Lotte Fincken ’24
Forward Cycling: Retracing My Path to Purchase
I was born and raised in The Netherlands, or, as it is also known, Holland. In this very small country, there are 23 million bicycles. Yes, you read that correctly—what is even more mind blowing is that only 17 million people live in Holland.
I loved riding bicycles growing up, and have been doing it since I was three, every day to and from school. The older I got, however, the more I started to hate it. My high school and my field hockey club were a thirty-minute bicycle ride from home; as a teenager, this was obviously way too far. Then you have Mother Nature stirring things up—it would be pouring rain on my way to school, and on the way back I would barely move forward on the hill of Rijssenseweg because of strong wind. Of course, bikes also love to suddenly drop a chain or get holes in their tires, as well.
I remember one Sunday morning, biking to my friend’s house. I was about 12 years old. My bike was this amazing pink beach cruiser with a very wide steering wheel. I loved this bike. As I was making my way through the town my jacket, which had been draped on my steering wheel, fell. Without hesitation I squeezed both my hand brakes, which my dad had tightened just the day before. When I squeezed the brakes, the front wheel stopped and the back of the bike tipped in the air. I hit the concrete with my chin and mouth, and flipped off of my bike. I lay still for a moment, and tasted blood in my mouth. I also felt a big chunk missing in both of my front teeth.
So, riding a bike is an experience all on its own. It’s that feeling when you realize both of your feet are off the ground, and now it’s all up to you to find balance and steer in the right direction. You find determination within yourself when you’re fighting the heavy wind or getting back on your bike after falling on a slippery road. This is a part of my Dutch culture that I carry with me, wherever I go, steering me in the right direction. In a way, it is also what brought me from the hills of Rijssenseweg to a journey of self-discovery at Purchase College.
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From the moment I graduated high school, when I was sixteen, I had a hard time deciding what I wanted to do next. This was very hard for me, because it seemed like everyone else around me knew exactly what they wanted to do. This also in some ways surprised me, because who really knows what they want at such a young age? In a rush, I decided on a ‘pedagogic work’ program, which, I learned, is not for me long term. I quit the same year, and the following year, I transferred to a different school. I was 17, and ready to begin again in marketing and communications, which I chose simply because I was good at economics and could take Spanish, which I thought would be helpful. It was okay, but I didn’t feel I’d found my passion—I was doing it so I could finally earn my level four diploma. To be honest, I have wished for a better start to my college experience.
In September of 2017 I started my final year studying marketing and communications. One hazy, late summer afternoon after school I was lying in my bed. I pulled up my pink blankets that still smelled like the laundry detergent my mom uses. Sometimes the whole house fills with that smell, I liked it. I was on season four of my favorite Netflix show, Vampire Diaries. In that episode, Elena unexpectedly became a vampire, and she was trying to adjust. As the episode went on, I heard screaming from downstairs. I pushed pause on Elena and listened. That afternoon I found out my parents were getting a divorce. Like Elena, I wasn’t ready for things to change, for my life to be flipped upside down. I didn’t have a say in any of it.
I was supposed to leave for the U.S. the following summer to live with an American family for at least a year. Even though the pedagogic work track wasn’t for me, since I was 12 years old I’d been leading field hockey practice, and by age 16 I was the trainer of 5 different teams, on the field twice a week teaching five-year-olds how to hold a stick and thirteen-year-olds how to improve their technique. I also completed an internship in a first grade class. I still loved teaching and working with kids. Not long after my profile to become an au pair went online, I was contacted by a family in New York State, about 30 minutes from the city, with three kids. After emailing back and forth, FaceTiming and texting, I was so excited. When my parents divorced, I didn’t doubt my decision to leave—I still hadn’t found my place in the Dutch learning system.
During my senior year of high school, I’d biked, as always, to and from school. But during these bike rides I spent more time thinking about what I wanted. I was fifteen years old and getting closer to graduating. How would my life look in a few years? Those thirty minutes on my bike were full of sketching out ideas and plans for my future in my mind. I went back and forth on different programs and study directions, but like the weather, it only became more cloudy then clear. In September of 2016 I’d gone on vacation to New York City with my family. It was a place like nothing I had ever seen or experienced, the city, the people and the energy it produced. My bike rides after New York were different, because the ideas I created were so much bigger than before. I had seen and had a taste of the world. And I wanted more.
In The Netherlands, it feels like you study for your future job. Well, that’s at least how I like to describe it. You can’t wonder, decide later, or learn just for the sake of learning—you learn so that after college you can get a job. That idea never fit my expectations of college and learning. I wanted to become smarter, and gain knowledge on all different kinds of topics and subjects. But there wasn’t anything like that. So what does one do? I knew I had to do something that allowed me to grow my sense of self and my identity even more, and to develop skills I wouldn’t be able to develop in a classroom. The moment I signed up to be an au pair was so liberating. I finally felt excited and sure about my next step in my young adult life. I knew that leaving The Netherlands wasn’t just going to be for two years—I knew somewhere deep inside that there was going to be something more for me in America. I knew that in the two years as an au pair, I would have the time and space to figure out what I wanted to do in school. Secretly I was hoping that I could stay there forever. My dad said before I left, “Don’t pretend like you’re ever coming back.”
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In a personal essay entitled, ‘’My Mother’s Hope: on Being a First Generation Latina in College,’’ Eva Recinos describes the hardships and obstacles she experienced as a first-generation Latina beginning college. She struggled with feelings of obligation and pressure from the fact that her mom wasn’t able to go to college, as well as with being underestimated by her peers, and exposed to racism. She writes, “I felt gutted, exhausted, and unsure how to handle the pressures of living up to my family’s expectations. But school was such an important part of my life. If I didn’t graduate, my mom’s efforts would be in vain.”
Recinos explains how her mom, at 17 years old, worked to pay rent for a room, where her mother, who was born in Guatemala, and grandmother slept. She then compares it to the fact that she, at 17 years old, walked across a stage in a white gown and received her high school diploma, “bursting with excitement because I was headed to the University of Southern California.” Recinos feels the weight of her family history on her shoulders, and asks herself: ‘’How could I complain about the pressure I felt at school when I was lucky just to be there?’’ Even though her mom supports and loves her, she still felt like she had to make it work, to not fail her mother.
Although our circumstances are different, I see myself in Recinos. After my parents announced their plans to divorce, I felt an almost-constant concern for my dad as a weight on my shoulders. As the highly emotional person that I am, I felt like my dad would be lonely on his own, particularly if I left for America. I would feel overly guilty about not seeing him often enough. The feeling that if you don’t live up to certain expectations that you set in your mind, you failed, haunted me—that feeling of wanting to please the people you love so dearly and not succeeding in the expectations you set. When my dad started living on his own, I felt that the most. Recinos writes,“I’m terrified to let her down.’’ I felt and feel that fear of letting down a parent, or doing something to make them upset, to the core of my body. To this day, I still struggle with balancing the emotions and feelings of not only myself but as well those of both my parents.
By October, my dad and I picked up some things from home and drove to his new apartment. It was the first time I got to see it. We talked about school, friends and of course, field hockey. To my surprise, my dad looked very happy as we drove through the city of Deventer, arriving in an area of the city I’d never seen before. My dad pulled into the parking lot in front of a small apartment complex. The outside was painted black and white, I liked it. My dad opened the first door of his new home with one of the silver keys on his red keychain. Inside the lobby, we walked up three flights of stairs. At apartment 19, he put in the second key, opened the door, and gave me a full tour of his very cute and small apartment. It really helped seeing my dad so excited and happy, and soothed my fear that he was going to be lonely. It took the weight off of my shoulders. I’d never second-guessed my decision to leave for America, but I needed to make sure I let my parents know how much I loved them; I also knew that I had to chase my own dreams and figure out who I wanted to be. I was going to do this amazing thing for myself, and for some reason, at times, I felt bad about that. I also knew that my own journey and life needed to continue. I needed to find meaning in the next chapter of my life.
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It’s been two years since I arrived in the U.S., and I have definitely found my place here in New York. My host family is my second family—the kids are like my own young siblings and the parents are my best friends. The idea of my leaving so upset my my host mom and I that in the summer of 2019, as we were talking about what I wanted to do when I returned to Holland, I told her I was not ready to leave the following year. I explained the challenges of the college system. She then told me how in America there is something called “liberal arts.” I never thought I could fall in love with a college system, but I did. We looked together at courses and possibilities. I found out I could study literature, like reading books and writing about them—how is that not everybody’s dream? She said magical things like, “You can switch your major in college,” and “You can take classes of different subjects that have nothing to do with your major.’’ I was ready to apply, but before that could happen, there was a lot to be done. My host mom and I met with an international advisor at CUNY, The City College of New York. I had to take the SAT’s, and I had a very big panic attack about this. I hadn’t had a real math class in four years, and I was terrified. My host mom asked me if i wanted to go for it or if i wanted to apply to community college. I told her that if i was going to do this, I better go all in; I ordered myself some notebooks, a calculator and the SAT prep book, ready to give it my all.
As Recinos concludes her essay, she recalls her mother’s resilience and reaffirms her place within academia, writing, “I just needed to concentrate on an end goal: to take full advantage of the academic opportunities that came my way.’’
When I decided to go to college in America, many questions followed: Why not study in The Netherlands, it’s way cheaper. Why apply here, when the applications are so complicated. Why study in English? But I felt like the questions were ultimately so minor, because I’d already set my eyes on the end goal. All the hard and complicated parts of the process didn’t even compare with the positive things this journey would give me—being able to study what I wanted at a liberal arts college.
I had never been inside an American high school, but I expected a lot. I was hoping for singing teenagers in hallways, like Troy and Gabriella in High School Musical. But on the day I took the SAT, I have to say, my dreams were crushed. No singing teenagers, no dazzling pink lockers and where was the sudden breakout of a pre-planned dance routine? Instead, I walked into the south entrance of Sleepy Hollow High School at 7:30 a.m. on a gray Saturday morning, and lined up in a narrow halfway, with students who were all holding the same paper I was holding. I passed a group of girls, I guessed around 17 years old. They were all wearing black and red pajama pants and grey hoodies. In their hands they clenched their brightly colored hydro flasks. When I reached the end, I started checking everything that was in my bag, something I did very often, double and even triple check if I had everything with me. Three pencils, my calculator, my passport and the receipt to take the test.
Over the summer I studied for hours. I even got an au pair friend of mine to help me with math. I put in the time and effort, but while standing there waiting, I felt doubt.
In her 2018 memoir Educated, Tara Westover struggles with her upbringing and her own personal desire for education. Tara Westover was brought up in Bucks Peak, Idaho, by her parents, survivalists who believed strongly in God, and alongside six siblings. Her parents’ belief system played a big part in how situations were handled within the family, and in her not attending school. When Westover takes the ACT, she has never taken a single test before, having decided to go to college to pursue her education after years of not being formally educated at home. In a classroom with about 30 other students, a woman hands her a pink bubble sheet, which Westover has never seen before. The woman explains how the sheet works, Westover sits down at a desk, and the test begins. Westover writes, “The noise was unbelievable, yet I seemed to be the only person who heard it, who couldn’t divert her attention from the rustle of turning pages and the scratch of pencils on paper” (135).
As I sat at a desk in a classroom at Sleepy Hollow High School, I hadn’t had math in two years, which frightened me. Some 25 high schoolers surrounded me, all busy writing things down and calculating problems. I’d read the problem, reread it, and feel a slight panic because I didn’t know the answer. I’d skip the question and do the next, and again fear and anxiety would kick in—how was I going to get a good score if I didn’t know the answers? And if I didn’t get a good score, how would I go to the college of my choice? For months I’d studied hard, working for my dream to study here. Was my dream not going to become reality because I couldn’t figure out what x+(x+5) was? The noise, almost like the sound of my own thoughts, about how important this test was for me—I was able to hear it all around me.
I got the same score on my first and second SAT, and had documents sent over from The Netherlands to be translated and evaluated. I finished my personal essay in January and a month later sent everything in.
I’d never really felt excited for school before—I always felt like I didn’t know what I was doing. But the moment I sent those applications, a wave of pride swept over me. I did this. Even though I struggled finding my way in The Netherlands, I grew so much in dealing with my parents divorce and leaving home that I made this next decision on my own and with confidence. I finally knew what I wanted to do, what I wanted to learn, and that a liberal arts education was the next move for me.
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I mentioned how we, Dutch people, like to ride our bikes. And I think my journey to America is similar to my journey riding a bike. I got on the bike and for a long time, everything was fine. But then there was some rain—some pedaling uphill while fighting the strong winds. Even though all these things happen while you are biking, you don’t stop. The rain won’t wash you off your bike and you don’t let that hill stop your pedaling. You keep going because you know that you’ll eventually arrive at your destination. And all of it, seriously all of it, will have been worth it. Deciding to stay an additional four years wasn’t as easy as my initial choice to come to America, but for the first time in my young adulthood I felt confident in what I wanted in school. I’d made space to put into perspective what I wanted to do—develop myself more. It became very clear that my dad was right. I wasn’t planning on going back any time soon.