Bilal Rahmani’s Intellectual home- Leandro Manrique

To be honest, After reading Bihlal Rahmani’s “Chronicles of a Once Pessimistic College Freshman” for the first time, I was struggling to really identify what was Rahmani’s Intellectual home. I was struggling to pinpoint his intellectual home because I was looking for a physical location he ‘d always strive in, and although he was a high scoring student in school he still felt  like his “…first month of college passed in this depressed state.”  Even though he was doing relatively well academically, An intellectual Home should and would never feel depressive as he describes it. What I later then realized as the essay unfolded was that in reality he was in his intellectual home the whole time. He just needed to open his mind up a little bit. The day his mind opened up was when his thoughts that he was smarter and superior to the other students in his class was challenged.  For a second he couldn’t accept the fact that the student he thought was dumb, was actually correct and what he thought was wrong. there was the key. He needed to let go of his ego and start socializing, participating, and connecting with his surroundings. “as a functioning member of this vibrant community, I find myself engaged in my
classes in a way that I never had before” Before he had a mental barrier blocking himself from the world around him and that was what was holding him back from his intellectual home.