At Wednesday’s Rose Cafe, we were able to listen to Coach Tanasoiu of the Cornell Men’s Tennis team discuss the four-year journey of a tennis team alum, Bernardo Casares-Rosa, who had to adjust to life as an international student balancing the Cornell Engineering curriculum with varsity athletics. And although none of the people in the room were varsity athletes, I felt like we all resonated, to a lesser degree, with the struggles that he faced.

Obviously, coming to Cornell – or college in general – from any background is daunting, but I appreciated being able to learn about someone whom, without this Rose Cafe, I would’ve considered as accomplished and talented by nature. This Rose Cafe served as another good reminder that essentially no one at Cornell is breezing through college; we all have doubts and fears and failures that we’ll have to work through over our four-ish years here. I also realized that there are always people to turn to for help. I really respected Coach Tanasoiu’s honesty about how he mentors each of his players, and how he is constantly striving to improve himself along with his players. Even though I don’t have a coach, I’m sure most of my professors feel the same way as Coach Tanasoiu, in that they also take each year and each student as part of a learning process.

Overall, I think this was a refreshing reminder that despite Cornell’s academic environment, it is possible to get through it (although I will state that I don’t want to diminish anyone’s struggles with mental health by making it seem like all you have to do is “try harder” – seeking help however works for you!).