Whatever my brother Ben did, I ended up doing too. He joined the T-ball team, so I joined the softball team. He formed a Model United Nations Club, so I became its second president. He attended Princeton University, so I applied too. I had hobbies that I considered to be my own — reading, running, music. But I still felt like I was my brother’s shadow, following him through life and mirroring his every move.
Once I began my freshman year at Princeton, that feeling only worsened. No matter where I went on campus, someone called me “Ben’s younger sister.” Each reference to my brother stung like a barb. I wanted others to see me as “Sarah,” an independent person with her own interests. Instead, they seemed to view me as an extension of my brother, something that I already feared was true.
But it was so easy to follow Ben’s lead when I lacked direction.
I worried about setting myself down a “wrong” path, and figured that emulating my successful brother would minimize that risk. I also knew that if I followed Ben’s lead, at least for now, I would not disappoint my parents. Neither of them attended a four-year university, so they based their expectations, albeit loose ones, for my college career on my brother’s example.
My parents did not compare my brother and me, but they had nothing else to go on when trying to help me make the most of my Princeton experience. If I copied my brother, at least at first, they would not worry and I would have breathing room to figure things out. So when I had no idea what I wanted to major in, I tried to become the Dinovelli family’s second Wilson School major. The course of study sounded interesting, and I knew through Ben that I could find a job by majoring in this area. When I felt that I needed a profitable internship-that-hopefully-turns-into-an-offer, I tried consulting because it was Ben’s dream career.
Other times, I wrote off activities just because my brother already participated in them. I actually avoided writing for this paper for two and a half years just because my brother worked for it. Despite using Ben’s life as a roadmap for my own, I wanted to distance myself from him when I could.
Especially during my freshman year, I found myself constantly asking myself, “Am I interested in this activity because I want to do it, or because my brother did it?”
Two and a half years later, I admit to still struggling with that question. But I am increasingly confident that I am forging my own path, not just following my brother’s. My final major — history — and my interest in media serve as tangible evidence of this. But more importantly, I found what I care about at Princeton.
And even when my path overlaps with Ben’s, I know that I am not copying him. Just because my brother shares my interests does not mean that I am disqualified from having them too.
All of this being said, I still stand by what I told my friend’s sister as she applied to Princeton: one can be related to a Tiger and still find her own place at Princeton, even if at times a sibling occupied that same place.
Now, I am a member of Ben’s old eating club, and I write for the same section of the same publication that he did for four years. But I do not consider myself to be a copycat anymore.
I am just me.
Sarah Dinovelli is a history major from Groton, Conn. She can be reached at sarahmd@princeton.edu.
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