Born on July 17, I was raised a summer baby through and through. From my earliest memories, I was always surrounded by water: beaches, pools, and long afternoons spent chasing the shoreline.
Above all, my favorite thing was riding the waves. I’d let them carry me forward, tumbling beneath the surface before being launched back onto the sand, only to be dragged back out again moments later. I’d emerge covered in saltwater and sand, a sea monster giggling as I ran back for another wave.
Yet, for all of my willingness to trust the ocean, I rarely trusted the waves of my own life.
Growing up, I wasn’t always the strongest student. I cried through simple addition, fell far behind in reading, and often got in trouble for not paying attention in class. The only part of school I consistently loved was writing: the one activity where I could disappear into my imagination and somehow be rewarded for it.
When sixth grade ended abruptly with the COVID pandemic, the future felt closer than it had before. Stuck at home, I listened as my older sister discussed SAT scores, college applications, and acceptance rates, while quarantine Harry Potter marathons–and my brother laughing when I said I wished I could go to a college like Hogwarts someday–only made the future feel intimidatingly closer. For the first time, I realized that there was a current ahead of me that people were already preparing for, and I didn’t want to be left behind.
Upon returning to school, I started taking academics more seriously. I had built a plan: challenge myself academically, pursue every opportunity that stumbled across my path, and most of all, prove that I was capable of more than the student I once was.
Beneath it all was a quiet, lingering belief that if I worked hard enough and planned carefully enough, I could steer my future exactly where I wanted it to go: to prove to others that I was just as worthy and accomplished as everyone else. I became so focused on reaching that destination that I stopped asking whether it was actually somewhere I actually wanted to go. I’d wanted to map out my entire ocean without even considering the waves, and when you spend enough time trying to control every current, you eventually lose sight of why you entered the water in the first place.
This mindset followed me throughout high school. I chose classes based on what seemed more impressive rather than what genuinely interested me. I worried about prestige and appearances, overlooking the subject that had always mattered to me most: writing.
When Journalism unexpectedly crossed my path during junior year course selection, I initially resisted. It wasn’t one of those classes people talked about with the same reverence as an AP elective. It wasn’t part of the blueprint I’d designed for myself. Most of all, I didn’t think I’d even enjoy journalism; I much rather preferred creative writing over reporting.
But when my English teacher at the time, Ms. Kulick, finally convinced me to enroll and my mom begged me to continue my old hobby of writing, there was no denying it: Journalism was a wave, and for the first time in a long time, I let myself follow it.
At first, I hated it. The bustle of the newsroom overwhelmed me, and I was intimidated by how skilled and commanding the editors were. I remember marching into my guidance counselor’s room after my first ever journalism class, insisting that my elective be switched to something more comfortable like Film and Media Studies or Creative Writing. Still, my schedule wouldn’t allow me to switch out. I was stuck in this wave, and I had two options: ride along or drown. So I rode.
Sure enough, Journalism reignited that same special spark for writing that little me had felt throughout childhood whenever I jotted down stories in the margins of notebooks. Except this time, writing had transformed from just a gateway to my imagination into a way to better understand perspective: both of the world around me and my own place within it. More than just jotting others’ quotes down on a page, journalism allowed me to realize that there was not just beauty and specialty in the world of fiction. There were remarkable moments happening all around me, from student athletes breaking school records to classmates taking on impactful service projects. I had just failed to notice them.
Eventually, I earned the opportunity of becoming editor-in-chief of The Lance, a role I never imagined having. It wasn’t just another accomplishment, it was an activity I dearly enjoyed. It was a place where I found the version of myself I’d been searching for all along: someone who was curious, empathetic, passionate, and unafraid to take risks. It’s just ironic that the thing I spent years ignoring became the very thing that gave me direction.
Still, learning to trust the wave and admire its beauty for what it is still didn’t come naturally. As college decisions loomed during senior year, I lost sight of that focus. I still imagined the rest of my future unfolding exactly as I had planned: attending an East Coast college, close to home, surrounded by people and places I’d always known. It felt safe, familiar, and planned. So when I finally faced waitlists and rejections from top colleges I wanted to attend so desperately–Middlebury, Bowdoin, Colgate, Yale–and scholarship awards that barely covered an affordable amount, that dream faded further into oblivion. It felt like life was pulling me into deeper waters that I wasn’t even sure I could swim in.
Just like that, all the hope and excitement I had for the college admissions process were obliterated. I wouldn’t get the college experience I always wanted, in a place I’d always known and loved. For nearly the entire month of March, I faltered. I stopped focusing in my classes and moved through my days with a heaviness I would’ve never expected. The beauty I once saw in my ordinary life had transformed into a daily routine of laying in my bed, staring at the ceiling, and wondering how something I had worked toward for so many years felt so uncertain.
Amid this, journalism still found a way to make me appreciate my present. Because here I was, writing articles, leading a schoolwide publication, and earning praise. Meanwhile, all those years ago, I was a girl who struggled in school, who cried over easy homework, and who dreamed of finding my significance in the classroom. Somewhere along the way, I had convinced myself that my progress only mattered if a college validated it.
Then I looked at journalism beyond the classroom. At the time, headlines poured in from the beginning of the conflict in Iran about families caught in situations beyond anything I could ever envision. I remember seeing reports about a US missile striking a school in Minab, and I couldn’t stop thinking about those students: girls and boys my age, even younger, whose lives had been irreversibly interrupted. Girls and boys with dreams like mine that would never be fulfilled, with talents greater than mine that would forever remain disclosed. And there I was, devastated over college decisions. I was so caught up in reducing my worth to acceptances that I failed to recognize that there were students my age around the world hoping for something much simpler: safety, opportunity, and the chance to keep learning. I was so focused on the shoreline that I hadn’t noticed the ocean I was swimming in or the millions of people who were stranded further out, struggling to stay afloat. My disappointment was real, but so was my privilege.
At the end of March, I flew out to Chicago for Loyola University Chicago’s admitted students weekend–a college I was drawn to because of their noteworthy journalism program–and an interview for their Ignatian Scholarship, a full tuition award only granted to ten to fifteen students out of an applicant pool of over four hundred. My interview marked the first time in a long time that I stopped performing. At the very end of it, I was asked if there was anything I wanted the scholarship committee to know. Tired of trying to sound impressive, my heart poured out the truth:
I told my interviewer that my name, Eva, means full of life. Living one. I told him that I hoped the committee would see that beyond my grades and accomplishments, I am someone who wants to live fully, authentically. Someone who wants to try new things, volunteer, engage with people, stay curious about the world, and show up with kindness. If I came to Loyola, I wouldn’t just attend. I’d participate. Live.
That weekend, I fell in love with Loyola so much that I didn’t even care to visit other schools anymore. By the end of it, I had submitted my enrollment deposit. I was an official Rambler. Then, two weeks after that, while driving through my neighborhood, I received a call from Chicago that nearly sent me off the road: I had received the Ignatian Scholarship.
Looking back on these past two years, the miracle of my story was finally realizing that the ocean of life had never been asking me to prove myself, but rather to trust its waves. If I had never ridden the wave of journalism, I’d have never fallen back in love with writing. I would’ve never wished to pursue it as my career or even applied to Loyola. Most of all, I think that without trusting journalism, I wouldn’t have found that distinct beauty in my simple little life.
So before I leave The Lance and high school to step into whatever comes next, I want to leave you all with this:
Stop trying to map out your entire ocean. Don’t stare so hard at distant shorelines that you forget to enjoy where you are. Don’t let your fear of deep waters make decisions for you. There will be times when you will be scared to swim freely or to ride that wave, but do it anyway. Waves will pull you under sometimes. They’ll throw sand in your face and carry you places you never expected to go. If there’s one thing the ocean has taught me, it’s that life isn’t meant to be watched from the shoreline. Life isn’t a tide you wrestle with in deep waters. Life is a wave that’s meant to be ridden, but only when you learn to stop being afraid of being afraid.
