'Constructed Worlds' comes from a novel draft that I wrote in my early twenties and reread/revised only in my late thirties.

My parents were educated in the Turkish system and went straight from high school to medical school; my mom, who had skipped a grade, was dissecting corpses at age seventeen. Growing up in America, I think I envied my parents' education. By comparison, everything I did in school seemed so sort of low-stakes and infantilizing.

There's a lot to be said for an American-style liberal-arts education, which prevents young people from professionalizing right away.

Elif Batuman Quotes