For those of you who followed my updates last year, you know I made a point to share my college transition as transparently and honestly as possible on a Tumblr blog. In “I only write in pen,” I addressed the competitive, perfectionist environment at Wellesley College and shared my experience with my professor, Dr. Mustafaraj, taking a personal interest and making sure I didn’t drop her class after doing poorly on an exam. Nearly a year later, I let the same stress combined with harsh words from other students drive me to delete my blog, up my social media privacy, and become the worst of my critics.

Unfortunately, my past writing is gone. In haste I put it in a virtual shredder. Today, I return. After Dr. Hajj spoke in class on the importance of having a voice and not being passive, I reminded myself that my experiences are valid and that sharing them may help others as much as it helps me.

I write because past me couldn’t freely share her thoughts.

I write because Appalachian students like me are all too often silenced.

I write because I want to share what I learn, as I learn it, in my imperfect words.

Let’s start over, if you will, at the beginning of my college journey.

I had the opportunity to connect with the Prichard Committee Student Voice Team my freshman year of high school. As a part of a newspaper feature, I wrote an Op-Ed, Poor Students Need More From Policy Makers. That piece got me in trouble with my dad for sharing my status as a low-income student so publicly, but it also led Jane Shropshire, a private college counselor, to take me on pro bono. We proved that given access to the necessary resources and guidance, students like me can make it out. Unfortunately, Jane couldn’t completely remove the fight I had to undertake to get to where I am today.

I wasn’t even top ten in my class. My guidance counselors couldn’t understand why I was applying to all of these schools if my major could possibly be found in-state. Please don’t hold the fact that I had to preemptively bake “thank you” cookies to pressure them to write the common app recommendations and send my transcript against them.

There’s a culture of not going to college, especially not going away to college, where I come from in rural Southeastern Kentucky.

It can be seen as a betrayal of loved ones to leave home for post-secondary education, which can best be summed up in the words of a substitute teacher upon my announcement that I would be attending Wellesley: “You’re gonna become a damn yankee!”

Fast foward to Wellesley, where despite the struggles I’ve faced in making my college transition, I’ve gained so much more than an education. The exposure to people from all walks of life, different areas of the world, with diverse views has given me a new understanding of my place in society and a better view of how systems work against individuals. From the systems in my home state that subtly discourage pursuing elite colleges, to the larger systems that perpetrate all forms of oppression, I’ve learned that it is impossible to fight against one of these alone because so many different identities are intersectional.

Although I was a token liberal in high school, I was ignorant in my understanding of exactly how far policies and institutions can affect individual lives. Still today, there are things about the world and background knowledge many of my peers possess in a number of topics that I am not stupid for not knowing, but I am ignorant of it. When that ignorance shows, I hope those of you who better understand will have the patience to educate me.

Unlike a number of my peers back home, my family required me to pursue higher education. However, I don’t think they thought I would take it this far. My father, whom I no longer have contact with, understood that I needed the education that he didn’t receive: “I’m not done with you until you get that sheet of paper,” he would tell me.

Go back even further in my journey, if you have the time, to young Amanda sitting in a rowdy science class where students, (some of whom very vocally believed that logging or mining — or signing a welfare check, not that it’s comparable to the aforementioned two — were sustainable career options), caused my teacher to discontinue the lesson and dejectedly sink into her desk chair in tears, while I got up and continued the lesson for those of us who needed the class.

That’s what I came from, into a school where the word “Wendy” is used to describe the overachievers that can overwhelm the professors with too much participation, having read too far ahead in the material. These are the students who figuratively, or sometimes literally, only write in pen. Their judgment is the reason I felt compelled to silence.

Now I’m back, and I refuse to let the insignificant words of people who do not know the trauma I have suffered to get to this point, people who can’t hurt me any worse than my family, silence me. This is my space, these are my truths and I’m gonna own them whether y’all like it or not. If I want to write to acknowledge the reality of my experiences, I will. (If I want to play “video games for my sadness”, then I will. These same games gave me a love of coding and made not only my trauma more bearable, but my CS classes as well, but I digress.)

I wasn’t afforded the luxury of a background that prepared me for an elite college.

I was given cool older brothers who built computers with me. I wasn’t in a school where knowing things was cool, and although I wore my nerd label proudly, I still attended an institution riddled with “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” Unlike the peers I tried and failed to compete with, I didn’t have the resources to educate myself. I wasn’t allowed to stay after school for long periods of time. Even when I could get my hands on material that would extend my understanding of the world, I had to hide books, listen to The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on silent, and face the risk of abuse for an education that didn’t conform to my father’s beliefs, a high opportunity cost.

Despite these challenges, I’m here today in one piece with my accent, my trauma, and my undying optimism that education can be freedom. Despite the hell I’ve gone through to be able to stand with confidence in myself and despite my educational background, I’m at this school too, with a December 1st admission nontheless.

In the past, I’ve allowed my circumstances to define me, my anxiety to overwhelm me, and my surroundings to silence me. No more.

I am tired, and I will speak even when it makes me shake in my boots. I will write so that I can learn from other voices and perspectives. I won’t claim to speak for every Appalachian, but I’m here to use my voice because I am no longer in danger of personal harm for my words or my truths, whereas for many students where I’m from, that’s not the case.

Amanda Wahlstedt is a graduate of Knox Central High School who is on a Questbridge Scholarship in her second year at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. She is also a member of the Prichard Committee Student Voice Team. This post was originally published on her personal blog.

The opinions expressed on the Forum represent the individual students to whom they are attributed. They do not reflect the official position or opinion of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence or the Student Voice Team. Read about our policies.

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