F&M Stories

Thank you, Dean Hazlett. Greetings to President Altmann and our distinguished guests, and hello, fellow graduates of the Class of 2020!

In celebrating the accomplishments of our class, especially months after graduation, it seemed appropriate to talk about something like resilience. But I recently realized that I used to have a remarkably flawed understanding of resilience. 

When I applied to colleges in the United States, it simultaneously demonstrated my persistent desires to escape and to pursue freedom from ignorance. I did not have a plan B; I thought I was not that impressive of a candidate; and I was asking for a lot of financial assistance. I thought, "I just need a chance to get in; I will show them they made the right decision!" Franklin & Marshall gave me that chance.

Now, I had to show that "they made the right decision." I embraced resilience as needing to overcome every obstacle, striving for unattainable perfection. I'd daily put on a smile and a pair of high heels. No matter what kind of punch life threw at me, I would crack jokes and bury the pain.

But throughout my time at F&M, little by little, I was invited to cultivate a different personality trait—the ability to be vulnerable.

We tend to speak of vulnerability as something negative, almost the opposite of resilience. But simply making it through college required us to constantly feel vulnerable, even if we didn't always recognize it.

We felt vulnerable asking professors and peers for help. Offering our less-than-perfect work to others' judgment, hoping to improve it. Taking everyday risks by expressing our original thoughts in a classroom. Sharing our different ways of seeing and approaching this world, and thus inevitably sharing ourselves. Falling in love — all kinds of love! And coming to care about people, deeply. That, I think, is the most vulnerable, but also the most enjoyable way we can live life.

And then the pandemic happened. The weeks leading to graduation brought a deep, pervasive sense of uncertainty. I, for one, faced the fact that my standing in the United States was very fragile. I was determined to spend last summer back with my mother and my grandparents. They raised me and did everything they could to make me feel I was the luckiest, most cared-for child, even with what little they had. But with my foreign status, if I had gone back to Russia, I would not have been able to come back to the U.S. to continue my graduate school education.

So I chose to stay here. My grandfather died the weekend before my master's program started. His only regret was that he could not see his grandchildren. I've learned that once you feel genuine grief, you suddenly feel all grief in the world.

Left to myself, I slipped back into my "resilience mode." I attended my classes the following Monday, smiling and joking. Then I started sinking into an inescapable pattern of regret and blaming myself. I didn't say a word to anyone about what I was really thinking and feeling for months. Finally, I simply couldn't live that way anymore.

What ultimately got me out of it? The caring relationships I cultivated at F&M. Only in letting my weakness be seen and embracing my vulnerability in front of others did I finally feel the weight of deep hopelessness lifted off my shoulders.

I know I'm not alone in this experience. The last year has shown us all just how dependent we are on each other. Never before has our collective state of vulnerability been more evident. But this vulnerability is not something to avoid. Its beauty is that it is profoundly human — we all stand in this relationship of being vulnerable with each other; and this gives rise to real human caring — the kind of caring we have to keep cultivating, now more than ever.

Looking back, I think our Franklin & Marshall education really was the kind of holistic teaching and learning performed by all members of the F&M community and directed at our entire personhoods. By gradually learning to be delightfully vulnerable, we gifted each other with genuine caring relationships. By holding on to these relationships, allowing ourselves to care unceasingly and without limits, we have a chance at a life that is beautiful and meaningful, even at this time of global uncertainty. Thank you all for giving me this chance.