I don’t know about you, but I have personally experienced many instances throughout my lifetime where I have felt frustrated and disappointed in myself for “missing an opportunity.” I hope to go to medical school one day. I remember falling into a rabbit hole the summer before my second year here at USF while researching different programs for pre-med students. That’s when I found out about Early Assurance (EA) programs, and I started frantically looking for different programs to apply to. I realized I had missed the opportunity to apply for USF Honors’ 7-Year B.S./M.D. Program. I had the statistics but did not know about it until after I was already admitted to USF, while you had to apply and join at the very beginning of your academic career. This was the case for other EA programs. I remember feeling so dumb for not knowing and missing out.Â
Similarly, I had another experience when I was looking to study abroad. I had no idea that some of the class codes I had already taken had different but also interesting classes attached to them. I didn’t know that one class code could have a variety of different classes. I also didn’t know that you could study abroad as soon as your first year! I felt like I had wasted so much time waiting until my third year to go abroad and missed out on some interesting study abroad programs because of it.Â
I had no idea why I felt this way before and why I kept feeling this way every time I missed out on an opportunity until a few weeks ago, when I spoke with a friend. We were talking about wanting to make use of everything we can do and committing to different events even when our schedules are already so booked. I finally understood when she said something along the lines of “yeah, as first-gen, I think we want to be able to do everything… and not miss out.” I hadn’t realized how deeply my identity as a first-generation American shaped my response to missed opportunities. Growing up, I always listened to my mother share experiences of her young adult life. She told me how, at her age, she had to trek to school and how one time she showed up to class wearing a dirty uniform because she tripped and couldn’t return home or else she’d be late. Once, when she found out I was reciting a poem to hundreds of people, she was so proud and told me how she never thought that was something someone at my age could do, especially as a student. When I entered college, she told me how hard she had to work just to pay tuition. Scholarships weren’t really a thing when she tried to pursue higher education and she thought it was super fascinating when I told her I got one. Never a negative experience, but these conversations with my mom really contributed to the person I am today and can perhaps resonate with others as well.Â
My mother has done so much to get to where she is today. She has done so much to get me and my other family members where we are as well. Because of this, I think that I feel like it’s my duty to seize every opportunity that I can. While my mother doesn’t even care about the “missed opportunities,” nor is she disappointed at all by the things that I am doing, I somehow feel like by missing them, I am wasting my potential and accruing regrets of a life not lived. I think that’s why I would take “missed opportunities” so harshly. But one day, when I was upset at myself for missing an application deadline and not applying for a program I was really interested in, a quote popped up on my feed. It said, “That missed opportunity was not meant for you, and even if it was, then the opportunity will return to you in another form.” And you know what, it really did. Applications for another program of a similar nature opened up a few days later. It was something that aligned with me more, so I applied and was actually accepted! Afterwards, I started to shift my mindset a little bit. I realized that every opportunity I felt I had missed led me to the life I live today, the person I am today, and who I will be tomorrow. And while my mother did not have the opportunity for certain things, she had the opportunity to come abroad and live a life she always dreamed of. The opportunities she never had left room for the opportunity she prioritized.
More opportunities will come and more opportunities will go. The only thing I can really do about it is to seize them, and if I miss them, let it go because at the end of the day, I know that more will come around as they have in the past. Although I know I will still mourn the opportunities that my future self will miss, I know deep down that I will also celebrate the ones that my future self has captured. And for all the opportunities I have missed, I hope that in another universe, the me that seized them is living the life she intended to.Â