A Freshman Reflection: Skidmore’s 2025 Summer Reading Event 

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This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Skidmore chapter and does not reflect the views of Her Campus.

“…All this would make sense soon, maybe when we were juniors,” writes Hua Hsu in his New York Times bestselling memoir, Stay True, which in part depicts the unique transition from L.B.C. (Life Before College) into higher education. This was the freshman summer reading book this year, a perfect selection, and the author himself came to Zankel this past Monday to talk to us about his process. He read some passages from the memoir, had a conversation with two professors, and took questions from students, clearly contemplating each opportunity for thought and sharing wisdom and memories along the way. Hsu was humble and humorous, and the details he shared about his life and writing process were quite thought-provoking! Personally, I found his description of college life to be incredibly poignant and I was touched by his evident compassion for current students.

Towards the beginning of the evening, Hsu recalled that this autumn marks the 30th year since he began college. This prompted a reading of a passage from his memoir about the start of college that reads, “We were always being asked to read things for which we were unprepared…but you read anyway, confident that there would come a day when you could pull from Adorno or Hegel. You underline the parts that sound as if they apply to your life, your perspective, whittling the systems of thinking down into something usable… all this would make sense soon, maybe when we were juniors.” These words were striking to me during my first reading of the book, but the experience was heightened in this moment for two reasons: first, the person who wrote them was in front of me, speaking them into life; and second, I was – am – now living them. This sparked some recognition; yes, maybe I have been feeling a little lost during my first month here. While I was fully aware of how much my academic life would change when I began college, truly reckoning with the overnight change in expectations has been a whole other task. I feel excited by everything, sure, and logically aware that the struggle will make me more equipped in the future, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy! I’m constantly spending too much time on readings, desperate to understand them, or poring over my writing assignments and dusting off each and every skill I collected in high school in the hopes that if I combine them just right, they’ll make me a college student. It’s tempting to feel alone in this new experience, but Hsu reminded everyone in that room that none of us are! We’re all reading material that’s too difficult and holding our breath for the day it won’t be, and I think that that collective tension is exactly what will earn us degrees in four years’ time. 

Hsu’s words about grief are consistently profound, and his advice about friendship that night was especially inspiring. It was this connection with us about the freshman experience, though, that I walked away thinking about most. He displayed a deep compassion for us as youth that wasn’t explicit, but rather lived in his descriptions about lessons he’s learned from his current students at Bard College, in the down-to-earth jokes he made, and in the stories he expertly drew from his own experience to make us feel a little more relaxed in our seats. We’ve all been through different phases this year with Stay True – perusing, dissecting, respecting – but this event surely succeeded in developing in us a deeper appreciation for the compassion found in both this memoir and its author. Thank you, Skidmore, for picking such a great combo!

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