What the hell is a story? It’s a loaded word. A story is in the eye, or oftentimes ear, of the beholder. I’m not going to bother trying to define it because, frankly, I’m not even sure myself. All I know is that whatever stories are, I love them.
Storytelling is a uniquely human phenomenon. Humans evolved the ability to tell stories as part of cooperative behavior that kept us alive in our early days of existence, whether they used to communicate something as simple as, “You shouldn’t eat those berries” or something more serious like, “Holy shit! There’s a bear over there!” Human language is compositional and referential; we can use every part of grammar and at the same time refer to both ideas and reality. Our capacity for telling stories separates humanity from everything else on Earth. Our stories kept us alive and now they give us a reason to keep going.
Storytelling emerged in every culture across the globe. In Indigenous cultures, there’s a longstanding, vibrant oral tradition. Stories are used in many Indigenous cultures to preserve history, teach moral lessons and pass down creation myths. In my opinion, this is the true value of storytelling: More than filling in your friends on a night out or complaining to your parents, storytelling is the vessel by which culture and history are preserved.
Through stories, people can understand the world and see right from wrong and good from evil.
Everyone has a story, and going to a massive public university has only deepened this belief. I walk past thousands of people every day — thousands of stories every day. I sought to change this and decided to let the stories walk past me. I decided to do this by publicly humiliating myself — twice. I sat on the Diag while awkwardly holding a sign asking people to tell me stories. I didn’t give any prompting on what they should tell the story about — I just asked if they could tell me a story.
***
I chose my first day poorly. It was a Friday afternoon so there were very few classes in session, and it was, at most, 30 degrees out. The wind was blistering, and it had snowed all morning. So, in essence, it was a normal spring day in Michigan. I was sitting on my cold metal chair in two pairs of pants, four shirts and wool socks holding the sign in my ungloved hands. Luckily, though, some people decided to talk to the poor shivering guy on the Diag.
The first person to stop by was LSA freshman Sanjana Kulkarni, doing what appeared to be a task for a professional fraternity. Kulkarni agreed to tell me a story.
“So I moved around, I want to say nine times throughout elementary and middle school,” Kulkarni said. “And I think the funniest thing that ever happened to me was the culture shock of learning that you don’t call teachers by their first name. When I was in first grade, I decided to address my first grade teacher as Mrs. Becky when in fact it was Mrs. Sotero, the whole class kind of snickered at me. And that was my first introduction to first grade in, I think, Princeton, New Jersey, and it was fun. I wore a red headband on that day, and after that day, I never wore that red headband.”
I was thankful and slightly amused by the story. Even in the freezing weather, her embarrassing childhood story warmed me up for just a moment. I was stuck in my chair in the middle of the Diag. Time kept passing by, and it just kept getting colder. I could see my fingers getting redder and redder, nearly reaching purple the longer I sat outside. No one seemed to want to stop, probably because they didn’t want to spend more time outside than they had to. Thanks to the wonderful photographer who stuck around with me, I got my final story of this cold day.
***
LSA sophomore Noah Kanis was wearing a red coat that can only be described as rad or tubular. Kanis told me that he got the coat from his grandpa, and we bonded over raiding our families’ closets for vintage clothes.
The two of us got to talking, and Kanis was unsure of what to tell a story about. He started talking about the mice in the lab he works in, but couldn’t reveal too much thanks to those pesky research regulations.
“Do you know what you want to do after this?” I asked him.
“I’d like to go into pediatric oncology,” Kanis said. “My sister passed away when I was 12 … due to a brain tumor. And so that kind of was what really got me into the whole pediatric oncology world.”
I was shocked to hear this. Here I was just a random person, and Kanis was trusting me enough to tell me this intimate story.
“I spent a lot of time in the hospital during that time, and so I just really like the connections that I made with people, like the nurses and the doctors,” Kanis said. “They were really along with me every step of the way. I just kind of want to try to do that same thing for others. It’s given me quite a strong sense of purpose, you know, that this is what I want to do.”
Kanis told me how this experience inspired him to embark on the difficult journey of becoming a doctor.
“I mean, it’s gonna be a long long trek, a hard journey,” Kanis said. “And I wouldn’t consider myself the most academically strong person ever. But I’m pretty motivated, and so I work hard. I’ll see where it goes.”
Kanis’ nobility was awe inspiring. I have never had to deal with a tragedy of that magnitude in my life. His vulnerability was immensely powerful — I know that I would never be brave enough to tell a vulnerable story like this. But because Kanis could, we shared a moment together that I will never forget.
***
At this point, the cold began truly setting in. It permeated through my body, and it did not seem as if I would ever feel warm again. My six layers were doing nothing, and the decision to not wear gloves was biting me in my cold ass. I decided to call it, even though it had only been an hour.
I knew I would have to get more stories, so the next Monday, I went right back out to the Diag. Luckily for me (and my fingers), it was nearly 60 degrees out and quite sunny. I had a table this time, so I was able to tape the sign instead of holding it. I set myself up on the north end of the Diag and waited.
***
The first person to approach me was LSA sophomore Laken Pointer. Pointer seemed a little confused about what I was doing at first, but I did my best to explain it.
Pointer said when she was 8, her father pulled her out of school.
“We lived in Holly, Michigan, and we moved from Michigan all the way to Florida to live on a boat — a sailboat, to be specific,” Pointer said.
Pointer told me this is her first-day-of-class fun fact.
“In Florida, I lived on, I think, a 44-footer 1984 Yamaha Stamas,” Pointer said. “It’s only like one of 26 made. It’s very rare, and I don’t know where my dad got the money for this.”
“I think he’s still paying off a loan maybe,” Pointer said.
Pointer said she was homeschooled for a long time, but corrected herself.
“Not a long time. Like, maybe three months. A long time to a kid, though,” Pointer said.
Pointer said after the stint of homeschooling, she went to Key Largo Elementary School in Florida, but eventually her and her dad sailed their way up to Virginia.
“But in the end, we took the boat, and he fixed it up or whatever he needed to do,” Pointer said. “And we sailed it from Florida to Virginia, and now it’s in Virginia and still is in Virginia. And we go down every once in a while.”
This boat meant a lot to Pointer. It was her past, and it might just be her future.
“One of the reasons I’m going to college is so I can get to a life where I can have a boat or take my dad’s boat if he passes, unfortunately ever,” Pointer said. “I wouldn’t want that boat to just be gone. I’d want to be able to keep it up.”
Pointer ended her retelling of her maritime experience quite simply.
“And yeah, that’s my story,” Pointer said.
***
People continued walking through the Diag in droves. The occasional tour group walked by and gawked at me as if I was standing atop the forbidden Block M. As I sat there basking like a cat in the sun, I forgot the trials and tribulations of the world. It seemed perfect for a brief moment. Then, Engineering freshman Silas Lorenz approached me and told me a story that shook my faith in the institutions we expect to care for us.
“I was in kindergarten,” Lorenz said. “I had a faint memory of my teacher being a cheese thief.”
He said the cheese from his and his classmates’ lunch boxes would disappear.
“And I would always tell my mom, and she’d be like, ‘No, no way. Like, no way your teacher is stealing it,” Lorenz said. “It must be one of the other students.’ But I knew it was the teacher, and I would accuse her, and she’d be like, ‘No, no that’s nonsense.’”
In his junior year of high school Lorenz stumbled upon his kindergarten teacher once again.
“She was like, ‘Yeah, it was me.’”
I was shocked. Who could do this? I expressed my emotions to Lorenz, and he seemed to be somewhat at peace with the past.
“I wish I talked to her more. I don’t know what she got out of it,” Lorenz said. “Cheese was my favorite part of the day. It kind of sucked.”
A teacher stealing from their students? Not just students, but kindergarten students? Evil. I expected more from someone who was molding the minds of future generations. My faith was damaged. I wasn’t sure if I could look at kindergarten teachers in the same way.
***
I was still contemplating the horror of stealing from children while watching the crowds move around the Diag when LSA junior Mopelola Adigun came to the table with a story. Adigun decided to tell me about the very first possible story someone can tell: how they were born. In Adigun’s case, this was during a civil war, something I never could have known if I wasn’t writing this article.
“My go-to story is usually just how my mom happened to give birth to me,” Adigun said.
Adigun told me how she’s from Nigeria, but at the time of her birth, her mom was visiting friends in the Ivory Coast.
“My birthday is in the early times of 2003, which if you look up on Wikipedia has some eerily close dates to the start of the first Ivorian Civil War,” Adigun said. “There was a curfew at the time, and there was civil terrorism happening and somebody had to break curfew to give birth to me.”
Adigun’s mom was able to get to a hospital run by Canada, with help from Adigun’s godparents and namesakes along with a brief disregard for the law.
“They were able to help us once again break curfew and leave that hospital,” Adigun said.
Adigun continued explaining how because of this escape, she is now a quadruple citizen.
“Because the hospital was Canadian, I don’t know how this fully worked out, but I technically have Canadian citizenship,” Adigun said. “So I’m a Canadian citizen, I’m an American citizen, I’m a Nigerian citizen and I’m also an Ivorian citizen. That’s the story of how me and my mom are war refugees. And that is how my mom escaped the first civil war with me.”
I was amazed. I had never heard a story like this before. I had always read or watched stories about life, death and war, but never in my life had I been told about it in person. The entire time, I was on the edge of my seat in disbelief of how this could happen to someone. Adigun was not as shocked as me though and was talking about it in the same way I would tell my friends about being my high school’s mascot.
“I feel like it’s just kind of a funny story,” Adigun said. “There’s no bad way to tell a story about escaping a war.”
***
The next person who came up to me was Public Policy junior Nikki Widra. Widra seemed incredibly excited to tell me her story.
“That’s my friend MaryGrace over there,” Widra said, gesturing to the other side of the Diag.
“I had a really big class with her a year ago, so two semesters ago, and I didn’t know her but I thought she was cool,” Widra said. “And she said really interesting things in class, and she just seemed really friendly. And that was my only impression of her. And now we’re in the same school, and we’re really good friends. And I adore her, and we’re going to be in the same city in the summer. OK, and I’m really excited. I’m just glad we’re friends and she’s really awesome.”
Nikki Widra loves MaryGrace, and I think that is beautiful.
***
It was approaching the end of my time on the Diag. I was beginning to get sleepy from spending nearly two hours in the sun when suddenly, I saw a blur of a man skateboarding by. He read the sign and stopped immediately, his wheels still spinning as he grabbed a chair to tell me a story. This skateboarding blur was LSA senior Nav Dalmia, who, in an impressive fashion, detailed his academic journey.
Dalmia told me he always leaned toward the quantitative fields, but was pushed toward business by the forces that be. After a freshman year of Zoom classes, Dalmia finally went in person to the Ross School of Business.
“Sophomore year is when I realized it was not for me,” Dalmia said. “I realized, at least (in) my freshman year during winter semester, that a big advantage of Ross is these business clubs. It’s not really the curriculum itself, but it’s these clubs that drive (the mentality of) ‘Oh, this is what I want to do. This is how I get a good offer,’ or whatever. And I still didn’t know what the fuck consulting was at all.”
Dalmia decided to apply for a consulting club. Or, as he put his thinking in the moment, “I’m gonna go sheep mentality and just do that.”
Dalmia continued on and told me how he felt the environment of the Business School was toxic and led to people not being themselves. To him, it felt like “House of Cards” combined with luck, making a toxic mess of an environment.
“You present yourself to the type of person that they want in the club, and you bullshit your way in,” Dalmia said. “You’re essentially putting on a facade in order to advance yourself, which is kind of the crux of business as a whole.”
Dalmia gave me the first reason he hated his time and potential future at the Business School.
“My primary reason why I hated Ross was one: I have no interest in management, consulting and finance,” Dalmia said. “These are some of the most morally bankrupt industries that have fucked over the world. And they’re nothing jobs; you don’t actually do anything. I don’t want to be somebody’s bitch for PowerPoints and go on this esoteric power structure and kiss ass and do a lot of shit that isn’t true in myself just to make money.”
Dalmia was in the flow of the story now. I could hear the passion in his voice and it held my attention the entire time.
“You do not learn anything in these classes,” Dalmia said. “Like actually nothing. It is a fucking breeze. The first semester, you take business communications. I will say, if there’s actually a technical skill, you should go into business school and the one thing it will teach you is accounting. … By the time you’re offered to take your first ever finance class, investment banking recruiting has already started, so that’s where all the clubs and all that (come in). You’re behind if you’re not a part of it.”
Dalmia gave me his third and final reason for leaving the Business School: the environment and the reality of the “Rosshole” stereotype.
“The third part is what really turned me off,” Dalmia said. “It is the most toxic environment I’ve ever been a part of. I already think Michigan is very cliquey and very conformist, which I don’t like. Couple that with Ross? The Rosshole stereotype is real. Anybody who denies that is either a Rosshole or just does not know what the fuck they’re talking about. Like sophomore year, … one of my roommates, my best friend, was trying to get into a business fraternity. (I) had another friend of his — this guy was an awkward kid, you know, kind of meek and shy. (He) gets into a business fraternity and thinks he’s the shit, (while) my best friend doesn’t get into one of those clubs. The other guy immediately stops talking with him (and) cuts him off a little bit. Just because that’s his self worth — what club (he’s) in.”
After this three-point explanation of why exactly he left the Business School, Dalmia pointed out to the hundreds of people surrounding us on the Diag.
“You see people being free. Certain people still care a little bit, but you can act freely,” Dalmia said. “The moment you walk into Ross it is like a gravitational field. (It) just dampens all positivity and true expression. I swear to God, it is one of the most toxic and depressing environments I’ve been a part of.”
I had heard about issues with the Business School before, but Dalmia was actualizing experiences I had always thought were mere conjecture and hearsay. Dalmia pointed out to me that these issues are real, and they create a pointless hierarchy of people patting themselves on the back.
“Everyone acknowledges (the Business School’s) issues that ‘Oh, I don’t learn anything. It’s bullshit. It’s super toxic,’” Dalmia said. “Especially when job recruiting comes around, people trapping their internship LinkedIn posts and rubbing it in and trying to feel better. We’re all gonna die one day, and what’s the point of that? It’s just a social hierarchy. It’s a bullshit social hierarchy not based on any competence (or) something that you can readily better.”
The story was building to its peak.
“So I dropped,” Dalmia said. “I switched to data science now, which will be significantly harder than Ross. I’ve had to work my ass off way more. I’ve gotten shittier grades. A lot of times, I’ve questioned, ‘Why couldn’t I have just bitten my tongue?’ But that is not who I am. I value my individualism. I have this spirit that can’t just be quenched, which a lot of time gets me in trouble. But I decided to take that stand and do that. And regardless of how I feel about the decision, I’m glad I did it.”
Dalmia seemed happy, and to be honest, he seemed free. He was uninhibited by the social constraints that seem to trap most people. Dalmia left me with some final words of wisdom.
“At the end of the day, most people want to identify with the collective here — like most people because they want to feel accepted, but (when) you take that away from them, that individual is not there,” Dalmia said. “Developing (the) individual that is going to serve you well for the rest of your life — you’re going to be a better and more resilient person and be able to take whatever life throws at you. So even when it’s the hardest, it’s the most important to stick with it. That’s how you know your true sense of character so just figure yourself out.”
And in a blur just as fast as he came, Dalmia dapped me up and left. His oration had me locked into my seat, hanging on every word just wondering where he would go next. After that, I decided to pack it up for the day and end my quest for stories.
****
This experience taught me two things. One: It is a very bad idea not to wear gloves in very cold weather for an extended period of time. Two: The University of Michigan is filled with stories. I only had a limited amount of time to collect these stories, a limited amount of words and a limited amount of people who approached me. I will never know what stories people didn’t tell me, but I don’t think I need to. Knowing everyone has one is enough.
Statement Correspondent Miles Anderson can be reached at milesand@umich.edu