What a Summer of Elites Taught Me About Belonging

Reflections on class, race, and identity at the Governor's School of International Studies, and what that summer taught me about fitting in and walking away.

Learning Where You Stand

Photo by Giammarco Boscaro on Unsplash

Sometimes, the past reemerges not to haunt us, but to teach us. I’ve never considered myself nostalgic. I don’t pine for “simpler times” or mourn the loss of my teenage years. But now and then, something resurfaces that forces me to pause. When it does, I’m not pulled back out of longing but out of a desire to measure where I’ve been against where I am now. Memory, in this case, becomes a mirror, not a window. And one of the clearest reflections I have comes from that summer, when I attended the Governor’s School of International Studies at Ramapo College.

At the time, I didn’t fully realize the uniqueness of the experience. I knew it was prestigious, that only 100 students from across New Jersey had been chosen by the state to attend. But I didn’t understand how it would shape my understanding of class, race, and belonging or how it would later become a symbol of both pride and alienation.

I stumbled across the old website recently, still preserved like a time capsule. It brought that month back to life: the late nights in dorm rooms, the Model United Nations debates, the tentative friendships, the Quebec excursion, and the lingering feeling that I had somehow crossed an invisible threshold into a world that wasn’t meant for me.