options but we settle for the beach. We sit there, 10 friends hanging out with nothing on our minds besides the sun and the weekend to come.
Unfortunately, reality

is I am an 11th grader in high school in freezing cold New York preparing to take my SATs. But I enjoy dreaming of college. Could this be my college experience? Is this reality or is it my chimerical idea of college life on the West Coast? It might be my dream, but it sure isn’t my parents’.
Colleges all over the world offer majors and course selections that entertain almost every extravagant idea. You could go to Cornell’s School of Hotel Administration and study wine tasting. You could go to Australia and major in scuba diving. You could go to school abroad and major in Italian culinary arts or Swiss filmmaking. You could practically go anywhere and study anything on your parents’ tab. As a junior it’s now time for me to figure out who I am and where I want to be.
I always dreamed of going to a school on the West Coast, in particular Stanford University. I mean who wouldn’t like the warm weather and more laid-back environment compared to New York. Oh yeah, and there’s also the good education. Stanford is ranked in the top ten colleges in the United States, according to U.S. News & World Report. I plan on studying law and I hear Stanford has an excellent law school, too.
I look at a West Coast college as a chance to escape New York and the environment I grew up in. I imagine a completely different world to explore. It sounds like a dream school that offers everything I desire. Of course, I debated in my head about whether I would like the contrasting environment on the opposite side of the country. Would I miss home and New York? Definitely. However, I am willing to take the chance.
I mean, it’s only for four years of college and when would I ever get the opportunity to get away from my homogenous surroundings at home? I also look at it as an opportunity to nurture and develop my identity. I remember visiting California when I was younger and loving the weather and the beaches. Ever since then my mind was set: California is where I want to be.
This decision, however, is not solely up to me. My parents have ideas and concerns of their own about my college experience. They do not want me to travel far, especially to California, because they fear I will settle there and never come home.
They also fear what I will do after college. Would I have made the necessary contacts I would need for returning to the East Coast? Would I be comfortable in my new surroundings? If I were unhappy, it would not be an easy commute home.
My parents feel that they have gone through the process themselves, they are older and come from a clear perspective and they know what is best for me. They think I am disillusioned by the fantasy of the warm California sand on my feet.
Being Jewish, my parents have even more concerns. It is important to them that I maintain my religion while I am in college. Having gone to a yeshiva high school, they want me to keep kosher and have a place to daven in the morning with a minyan.
Most important, they want me to find a Jewish girl to marry. They think that college offers a condensed social environment of people my age where it will be easier to meet my future wife. My parents met when they were young and started dating seriously in their first year of college. They were married in their third. My mom was pregnant with my sister in her fourth year. My parents think that once college is over there won’t be as many fish in the sea. I hear what my parents are saying however, I have some different ideas on the matter.
When I go to college marriage isn’t exactly the main thing on my mind. I’m more interested in exploring beyond my boundaries and paving my own path. I think it’s important to figure out who you are before you share a life with another person. College is all about learning your specific areas of interest and ultimately developing them into what you want to do in life. When people say that you need to start somewhere, well college is that pivotal place. After college I envision earning a law degree.
After many arguments with my parents — at first nonchalant and then heated debates — I have come to a very important realization. Sometimes it’s easier to judge a situation from the outside in as opposed to when you are in the middle of it. When choosing a college, you must come to a middle ground. Meaning, you must mix a sense of your fantasy with your parent’s understanding of reality.
Independence doesn’t mean that you relinquish the support and advice of the two people who love and know you best. However, you also must make sure you never lose focus of your own vision since college only comes around once.
So come fall I’ll send in that application to Stanford. I’ll visit this California campus with my parents. I’ll find out first hand if West Coast living is for me. I can just imagine it. My dad will want to know the closest golf course while my mom will point out the beauty of the library and the cleanliness of the dorms. I’ll check out the beach and Hillel house. We’ll figure it out — together.
Adam Kaufman is a junior at North Shore Hebrew Academy in Great Neck, L.I.

Westchester Jewish Conference

Westchester’s Jewish Community Relations Organization