They’d Rather Have us Stay in Our Bubble
I knew people didn’t feel amiable towards preppy, prestigious boarding school students, but I never thought they disliked ours that much. I imagined people thinking that we were annoying because we liked working hard in the debates. Perhaps we seemed like “try-hards” and we don’t like having fun. But during the last moments of our trip in New Haven, the delegates in the Yale MUN conference did not hesitate to show how much they hated our guts.
The Yale Model UN Conference consisted of committees, ranging from 20 to 100 students. It was four days of intense debating and lobbying in order to come up with resolutions that dealt with different topics within the theme of committees. It was definitely stressful, even with a snow day where two of our sessions were cancelled. At my old school I had attended a few models, but this was my first time going to the Yale conference and it was incomparable: the debates were rigorous and it was a great opportunity to learn about a wide variety of global issues. It was also a great opportunity to work side-by-side with a national and international students to come up with hypothetical “world solutions”.
I became friends with a girl in my committee who is also a junior, and we went to Subway for a sandwich the second night of the conference. It was just the two of us, and for some reason the inquiry about which school we attended didn’t come up until quite late in the meal. When I told her I was a Hotchkiss student, she nodded, and changed the subject. I had asked her about her school and what it was like, but she showed no interest in mine. The next day after we got to know each other a little more in the committee sessions, she told me in a confession-sort-of-manner that Hotchkiss had a bad reputation. I did expect it, no doubt, but she went on about how everyone thought that Hotchkiss students made the sessions dull, were known to be conceited, and didn’t make the effort to meet others. I was doubtful about everyone seeing us that way, but on the last day of the conference, most of the delegates if not all got a chance to see how everyone felt about Hotchkiss in the virtual world.
Yik Yak, an application that is prohibited on our campus, was the social epicenter of the conference. Conversational icebreakers involved commenting on what had been posted on this app, and laughing if someone from your committee had been mentioned. The comments throughout the first days included which delegates or even Yale Student Chairs were cute. Others were about funny or stupid things that had been said in committee sessions. They were all quite foolish and light-hearted, meant to be humorous and passive. However, Yik Yak exploded during the Awards Ceremony, a defining moment everyone had been waiting for either to see who took home the most awards or to judge people as they went up to receive them.
And the Hotchkiss delegation won a lot of awards. Our delegates went up to get their gavels and certificates, and people clapped for us like any other school. But we got more and more awards, and by the third or fourth one, we could only hear ourselves clapping: the faint applause of twenty students within a group of a thousand. Then we opened Yik Yak and saw the comments.
At first I was shocked. My friend from my committee had been right, and I felt very offended that so many people, between commenters and likers, felt that way about us. By the end of the ceremony, having been the school with the most awards percentage wise, the Yik Yak comments seemed too ridiculous to be taken seriously. While some of the comments were tacky and not clever at all, some of them did make me laugh. I wasn’t insulted after a while, and decided to laugh along. As Hotchkiss delegates, we concluded that they were simply jealous and their dislike towards us was unwarranted. But there was still something unsettling that made me question whether or not we actually did deserve the hostility.
The Hotchkiss delegates go into the conference with somewhat of a negative attitude in terms of the social aspect of the events that we can benefit from. We are the ones who decide not to go to the Delegate Dance that occurs on the last night of the conference. We go into the conference being warned that we’ll meet weird people that we shouldn’t associate ourselves with. We place it upon ourselves to win an award or else the experience isn’t worth it. We go into the conference thinking that the only important, not even fun, part is winning.
Our attitudes can definitely improve. Our outlook can be polished. We are part of a school characterized as an elite, privileged institution. We shouldn’t only improve our attitude because we care about what others think of us or what they comment on Yik Yak; we should try to maintain a humility that will allow us to open ourselves to great experiences outside of our bubble.
Nevertheless, we shouldn’t be hated because we try our hardest. The Hotchkiss MUN team goes to the conference with all the intention to do our best and work effectively. It is not our fault if delegates from other schools go to this amazing learning experience without any interest in taking advantage of it. There is nothing wrong with our system of education in incentivizing us to put in our best effort when we can. We shouldn’t restrain ourselves or hold back from developing our full potential in fear that others won’t appreciate it. Hotchkiss, unlike a lot of schools we originally came from, is a place where hard-working students are valued and respected for their efforts. We shouldn’t be scared to uphold and support these values if we wish to do so outside of Hotchkiss.
I am caught between blaming others for their prejudice of us and our own prejudice of them. It is quite possible that both sides have some faults and that this isn’t a black or white matter. However, I have to come to terms with the fact that we will always be marked with the label of being preppy and conceited boarding school kids. It is engrained in our stereotype outside of our bubble, but then again it is simply one “con” in return for the many “pros” of being a Hotchkiss student. And I think that the invaluable advantages of being a Hotchkiss student with our endless opportunities of education can reasonably allow us to take on the haters.
