Candice "Ice" Wiggins - Pressure Makes Diamonds

I’m back by popular demand! Back on campus, back to school. Back with a new attitude, and some new goals. Last time I was at Stanford I had one thing on my mind: A national championship. Now I have TWO things on my mind: A diploma and a 4.0. (Slightly ambitious, I know, but many also doubted Stanford getting to the final four in 2008!)

A funny thing happened on the way to my first day of classes. I was listening to Kanye West’s debut album “College Dropout” as some sort of ironic psychological motivation for myself. Kanye West dropped out of college….never to return again. And unlike most people, he’s very proud of that concept, embraces it even, and has leveraged this controversial act into propelling his rap career. Most of the messages in the songs in this album usually flow by me 16 bars at a time, but this time I really listened to the words. And I totally disagreed. A few lines in particular from the song “School Spirit”:

“Told ‘em I finished school, and I started my own business/ They say, ‘Oh you graduated?/ No, I decided I was finished/ Chasin’ y’all dreams and what you’ve got planned/ Now I spit it so hot you got tanned/ Back to school and I hate it there, I hate it there/ Everything I want I gotta wait a year, I wait a year.”

I disagreed because as I pulled up on the legendary Palm Drive and saw Memorial Church and all the buildings that I grew to loathe and love all at the same time, I realized…I LOVE it here. And my next thought: There’s no place like home. I instantly changed songs on my Ipod.

Life is full of choices, and there are definitely psychological consequences to the choices you make. For me, the effects of leaving college were more than I ever anticipated. While I’m proud of the path that I have been blessed to travel, I definitely always felt that need to return back to Stanford and spend one more quarter on campus. Online classes certainly would’ve sufficed, however it wouldn’t be the same. My return to finish school means so much more than just “finishing what I started”. It means representing the most incredible institution that has absolutely shaped the woman I have become.