Full Disclosure

As part of  Shaun Harper's class, Contemporary Issues in Higher Education, we have been asked to write an introduction to ourselves through the answers to questions about our college preparedness, college experience, the experience of our peers and the reasons for our success. We are also supposed to relate these things to a film we watched in class, Declining By Degrees. Anyway, I started writing mine, and a couple pages in I felt that I should be sharing this information with you minus the relate it to the film part. So, before I change it to include film analysis, I wanted to share with you this deeply personal account of my high school and college experience.

- - - - - -

My high school, Mt. Diablo High in Concord, California, was what the district referred to as an “under-performing high school”.  About 65% of students graduated in four years and almost nobody went to college. But, when I was there, the school was adding “California Partnership Academies,” schools within the school that helped gave students more attention, a cohort based unit of students, and vocational training. I joined the Digital Safari Academy (DSA).  Instead of having traditional classes and homework, we worked on computers all day. Our assignments were long-term, large-scale group projects evaluated by a committee from our community. Students were recognized not only for their skill in writing or speaking, but for their creativity, design and work ethic. We also had poker nights and went on several four day camping trips, which helped create a very purposeful tight knit community. Going this non-traditional route through high school probably had a very positive effect on my overall preparedness for college because it forced me to think in new ways about what “getting an education” entails.

            When it came time to apply for college, I was pleased and yet terrified all at the same time. One side of me knew that I was ready; I had done very well in high school through the DSA and through cross country and track. The other side wondered if I would be less desirable because I went to an “under-performing” school. And, there was one other thing. I had absolutely no money to my name. My parents, both highly educated individuals, had severe money issues and it was becoming clear that I was going to be on my own financially. For that reason, I applied mostly to schools in California. Though I was admitted everywhere, only one school provided me with enough financial support for it to even be a possibility. That school was the University of California, Santa Cruz. Above and beyond the financial support, Santa Cruz convinced me that I would have access to college professors, and they had a “residential college system” of living and learning communities that reminded me of the DSA. So, even though I was wary of how I could ever afford to go to college, I went!

The transition from high school to college was difficult. The first day I arrived at the dorms, it was awkward to be with my parents. I felt let down because they wanted to be a part of move in, but would not be helping me after I moved in. After they left, I started to think about my first bill; it was 3,000 dollars! I had worked in the Summer at a store and saved up the money, but I couldn’t help but let my mind wander toward the second bill. How was I going to get the money to pay for this?  I cried that day, and it still pains me to remember how stressful it was. I felt lost, out of place. Then, I snapped out of it, got a job and worked thirty two hours a week to pay for my dorm and food.  It was rough. Though everyone on my floor in the residential hall was friendly, they always told me that they never saw me around. I was the only one on a floor of about forty who worked that many hours.

The learning excited me. My courses were so stimulating and enjoyable; and, in some ways were a welcome distraction from my financial woes. Even with almost full-time working hours, I enjoyed doing my homework assignments between classes and late at night. It taught me discipline and made me very good at managing my time. When I did have time, study groups with friends were really nice. After working my job for a while, I was making more than enough money to pay my monthly school bill. There was still a time crunch, but I was doing very well in courses and making a lot of new friends.

The second year in college, I had to cut back on working hours and wanted to do something on campus so that I would not have to spend so much time on the bus. I quit waiting tables, moved into a less expensive dorm and then took teaching assistant jobs on campus.  Through those positions, I landed a job at the Office of Admissions and at the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP, a retention program for low income, first generation, students from under-performing high schools or students from otherwise under-represented groups). In EOP, I found a rich community of people within the university who had grown up the way I did, and who I felt were more like me than the university community at a large. It was a blessing to be able to spend time with people who knew where I was coming from and to hear about other people for whom college was not taken for granted. At the Admissions Office, I found a passion: higher education. I often facilitated field trips for student who had never set foot on a college campus before or who had never seen the ocean. I was the first point of contact for them at my university; I was someone who could tell them, “college is possible. It is hard, but it is possible.” That was also a blessing.

During the end of the second and beginning of my third year in college, I became intensely intellectual. I made wonderful connections with my economics and history professors. In the history major, I took on a senior thesis because I wanted to do original research. I wanted to find a way to combine my interests in history, economics and education and had noticed that James D. Anderson’s The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935 did not go in depth when it came to the Deep South. I ended up writing about how enslaved African Americans in Mississippi found ways to acquire literacy and ultimately used their secret networks of literacy to help establish the public education system in Mississippi. It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, and I ended receiving a lot of recognition for my work. There is no way that three years before having written this thesis I could have imagined myself writing it, completing college or studying for a master of education degree at the University of Pennsylvania. It is unbelievable. I am grateful that my college experience started the way it did and that it allowed me to grow so tremendously because it reaffirmed my belief that a college education is never to be taken for granted.
There was one other student at Santa Cruz from my high school graduating class and the DSA, Robert*. Having one other person there from my hometown and high school was nice, but we did not go out of our way to see one another and the campus was large. Robert had told me at some point that he was having trouble staying awake in his large math classes. I was not worried about Robert. I knew that we had made it there and we would be ok. Then, I stopped seeing Robert around. Santa Cruz is a 2000 acre campus with 17,000 students, so I did not question the fact that I had not seen him. Near the end of our second year, I realized he was not telling me something. He had been kicked out of the school for poor academic performance, but had still been living near campus and not telling people that he was kicked out. When he told me, I was shocked! I felt so terrible for him. How had someone who had come from Mt. Diablo just like me have made it that far just to get kicked out? It hurt a lot.

At the time, it was hard to say what differentiated Robert’s experience from my own.  Now, I think it is clear. Robert did not make campus connections. He had not found EOP or a passion at Santa Cruz. He found large classes that put him to sleep. I only found those connections through necessity and probably only enjoyed my large classes as much as I did because they were a welcome distraction. Robert and I were not very different at all. We were actually very similar. What happened to Robert could have just as easily happened to me. Sometimes, I question how much responsibility a learning institution has to retain versus how much responsibility the student has to be determined, but I know it could not have been a lack of motivation alone; I knew a lot of unmotivated students who coasted by. At a large, public university, at any university for that matter, there are people who are unmotivated who make it through. Robert’s experience resonated with me when we watched Declining by Degrees because the film also grapples with this question of institutional versus individual responsibility.

--

On graduation day, I was more excited and full of joy than I had ever been before. I graduated summa cum laude from the University of California, Santa Cruz but that meant nothing to me. What meant everything to me was that I was graduating at all. I have six brothers, all of whom have struggled with educational pursuits, and they were all there to see me. They were so proud. I was the first of us to graduate from college; I was there on the stage communicating to them that it is possible. My brothers were so proud. I could see in their faces that this meant a lot to them. Here I was, graduating college. I will never forget that day. After the commencement ceremony, we played basketball in my backyard for the rest of the day. I wore my hat and dress the whole time!

Oh, and there is something you should know about Robert: he didn’t give up either. Robert enrolled in the local community college, earned credits, wrote a letter to the university and was re-admitted for the Fall 2011 term with his financial aid fully reinstated. He will graduate next June.


*name changed