A Priceless Opportunity to Learn
AJ Hudson CC’13
“I remember meeting with Deantini about how much I hated seeing my closest friends constantly stressed. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I wanted my fellow students to let go of perfection and to explore and wonder and find out who they were. I wanted that for myself, too. I remember the dean told me that the stakes were actually the lowest they would ever be at a place like this, at Columbia, where my only goal was to really just become ... me. He reframed what I saw as another test of my ability into a cornucopia of knowledge — where I had the incredible and priceless opportunity to learn nearly anything I wanted, and to in turn understand a great deal about myself.
“Those words have stuck in my head for nearly a decade, and their wisdom has pushed both my own inward growth and the growth of my close group of Lions into people who are not afraid to take risks, not afraid to fail and not afraid to find out who they are (constantly) becoming in the lifelong process that is adulthood.”