Profile of Meredith Pollack

“I’m honestly waiting for New York to snap my neck and then I’m moving to California,” Meredith Pollack hyperbolized.

A sophomore at Eugene Lang College, Pollack is not the only New School student to consider leaving New York for the sunny West Coast state. She knows a few people that have already made the move, including her girlfriend, who is already in the process of moving to a small town outside of Santa Barbara.  

Pollack just spent three weeks driving down the California coast with her girlfriend over Winter Break. Starting at her girlfriend’s home in New Mexico, the trip was her first time on the West Coast and she stopped in all of the major cities.

One of her three brothers is at Sacramento State, so she and her girlfriend stopped in the capital city on the way to San Francisco. Following that they hit Santa Cruz, Big Sur, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Barbara where Pollack said she had the best Mexican food of the trip. Then they went on to Los Angeles and San Diego and spent a night in Tijuana.

Pollack felt a distinct difference between the people in Northern and Southern California and preferred Northern California, but is willing to give the lower half of the state another shot.

“The insecurities of living in New York bubbled up when I was in L.A.” Pollack said. For the most part, California was a relief from the lack of belonging she feels living in New York. 

“I feel like I don’t fit in really,” Pollack said. “I’m not confident here [in New York.]”

Pollack was born in Hackensack, New Jersey but grew up in Buenos Aires and Connecticut since her father’s job as a consultant caused her family to move around.

Recently, her father moved to Los Angeles for his job, and for the meantime her mother is still in Connecticut but Pollack figures that her mother will wind up in L.A. soon enough. When that happens, she plans to join her in the Sunshine state.

Pollack described driving through the clouds as she entered California and the impact the natural beauty had on her.

After making a disclaimer about being hippie dippy, Pollack described the way California and that moment made her feel.

“It brought me to a spiritual level of being closer to the earth than New York City,” she said.