By Cassie Baudouin
Anyone that knows me, knows me for real, knows that I only have one personality trait: High School Musical, all encompassing. Throughout my four years here, I went full Troy Bolton.
On episode 29 of the TryPod podcast titled “Sexy Murder Teen High School,” the Try Guys discussed the social impact and evolution of various teen high school movies and TV shows, and they recognized High School Musical’s power. Much later in the podcast when they were discussing nerd culture and how basically everyone can be a “nerd” now and it’s fine, Try Guy Keith Habersberger chimed in with, “You know what happened? We didn’t stick to the status quo.”
“Like in High School Musical…” He continues, “That movie told us that we didn’t have to stay in our lanes and now we’re allowed to have CW sales at Hot Topic. High School Musical changed the f*ckig world. They f*cking did it. They said, ‘You can be a nerd and a jock!’ ‘You can be in the band and you can dance on a table in the lunchroom!’… It’s huge, guys! Huge! You can like Pixar, and you can like NatGeo! It’s like, all of it! Disney, PLUS!”
High School Musical made space for the madness that is every show on the CW, and also began to break down every wall of every ridiculous high school box we all get put in. How did I channel my inner Troy Bolton in college? Let’s start from the beginning and make it quick.
I came in as a Sport Management major and learned so much from the incredible Dr. Sharianne Walker. I also very quickly learned that that wasn’t for me and I moved on to Health Sciences where I suffered through the trenches of Organic Chemistry, but got super cool research experience with the incomparable Dr. Emily Ford. I put on “Mamma Mia” with the Stageless Players, even though it never saw the light of day because of Miss Rona.
Not to mention getting to experience winning a CCC Championship alongside the baddest women on campus, the WNE Women’s Basketball team and Coach Nicole Chaszar for the first time in this program’s history. Those water bottles won’t fill themselves, am I right? All that to say, at the end of my time in college, with two completely unrelated majors, I’ll be getting my MFA in Creative Writing at NYU come this fall, with the help of everyone’s favorite bro-dude, Dan Devacqua. None of it makes sense, and it doesn’t matter! Why? Because the status quo can suck it.
For many of us, we’re told to have a plan so early on when really we’re all just Phoebe Buffett: “I don’t even have a pla-.” Most of us, if not all of us, are in our early 20’s. Of course we’ll need a job when we get out of here because money doesn’t grow via Chia Pets, but we’re all still so young.
That pressure of feeling unaccomplished before you’ve even hit 25 is arbitrary, and if you ask me, a little stupid. Accomplishment is exponential. It’ll come, and keep coming for us, no matter how old we get, because we’re brilliant. There’s too much to be discovered in ourselves to hunker down completely around twenty-one. There’s too much life to live.
Troy Bolton got scouted for Julliard. Juilliard, you guys. Troy “Get’cha Head in the Game” Bolton. Gabriella Montez gave us masterpieces like “When There Was Me and You” and “You Are The Music in Me” and she ended up at Stanford as Pre-Law. Taylor McKessie stood on stage and told Ms. Darbus that she wanted to be the President of the United States of America in an age where something like that happening seemed impossible. Look at us now. To my graduating seniors, those I’ve met and those I haven’t, there are only bounds if we indulge them. And to the undergraduates who have a little while to go, shake it up a bit. Find your inner Senior-Year-third-act-Sharpay Evans, and want it all.
