Everyone has their one passion in college: a sorority, robotics club, A cappella team. For me, it’s dance.
I’ve been dancing some sort of dance form ever since kindergarten. It’s been the one thing in my life that has kept me well-balanced and disciplined. It allows me to express myself in a way I found most comfortable. I’m glad I could continue this form of art into college because first, it helped me transition into college, and second, it helped me find my niche in a school with over twenty thousand students.
When I first started my freshman year, there was just something so captivating about joining a dance team that everyone found mesmerizing. It was a new form of dance that I had never learned. It required immense stamina but you could see the dancers enjoying every bit of it. I started with barely any skill at all, but I learned and became inspired as I watched others execute steps effortlessly.
Many people (aka my parents) feel that a dance team that requires such a huge time commitment eats away from more time towards academics, especially since I’m a premed major. However, I believe that knowing that you have a certain amount of time allotted for practice and performances, forces you to be more productive and focused in the free time you have left. I don’t see being on a dance team as a burden or something else that I can slap on my resume. It’s definitely something that has let me explore deeper into my own culture and has allowed me to find genuine happiness during the darkest parts of the semester.
I could have a million bazillion things running through my head- first rough draft in lit class due, orgo exam next week, internship applications, major plan of study- but the moment I walk into practice, it’s practically as if all my worries vanish. If there does end up being something I can’t shake out of my head for the two hours at practice, I know I’ll have someone on the team to help me get through it.
Don’t get me wrong, being on a dance team has its own pressures. But they’re almost completely different. The anxiety of competing against other well-distinguished teams and the adrenaline rush of dancing in front of three judges plus another thousand pairs of eyes waiting to be enthralled by your performance on stage is exhilarating for me. Although at times it does feel like my heart is about pound right out of my chest, it’s a feeling I would never trade for anything else in the world.
As we all go through the chapters of life such as finishing up a college degree, going through job applications, preparing for GREs and MCATS, etc., it can feel like we lose that passion or drive that we all began with. However, finding that one thing that keeps us sane rekindles our motivation for whatever we need to do to move ourselves forward.
