A college experience can sculpt a student; it can mold someone into conformity, or it can shape them into a statue with the uniqueness of a Degas’ “Little Dancer” or Rodin’s “Thinker.” Going into college, I felt misshapen, with my malleable terracotta skin fighting the form I was being squished into.

After only a year away at school, I have already felt the formative effects of a college experience. It is not just the education that has been imprinted upon me this past year, but also the experiences -- from the experience of working for days straight to achieve my goal, to exploring a new city. I can tell that by the end of my four years at school, the infinite experiences swirling around me, chiseling away at my being, will sculpt me. My core will be the same as my freshman self, but my form will be glazed after being fired in a kiln of experiences.

This sculpting process is the cumulative effort of professors, administration, fellow students and self. The beings that comprise the soul of a school all partake in the carving of each individual. As I walk through campus, respecting the intelligence of my peers, I feel impressionable. I yearn for a community of coexistence where students and faculty alike play a role etching my mind into a masterpiece with the likeness of a renowned sculpture.

My primary goal of attending college came from my desire to attain an education while maintaining my sense of self. I don't want to graduate as a copy of the forms of great sculptures. I wish to be an innovative and unmatched sculpture; I wish to be original.

I also wish to ply by my relationships -- as this commentary on a renowned Harvard study asserts, one's relationships will be far more important than one's GPA in the long run. I want my doughy being to be imprinted by all of the lives I come into contact with -- by all the professors who will teach me how to think, by my friends who will show me how to have fun, by my family who will demonstrate endless love and by my classmates who are all capable of success.

I have a distinct image for myself -- a basic structure of who I strive to become. Throughout the rest of my college career, I hope to chisel my raw form into an unmatched sculpture; I hope to become as refined and curious as Degas’ “Little Dancer,” as esteemed and pensive as Rodin’s “Thinker.”