In an opinion piece in Seventeen magazine, actor, comedian, and writer Mindy Kaling ’01 says she had a tough time in high school. The good roles in school plays went to the “popular, pretty people,” she writes, and her now-famous wit fell on unreceptive ears.
Nevertheless, she worked hard, and she got into Dartmouth, and that made all the difference.
“At Dartmouth, everything was different. I majored in theater. I took writing classes and joined my improv troupe, where gender and how I looked didn’t matter. I finally got to do and express what I was passionate about. The best part? People thought I was funny, and that gave me confidence and made me try more stuff, which made me funnier! I started to realize that high school had made me an expert on how people engage with each other—and those observations would be my recipe for comedy-writing success.”
Read the full opinion piece, published 8/11/15 by Seventeen.
