Joanita and Ziona Young, are a mother and daughter who attended Bard Microcollege Holyoke at the same time. They spoke at our 2023 Fundraising Party about studying together and finding themselves.
I’m Ziona Young. I grew up in a large family — one of seven siblings. We all had similar and unique names. Five of them starting with the same letter- Ziona, Psalm-Zion, Zephania, Zenna, and Zebrea. My name was something I struggled with around the age of ten. It felt so cloned like there was no real originality. I didn’t know the origin of my name, and neither did anyone else leaving me to become a target for bullying. One of my biggest wishes was to find my name. It didn’t matter where I found it—I would look at name tags, and Coke bottles. I would even search the internet for the popularity of my name, but my efforts were always unsuccessful.
My Fears About College
I was home-schooled all the way from preschool through senior year. Before starting at Bard Microcollege Holyoke, I was anxious and always overthinking. Much like my struggle to find my name, I was afraid of not being seen or understood at college.
Right before graduating high school in 2022, I started taking two of the part-time college courses at The Care Center – English 101 and This is Your Democracy. The Care Center offers classes year-round so you can jump in at any point.
I decided to apply for Bard Microcollege Holyoke because it seemed a lot less intimidating than any of the community colleges. While I was in the middle of the application process, they asked me to write an essay. Strangely, I can’t remember what I wrote but I can remember how exciting it was to hear that everybody loved it.
Adjusting to College Life
Even though I had been accepted and even complimented on my writing, at first I still had the feeling that I didn’t belong. There wasn’t a set moment that I started to feel more comfortable. It was just slowly getting into the understanding of both the school work and the culture of the school itself. I didn’t expect for a lot of these classes to be the way that they were. For a majority of the class time we’d have a full class interaction, not just the professors speaking, and one of the courses was even student-led.
It took me until October to start to come out of my shell, and everyone was patient but encouraging. On a few different occasions my classmate, Nicholle even shushed everybody saying, “I want to hear what she has to say.”
Individuality Versus Collective
I have been thinking lately about the idea of individuality versus collective. When I rowed on The Care Center’s crew team, I learned that even when you’re on a team full of different people, individuality ties you together. Wherever our personal weaknesses were, there was someone who could fill in.
It’s the same at Bard Microcollege. Nicholle used her voice so I could be heard. Over the past few months, I’ve realized that the Microcollege isn’t only an education, it’s also a community.
For my mom, the Microcollege is something that is for her and her only. College wasn’t another thing that she had to worry about because it concerned my siblings and me or anything else that had to do with our family. Going to college was truly and fully for her. It was something that she had a choice in, and in a way it was something that helped her gain independence from the constant worrying about us.
I’ve never found my name on any Coke bottles, but I did find something at Bard Microcollege Holyoke, something better than just my name. I found a quality education.
