The fourth quarter: Reflections on a year of firsts, on and off the American court

Basketball is hard pressed into the DNA of the University of Connecticut. As someone who is not a native to the sport, I often struggled to follow all of its rules. I had to learn though. I studied intently. After a year of missed student tickets to watch the Connecticut Huskies – the infamous men’s and women’s college basketball teams – play on campus, I had finally won a spot for the biggest game of them all.

Every year, throughout the month of March, college basketball erupts with a ‘March Madness’ national basketball competition. In this, the top 68 college basketball teams compete in knockout rounds, for the title of best in the nation. In April of this year, I was sat alongside a close friend – along with an auditorium full of almost 5,000 others – inside the Harry A. Gampel basketball pavilion to watch the women’s final.

During the final phase of the fourth quarter, the air was congested with screams, shouts, and jeers. All eyes were fixed on the two teams. As I stood up to add to the milieu, the buzzer went off signalling that Connecticut had won the championship. The orchestra of voices was carried onto the wide central fairway that runs down the middle of campus, as thousands of students dressed in college white and navy streamed outside.

It was at this moment, as I embedded myself in the celebrating crowd, that I knew America had become a part of me.

I looked up and saw grown men climbing trees, grown women yelling and stacking themselves on each others’ shoulders. Laughter ripped through the air. It was at this moment, as I embedded myself in the celebrating crowd, that I knew America had become a part of me.

When I look back on a year in the United States, it is moments like this – snapshots of uncut emotion – that thread the timeline of 12 months which have ushered in a broader understanding of what it means to be independent. This was a journey that required a lot of courage, faith in one’s own ability, and a well of perseverance. It was also an adventure like no other.

Like many who will read this article, I had been primed with a broad base of general knowledge on US customs and culture from stock depictions of American college-life across film, television, and lyrical allusions. These preconceptions were quickly discarded.

Stepping onto a blue mat, glossed with blood and sweat, watching a leathered fist speed toward your face; sweating on a heat-soaked lawn, mixing cement; sweeping rain and snow from your eyes for a clean shot on deadline; or resisting prejudicial treatment from two burly middle-aged law enforcement officers allow you to realise that the complexities of the country’s psyche are far more elusive than a Hallmark greeting card.

The relationships across cultures were rich and forced me to contend more with who I was and how I had got here, articulating that to them.

It made me appreciate moments of beauty, attuning me to them. The changing of the seasons was precise and breathtaking. Amber and red leaves adorning pavements on the way to class in September and October; thick sheets of fresh snows in December and January; litters of pink cherry blossoms in March and April; and sun-lavished sports stadiums in June and July.

Beyond this, I was happy that I had met people I could enjoy all these things with. Each person I met in the United States taught me more about myself. The relationships across cultures were rich, and forced me to contend more with who I was and how I had got here, articulating that to them.

It had been 18 years since I last lived in the United States. After spending my infancy in Manhattan, New York, all of my formative experiences had happened in London.

However, in many ways, this year had felt like a homecoming. It is a culture and a nation that felt like it had always kept ticking as a presence in my life. I learned that this duality between two very different nations across the Atlantic is a part of who I am. In many ways, the beautifully expressive and forthright traits of young people in America bore a kind of connection that I had not found in the United Kingdom. At the same time, the sincerity and honest good humour of young people in Britain was in my blood, and could not be erased from my interactions with other college students.

On 2 August, the day I was due to come home from the year abroad, I sat at the boarding gate on a flight from Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C. to London Heathrow, after finishing a summer interning in the capital. I had just bought a ‘Washington, D.C.’ monikered sweatshirt from one vendor and a salad bowl from another. I sunk into a black cushioned seat near the tunnel connecting the gate to the plane and watched people who would be joining me on the flight home.

I am grateful to have so many doors open and not be limited, even by geography.

A few were British, many were American. I realised that now I felt that I was both. This was the biggest lesson I took from my year abroad. I will always love Britain. It is the place I learned to ride a bike; started school; had my first kiss; had my first real girlfriend; figured out what I wanted to do with my life; and began university – the most profound three years I have yet experienced.

However, I love the sense of opportunity in America; the vibrance of different experiences; the ceaseless energy and pursuit of a better life, even in the face of polarisation; the abundance; and, above all, the sense that, at its best, to be an American is to show selflessness and unfettered kindness to others.

In a year, I will have finished my time at university and been ceremoniously thrown into the world of work. The idea that I do not know where I will end up exhilarates me more than it daunts me. I am grateful to have so many doors open and to not be limited, even by geography. I hope that whatever path I follow, this duality remains.

The duality is something that has given me room for pause, in a year of experiences that have fundamentally contributed to the person I will become. America is full of thousands of young people in colleges up and down its 50 states, all chasing their dreams. I am now one of them.