The greatest thing I ever did for myself in high school was choose to accept myself. I came in like most teenage girls: mildly shy, mildly anxious and very desperate for people to like me. Unfortunately, like most teenage girls, my desperation to “fit in” was at the expense of my authenticity.

I have many memories of me going to concerts I didn’t want to go to and talking about celebrities I didn’t care about all so that I could have some sense of acceptance. I would embellish my interests and hide others so that I could feel like I was “normal.” But here’s the real truth: I like music, but concerts are a little overstimulating for me. I like to hang out with my friends, but I feel like I’m going to pass out after 11:00 p.m. Oh, and I don’t really care about the Kardashians.

However at 14 years of age, admitting these facts about myself to others seemed like social suicide. So I did what most teenagers do. I lied about who I was to sound cooler to other people.

And this worked for me for a while. I had a healthy social life, I had a lot of peers that I could call friends, I was usually out at football games or concerts on the weekends, and it was fun for a while.

However this got harder to maintain. I became more and more passionate about the things that interested me, things like service work and holistic medicine, and it didn’t make me feel good to hide the parts about my life that make me feel fulfilled.

Then one day it dawned on me that nobody in my life was judging my interests or my lifestyle except for me.

So I swallowed my insecurities and started being more open and honest about myself. And guess what happened? All my friends rejected me, called me a loser, and I had nobody to talk to for the rest of high school.

Just kidding. What really happened is that my life changed forever. I was happier, I was having deeper and richer conversations with my friends, and I started to have closer relationships with my peers. I learned that the only thing that was making me feel disconnected from my peers was my inability to accept who I really am.

I think adolescents tend to desire this feeling that we’re “normal” because we’re vulnerable. However there doesn’t have to be a disconnect between what’s normal and what’s not based on music preferences or other interests, mostly because the disconnect is entirely made up by our own insecurities.

I think most happy, balanced individuals can say with certainty that they don’t judge others based on what they wear or how they choose to spend their leisure time. Isn’t is ironic though, that we judge ourselves based on the exact same things?

The truth is that the last thing our society needs is more cookie-cutter teenagers who all want the same things, who all want to get a good internship this summer and then go on to work at a successful company and make a lot of money. Our society doesn’t need more teenagers who are too afraid to form their own opinions or think for themselves, who are too afraid to be authentic.

I am not criticizing the culture of our generation. I think that young people who like to party every weekend and who love keepin’ up with the Kardashians are just as interesting as those who choose to spend their time reading, or doing service work or practicing their faith. However I think it’s about time that we start embracing the parts about ourselves that make us different from our peers instead of trying to hide them.

So, I guess all that “always be yourself” crap our parents told us when we were younger was actually really important.

The beautiful part about being human is that no two people are the same. The mix of experiences that make up your life, that make up who you are, your interests, your likes and your dislikes, are unique to you and you alone. This is the reason why every individual is special, and the reason why it’s important to celebrate our own authenticity.

Whether you’re an incoming freshman like me or just starting another school year, I encourage you to find a way to be a little more authentic in this upcoming year. Authenticity is valuable. Authenticity matters. Who you are matters.

A few weeks ago, when I got my rooming assignment and began getting to know my roommates, I joked around with my dad and my sister that I should bring a collage of pictures of my two pet bunnies — aka my babies — to hang in my dorm room.

“Don’t do that” they warned me, in all seriousness. “You want to make friends in college, not scare them away.”

I think that this year, I’m going to pass up my family’s advice for the first time because choosing to stop pretending to be somebody I’m not was the best decision I ever made in high school.

So to my new roommates: Hi, I have two pet bunnies who are my babies, I like to do yoga, and I don’t know all the names of the Kardashian sisters.

And to my fellow Dominican students: Hi, I cannot wait to get to know each and every one of you, authentically.