Wednesday, September 30, 2015 // The Statement 
 
7B

Personal Statement: Being average

by Michael Flynn, Daily Arts Writer

choice, Colin Gunckel, assistant professor of american 
culture and screen arts and cultures, sees taste as a mode 
of class distinction — much like what sociologist Pierre 
Bordieu elaborated on in “Distinction: A Social Critique in 
the Judgement of Taste.” Like Bordieu, Gunkel believes 
these preferences are generated arbitrarily, and are empty 
signifiers of status. He noted in an e-mail, “The category (of 
hipster) is associated with having a superficial relationship 
to consumption. Going to the ‘hot’ new restaurant or bar that 
everyone is talking about, going to the art show you read 
about on the cover of the weekly, listening to whatever they 
read about on whatever website, dressing like your friends, 

I 

am average.

The Oxford English Dictionary definition of average 

as an adjective is thus: “Of the usual or ordinary 

standard, level or quantity.” That doesn’t seem like a terrible 
thing to be. But for so many people in this generation (and 
in any generation), that is a dirty word. “Average” is the one 
thing most people dread to be. People want to be exceptional. 
People want to make the most money, make the biggest 
difference and be the best friend, partner, student and citizen 
they can possibly be.

This aversion to average-ness is not innate, except in some 

particularly narcissistic cases, but rather the product of 
external forces. Parents tell their children that their abilities 
are exceptional, and all but guarantee that they will do great 
things with their lives. The University of Michigan continues 
this rhetoric, telling tens of thousands of young people that 
they are the “leaders and best,” that they will go on to change 
the world and be successful. After all, if they got into U of M, 
they can’t possibly be average, right?

For a long time, I thought that was I. I thought I was a 

person of exceptional ability, that I was guaranteed a bright, 
successful future. I like to think I’m a reasonably grounded 
individual, but I went through a large chunk of my life with 
an inflated sense of my own contribution to society, without 
much objective proof of that belief.

I went to Campolindo High School, a public school in 

California with a reputation for sending its students to elite 
colleges. I spent my four years there as a high-functioning 
slacker, in academics and in life. I took AP classes, but didn’t 
put an exceptional amount of effort into them. I played 

sports, but didn’t stick with any of them for very long and 
never made varsity. I played guitar, but never joined the 
school band, and didn’t stay in any of the bands I joined 
for much longer than a year. I graduated from Campolindo 
with a solid but unexceptional GPA and an extracurricular 
resume that didn’t show any focus.

Somehow, this (and probably also legacy status, thanks 

Dad) got me into the University of Michigan. I wasn’t a 
harder worker than many of my peers in high school, but 
somehow I got into an elite university. The illusion of my 
own exceptional ability and drive carried on.

When I finally arrived at Michigan, I began to realize that 

I wasn’t prepared for the workload that an elite university 
requires. I continued to procrastinate. I continued to cram 
for tests and write papers the night before they were due. 
The same strategies that had worked for me in high school 
were beginning to crack. And I let them continue to crack. I 
was not galvanized into action. I was complacent.

Looking back on it, I could have easily done something 

about it, but I had no intrinsic desire to do so. I never had 
any real intrinsic desire to succeed academically. The 
reason I worked reasonably hard in school was out of fear of 
disappointing my parents. My father, in particular, placed a 
great deal of weight on academic success. 

It wasn’t until sophomore year that I had a moment of 

clarity. I was procrastinating on homework by Googling 
recent Class of ’14 graduates that I knew to see what they were 
up to. One of them had a website with a link to her resume, 
and as I looked through it, I realized that this was a truly 
exceptional student, with a near-perfect GPA, leadership 

positions in student organizations and work experience. 
The realization of how far removed I was to that level of 
commitment and success hit me like a brick. The illusion of 
my own exceptional ability was shattered.

From that simple realization came a feeling I hadn’t felt 

before: a strong desire to work hard, not for anyone else but 
myself. I felt that I could do so much better than I had done, 
and I resolved to do so. I resolved to leave average behind 
and begin the journey to becoming excellent.

Since then, I’ve made some progress toward that goal, 

though not as much as I would have liked. I’ve raised my 
GPA, if only marginally. I’ve volunteered and pursued 
extracurricular 
activities, 
even 
achieving 
leadership 

positions in some of them. I haven’t stopped faltering and 
making mistakes, but I’ve become better at recognizing 
those mistakes and keeping myself from making them again.

Perhaps the most significant effect of my epiphany is my 

newfound feeling that, while it’s not how I’d like to remain, 
being average at the time of life that I’m in isn’t a terrible 
thing. Barring the unforeseen, I have many more years to 
learn, to grow, to find areas I excel in. And what better place 
to be young and average than the University of Michigan? 
Just by virtue of attending this University, I am exposed to 
new perspectives and accrue meaningful experiences. I will 
take interesting classes and pursue activities that I love. I 
will gather skills that will help me survive in the real world, 
regardless of how well I do academically.

I hope to continue improve as a human, and I hope to truly 

excel in something someday. But for now, I am average. And 
for the time of life that I’m in, average is quite all right.

ILLUSTRATION BY CHERYLL VICTUELLES

living in the right neighborhood — people are suddenly into 
paying $20 for the privilege of eating artisanal toast, because 
that’s what’s trending. In other words, people associate 
hipsters with having no kind of original, meaningful or 
personal relationship to culture.”

Indeed, to Gunckel, as well as a set of left-leaning 

intellectuals, the mythic aura of authenticity surrounding 
the hipster masks the real damage: “I think the close 
association of the hipster with the creative economy 
obscures the detrimental economic shifts that gentrification 
is having in certain cities. Equating this demographic with 
‘hipness’ is a way of foregrounding that supposed dimension 

of the category, without owning up to their privilege and 
the role many of us — hipster or otherwise — may have in 
gentrification.”

Abandoning the territory of mainstream consumerism, 

hipsters are free to wander wherever they please, led only 
by a cultivated taste, a deep wallet, and, yes, the rigid norms 
of a class structure. Perhaps our Ann Arbor hipster is really 
just our existentialist tastemaker, choosing to choose in the 
daunting face of late-capitalist society. Sartre condemned 
man to freedom, but for the hipster set loose in the culinary 
garden of Ann Arbor, this is a delightful possibility.

