What it means to fit in at Stanford

As of today, I am exactly 50 days away from graduating from Stanford. Let’s backtrack a couple steps to the year 1994, when a girl was born in Bangkok, Thailand. My parents gave me the nickname “Friend”.

This name might sound strange, but the name “Friend” is considered to be perfectly normal in Thailand. When a child is born, monks provide the baby with a long sanskrit first name, and parents give them a nickname. Just about every Thai person you meet go by such a nickname. I have friends named Football, Santa, and Apple. Seriously. I never thought my name was weird until I came to Stanford. Every time I introduced myself, I was greeted by blank stares, and or questions asking if I was joking. The questions were even more frequent at NSO, where almost every other conversation was an introduction. The comments I would receive after introducing myself made me feel alienated. I longed for home where my name had never been considered weird.

My schooling began at the International School of Bangkok. My classmates were from Europe, Africa, America, and Asia because their parents had moved to Thailand for their jobs. Flags of all different nationalities represented within our student body hung from the roof of our gym and International day was always a great celebration of each of our countries’ traditional cuisines, games and clothing. Being surrounded by kids from around the world was all I had ever known.

I left Thailand when I was eighteen to come to Stanford. After having read the admissions website (way too many times), I expected this campus to embrace diversity. I was expecting the same geographical differences that I had grown up with at my International school. I was surprised to find that more than half of my dorm was from California, and spoke using slang such as NorCal, SoCal and “hella”. I had no clue what hella meant. I struggled to find my place within the complexities of American culture. I was hella clueless.

Because I speak with an American accent, it was easy to pretend that I fitted in. I thought Stanford and America was supposed to be a “melting pot,” embracing different cultures, races, and religions yet I found I could not fake an excitement everyone seemed to feel for our school football team or understand why sarcasm was funny. There was definitely a very distinct American culture that I could not relate with not having grown up here. I had always prided myself in being able to adapt and fit in with all cultures, but moving to the United States, I had never felt more foreign.

Thailand is a collectivist culture, and everyone seeks to conform to avoid offending others. Because I didn’t connect with the American culture, I thought it best to remain quiet to not offend or be judged by anyone. I spent my whole freshman year in a shell. Loud chants at New Student Orientation and rowdy yells at my first football game was overwhelming. The culture shock was intimidating, and I withdrew into myself.

I carried on like this until I participated in Spotlight, a freshman dorm bonding experience. Spotlight is where your dorm mates are given free reign to ask you any questions, and you have the choice to answer if you feel comfortable. I admitted to feeling like I didn’t belong — I was just too different. After sharing, I began to listen to other’s stories. I learned my neighbor who had always been open about his homosexuality at Stanford, was still trying to find the courage to tell his parents. I learned that my friend living down the hall was a first-generation student, and felt guilty every time he went home about the privileges Stanford offered him. As more of my dorm mates shared their stories, I found that they weren’t as similar as I had assumed. I left humbled.

Suddenly, I no longer felt like the outsider. Instead I felt connected through these real human experiences and feelings. I had never been in an environment where so many people were willing to share their own unique stories — willing to be so raw and vulnerable. This is the beauty of Stanford. This schools fosters connections among people from diverse socio-economic, religious, cultural and educational backgrounds. Diversity at Stanford means so much more than just geographical differences. We have a community that wants to get to know who you are behind the labels assigned by race, gender, and socio-economic status. I began to realize that my own stubborn belief that I was too different to join the community was the source of my feelings of isolation. The fact was — everyone here was different.

I believe now that Stanford is the most holistically diverse community I have ever been a part of. Looking back at my international school years, I am now aware that although we came from different places around the globe, we shared similar socio-economic backgrounds and core values. The diversity at Stanford catalyzes stimulating and sometimes tough conversations that reveal a wide range of experiences and opinions. These conversations challenge your beliefs and understanding of the world.

My transformative freshman year led me to decide to staff in an all freshman dorm during my Junior Year. I hoped to help other freshmen coming into Stanford find the courage to be vulnerably themselves. That quiet freshman girl was now leading the loud chants at New Student Orientation and the rowdiest at the first football game of the season. There was nothing more rewarding than seeing the connections form in my beautifully diverse dorm community at their first spotlight.

The identity I have created here is not that of a Thai girl or an American girl or an International girl. It is a combination of all these things, and of the girl at football games, at frat parties, at walks of solidarity, and the girl sitting on the floor of her dorm hallway late at night (naively) talking about the meaning of life. And I know that I am so valued here and finally feel at home.