By Mindze Mbala-Nkanga

Mindze is a junior at Kalamazoo College, majoring in Biology. She took Diana Waters's and Deborah Leibel's Inside Out and she interned at a cardiovascular lab at The University of Pennsylvania. To read the entire post and to revisit Philly through Mindze's eyes, visit PHLEXP.com.

And so the semester comes to a close. It's so strange for me to think that this is the end of my time here in Philly! Taking a break from the learning plan, and the portfolio, and my activities of learning, I have decided to work on a little thing in which I describe to you all the different things I have learned it's okay to do (or not to do) since coming to Philly:

It's okay to not be okay. I think this is something that I had started to understand in the time that I'd been in college, but my understanding of this concept grow exponentially in the time that I've been here. I'm referring to matters like being offended by a comment, or simply being homesick. I think it's very easy to make the assumption that because this is such a great program, every moment that you're here has to be great (or at least, that's how I saw it), and I felt that if I wasn't okay, it meant that I just wasn't experiencing Philly right, or I wasn't taking advantage or recognizing all of the things that were being offered to me. No one expects my time in Philly to be one none-stop party-fest adventures. And this is okay.

It's okay to have an opinion. This applies to Ferguson, it applies to the incarceration system, it applies to different aspects of the mental health system, and the medical health system. These past few months have [taught] me that it's okay for me to have an opinion.  I can listen to different viewpoints, formulate my own opinion and that is okay, I don't need to feel bad about not agreeing with someone else's standpoint. And that I shouldn't be afraid that be one of those people who could actually make a change in this society, because honestly, we're all those people if let ourselves be.

It's okay to wear red nail polish. I think I've become less afraid to show on the outside what I feel like on the inside. If I'm feeling like putting on make-up, I shouldn't be afraid to do so, I should just do it! If I'm feeling like the maturity, and sass of red nail polish, I should go for it. I went through a change during the middle of the term where I took my hair out of braids, and went natural, which was very intimidating at first, because keeping my hair natural has never been my strong suit, but I've been doing it anyway, and I'm finding that it's not as daunting as I'd feared, and it's inspired me to stop being afraid of trying things I've wanted to try but always been afraid to do in the past.

It's okay to ask questions. I am pursuing a career in which, many times I feel like I have to be the best of the best to get to where I want to be. As a result, for the longest time I felt like I needed to know everything, whether that be knowing how to ride a subway (even when I'd never ridden one before), or knowing what a loop ileostomy is. I've learned that it's okay to ask questions, and that rarely ever does this actually make a person look stupid (which had always been my fear and reasoning for not asking questions).

It's okay to want to do things on your own. I've heard from several of the TPC faculty that this semester's TPC group is one of the closest they've had in a while. We make an effort to stay connected and be inclusive, which is great! But toward the beginning, I felt like I had to do every activity, I had FOMO (fear of missing out), bad. The problem with this being that I am naturally more introverted, and sometimes at these events would not have as much fun as I might have. I was a hard lesson to learn, but eventually I understand that it's completely okay to want to be alone, and I think I started having more fun when I finally understood this.