What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school?
bostonglobe.com
bostonglobe.com
The closest I can come is to say that this idea of inclusiveness is terminally broken. It's a sort of bandage over a huge chasm of differences.
For a poor person to become wealthy requires them to discard their baggage. Change the accent, the clothes, the pop culture references, the 'back home...' stories. Avoid the discussions about parents. The list goes on.
My transition into adulthood at present is essentially a game of throwing away my connections to that past. Not intentionally, but because living a double life is just too difficult. Visiting my hometown I feel like more of a tourist each time.
Money is a huge divider, the gulf between the working class and middle classes in this regard is enormous.
I am hardwired to assume that people cannot afford anything. My basic instinct is to design activities that are free.
Wealthier people do not always appreciate this. They might want to go and do something more expensive - and why not? They can.
Friendship groups.
I could waffle on seemingly forever but words can't really express how odd I find all of this.
Different species...
I'm one the best math students at my current school and calculus is fun for me. I'm the only person I know that knows how to program, none of the other students I've met are interested in computers at all.
The students that are performing at the same level as I am seem (to me) to be "elites". I find my self becoming more and more cynical each day listening to complaints about having an old model of iPhone or "having to go to Paris with dad" (someone really said this), when all I have is a flip phone and I've never ridden on a plane.
I told my self a few years ago I was going to learn to program because it seemed to be something that anyone could do (as long as you have a computer and internet access), seemed to be growing, and seemed to be high paying. I've gotten pretty good, but I still have a ways to go.
Now I'm at the point where I can leave my disabled parents for school and let my teeth continue to decay and deal with that social stigma, or I can get a job doing tech support and hopefully help my situation a little faster.
We'll see..
It's not always easy, but if you're smart and work hard, it gets better. If I could have given myself advice back then, I would've told myself not to be afraid of medical loans or dental schools. I've had ~22k in work done at a really nice dental school in SF that would have cost +50k at private practice. The sooner you get in there, the less it will cost in the long run (trust me).
Also, regardless of the current state of your teeth, every day is still a battle for your oral health. Brush after meals and floss regularly. Email me (link in profile) and I'll hook you up with a Sonicare toothbrush.
(Probably not relevant in GP's position, but hopefully someone finds it useful)
Of course, it depends on the person as well - but know that that friendships and meeting people like you is one of the biggest reasons to go to college and does factor into your decision. There aren't a lot of institutions out there where you'll be able to do that outside of a job. Of course, with student loans being as they are, I'm not quite sure whats worse.
Also, don't put it off. You can literally die from ignoring cavities.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/06/09/318212444/a-reaso...
The best I've ever found is John Cheese's Cracked articles on the topic which I felt were almost like he was writing from inside of my head.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-stupidest-habits-you-devel...
http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-stupidest-habits-you-devel...
If someone reads these, please understand that this is how I actually feel/act to this day, even though I make 100k+ a year. For example, I only own two pairs of shoes. My work sneakers, and my "nice" shoes. And I replace my sneakers only when they are completely busted, and I get the cheapest ones on sale I can find. Three pairs of shoes is literally crazy to me, and I feel bad about having 2 pairs of shoes since I never wear the "nice" ones.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness."
Good shoes will save you money if you can put in the initial investment :)
The results from that (sole) experiment were that the shoes lasted longer but not so much so that they beat out multiple pairs of cheaper shoes on price. The quality shoes lasted about 4 years, and I buy a pair of sneakers about every 1.5 years. However, the quality shoes were at about a 10x markup from the sneakers. So I'd need those quality shoes to last 15 years or so.
So for my money, it sounds like great fiction, but not great reality.
That said, I don't think this accounts for rich people having more money
Does anyone have the name or any clips?
I wear down heels very fast, and used to get through mass-produced shoes with moulded soles far too quickly. It annoyed me hugely that I had to throw away a pair of shoes whose uppers were in perfect condition, but whose soles couldn't be replaced.
In the end, I bought a pair of decent leather-soled shoes for $350 and get them heeled regularly; that was 7 years ago, they're still going strong, and I estimate that they've saved me a ton of money.
And as a "third way", I've kept my eyes open in thrift (UK = charity) shops, and have managed to get excellent, repairable footwear for next to nothing. My current pair of oxblood brogues by Allen Edmonds cost me $25, has been going for 5 years now, and barring accidents will last me until I'm well past retirement...
If you want to beat sneakers in terms of price, switch to work boots like Red Wings or Chippewa.
2 - the modern world has dramatically increased the price-per-quality on the cheap stuff, shrinking the gap
Nothing to be ashamed of, think about it this way: what you don't have you don't need to maintain or carry with you, stuff is vastly over-rated, having more doesn't equate automatically to feeling better.
As someone from a very poor background (actual poor - starving in africa poor, not US overprivileged 'I can eat for free out of bins' poor, but this is all relative...) I can sympathise somewhat too.
I agree with the point made here in this comment- personally, I never felt like I had the kind of disadvantages described in this article, and I'm sure its partly because I pass very well for an upper middle-class man thanks to a spiffing british accent I inherited from my mother - and partly down to a tremendous effort socially. I've always presented my background as exotic and interesting rather than woeful and sympathy-worthy.
All that being said, I am now doing quite well and earn a considerable amount of money, but still always find myself broke at the end of the month... its shameful.
A very rich man once said to me that if you act like a rich person eventually you would find yourself to be rich... I think there is an element of truth in that.
People are criticizing this line but I think there's a lot of truth in it. Despite what most people believe, people who get and remain rich don't spend every dime they have. They live below their means, save, invest, and grow what they have.
Our family got on the Dave Ramsey plan years ago (2008/9?) and it radically changed our thinking and life in a matter of months. After a couple years, it radically changed our lives.
Its amazing how a "upper crust" accent will play versus something something considered "low class". Its one of those hidden assumptions that adults make. I have a deep, loud voice that was tinged with a rez accent and quite a lot of slang.
Watch a kid react to Mater from Cars versus an adult. The story of the voice acting for that part worldwide is quite interesting.
looking at efforts spent on voices around the world in high quality productions is always interesting (in high quality dubs, even ambient background conversation is re-recorded, for example), and a strong reminder of how US-centric a lot of media is. people still build 'new' software with ansi strings after all... :)
Unfortunately, there is also truth in the idea that if you act like you're rich, you end up poor, because you wind up spending all you have (probably plus some).
have you met many rich people who spend like there is no tomorrow? its about acting like a /rich person/ not as if you have a limitless supply of money and are actually rich. :)
The contrast runs something like this: German dude, worth $10M made his money in real estate, started an online company, lost it all but bought Porsches and hired fancy places, in the end turned to crime in order to continue to finance his life-style.
American dude, worth > $50M (at one point...), spent money like it was toilet paper, golden taps in the bathroom, fancy Rolls-Royces (multiple...), used to be the #1 in a hotly contested tech field, lost it all when the market turned and he didn't adapt.
Swiss dude, worth >> $1B, modest house, drove a VW Golf (ok, a nice one), absolutely incorruptible.
They're nice examples to have and I understand that for someone worth that much there is no need to signal anything and that Germany guy may have had to keep up with his 'circle' in order to be seen as successful but still it makes you wonder how much pain there is behind all those frustrated faces in fancy cars living in expensive houses.
people who stay rich do not just spaff their money around left, right and centre. i think rich people call this 'new money' and using such a term would be an example of acting like a rich person.
But hell, you're going to school so you can make a better living in the future and afford some comfort later. I think the issue is you have to feel sure of yourself and not let peer envy infiltrate your thinking.
I also had no misgivings about asking for professor time --that's what they were there for.
I think you feel out of place if you somehow believe you must conform to the in crowd. I never liked joining formal groups etc. It's antithetical to me, even when I agree or have commonality with a group because ultimately it's you against the world and no ones going to help.
It's not inferiority, or lack of confidence. I didn't 'feel' out of place. I was out of place - the whole thing was out of place.
The article seems to focus on the 'bad', as if there's an injustice perpetrated against poor students.
But it doesn't work like that. The people just inhabit different worlds, the mutual understanding is limited, it requires effort rather than being automatic.
I would draw an analogy with being an immigrant. There's no real conspiracy, you're just different. Learning the local language, the customs, etc, will help you succeed. But in performing this act of assimilation, you lose a part of what was there before. The ones you left behind are different now.
I agree that not asking for professor time is just odd. I had no problem at all competing intellectually in my chosen field. It was just everything surrounding that.
UK elite universities are constantly railed on for not admitting more poor students, but part of the issue is that we simply have lower levels of attainment. Equality there is not possible without negative discrimination.
How do we fix wealth inequality? Well, we probably can't. But I do think we could go further towards providing necessities to all, which would solve a lot of the issues.
Simplified, some people have to worry about making the rent. Others own property outright. That's a massive gulf.
I didn't even know what University was. Oxford or Cambridge especially - it's like Hollywood, celebrities, it's a thing that exists that you're just not a part of.
I kind of grow tired of these discussions and just pop in every now and then because I feel like the gap in understanding is just so massive that it's fruitless.
The information asymmetry is enormous. A middle class person has friends and family that work in high status fields. They can directly see that you do A, B and C and end up with D.
Hyperbolic extreme analogy - imagine that you walk up to a remote tribe with an iPhone and tell them they could make a bunch of money making apps for it.
They don't have a clue, right? That was me at age 18. I didn't know how people became doctors or lawyers or computer programmers or whatever. That was for 'other people'..... everyone I knew worked in retail.
The article was about posh universities going after poor students, and making education work for them. Like minorities, its important to seek out Qualified candidates (not just some quota system that allows anybody). So the 'no poor kids apply' hurdle is moot. The Uni is supposed to be looking for them.
And they do exist. There's absolutely no monopoly on brains among the upper class.
And about how far ahead 'private schools' are - some of that is true; some of that is mythology, perpetrated by TV. In the end, its the students that make the reputation - and by definition, public schools have poor students, and poor students underrepresent achievers.
Anyway, I'm glad to hear your experience, its not all that different from mine.
In the US do you have the notion of 'poshness'? For example, making fun of someone who speaks a certain way, or turns their nose up at e.g. fast food? That's a massive thing. We live in tribes... pronouncing words correctly is a thing that results in ostracization here.
It pains me to say this, but here we are:
I am wealthier than my parents and hometown friends because at some point I realised what was going on, and took an active decision to take a different path.
I had to internalize the notion that I am better than them. I will work harder and smarter and I will beat them. Do you see that?
I had to beat them in order to win. I have to compete against my fellow human beings.
I have to reject their customs and use the customs that winners use.
Do you get that? That it's not just 'do A B C'? That the actions I took and continue to take have the effect of further seperating me from my friends and family? Every time I pronounce an 'a' or an 'h' in their presence it's effectively me grandstanding the fact that I'm not 'one of them' now.
Reading this post makes me seem like a colossal dick, right? But it's just a written description of social 'mobility'.
I am not better or more deserving than them. I just play a game. A game of emulation. I was born with talents, arbitrarily, and somehow that means I win and they lose. Meh. I think you just have to live it.
Its just adaptation, not betrayal. Maybe the worst thing is feeling ashamed of it? I'm rather proud of where I came from, and like to introduce my colleagues to the phrases and pronunciations of my hometown. But in the American Midwest, everybody plays the game "where are your people from" and there are no winners. Just interesting background.
I imagine it is even worse in the UK where there is a much more rigid social structure.
Parents will live in penury in order that they afford their progeny a better future. This is not u heard of in the west, but it's less common. Culture has a lot to do with it.
This sounds like a perfect summary of Dick Whitman's transition into Don Draper.
Even though no one here is looking down on me, or cares what I wear, or thinks I sound a certain way (they all love that English accent ;) ), to me, I feel like I do not fit into their world. Things I consider "posh" or "middle class" feel alien to me, and I am aware that I have a defensive response which means I try to make fun of people baking their own bread, or going on foraging sessions for food, even though I actually really wish I had the slightest idea how to do it, and did not feel like such an idiot for being a beginner at both. People are quite happy to teach me how to make bread from scratch, or how to recognise mushrooms, so the feeling awkward is all from my side, and I know it is a problem I need to deal with.
Coupled with the feeling uncomfortable in my new social environment is the comments I get from back home "Oh, so you think you are better than us now?". I spent 10 years prior to university pretending I could not do maths, and had no interest in intellectual subjects, and it is a hard learned behaviour to shake, and unfortunately, it took me several years at university to become comfortable discussing intellectual topics, without defaulting to my past behaviour.
For me, that, rather than money is the divider. Everyone at uni is on student income, so all relatively broke, and university here is free, with the government giving us money each month as well, but the attitudes I grew up with and around are a whole different story, and it is those which hold me back at times.
Yes! Thank you for using the perfect word for how I feel. I'm sure rich people have "rich people baggage" but I believe they are either a) not a deal blocker or b) mitigated by their advantages.
Edit: I have a few 1% friends. As far as I can tell, rich people baggage is usually complaining about money.
I'm not saying that there weren't wealthy people who spent absurd amounts of money. There were. But there were also plenty of people who budgeted aggressively, and made things like formal hall and pregaming before going to student clubnights on a Thursday night the highpoint of discretionary expenditure.
I don't come from a wealthy background. Because of when I started university, my parents were just outside the bracket that would have got be grants and bursaries (if I'd started a year later, they'd have been in it). Grew up in an ex-council house, dad worked down the mines, yadda yadda (I hate getting into the thing of "Look how working class MY upbringing was" but there you go). But I definitely didn't feel excluded. I suppose there probably were high-spending friendship groups that I didn't fit into. I can't say I felt like I missed out. You're never going to fit into every friendship group.
I'm assuming you went to Oxbridge. If not, maybe it is different. I certainly felt like there were a lot of fairly income independent activities that were applicable no matter your background. Pretty much everyone can go to formal hall, or to a bop, or even to events at the Union. At least in your first few years, those things are pretty central to social lives for a lot of students.
I don't know. I feel like my post is a little pointless: "I don't agree with your experience". Experiences aren't really up for debate. You experienced it, you felt it, it was real. I guess I just feel differently. Sometimes you have to say that.
I didn't have the sort of 'ski trip' nonsense. I mean it existed but didn't really affect me.
The subtle things do though. I had never met a middle class person in my age group before going to University. It's not just wealth. It's dinner, it's Radio 4, it's video games, it's national parks not Butlins. These things aren't really categorically 'superior', that's the thing. But they are kind of assumed in a way that doesn't happen for, say, immigrants.
(I grew up in a council house, not ex. but the african dude above has us both beat. :D)
A framework for understanding poverty: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1929229488/
Crossing the Tracks for Love: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/192922933X/
Hidden Rules of Class at Work: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1929229070/
In particular, she goes in to these very concerns about how on has to change their identity and mindset from their old world to be in the new world.
That baggage is what makes so many upper class people despise being around poor people. It's also why every exclusive club interviews people under the guise of a "cultural fit" policy, or what they sometimes call a "no asshole rule" to avoid criticism, when in reality it's almost always just self-deluded bigotry.
The proof is in how homogeneously upper class, even when otherwise diverse, most "elite" organization are. If they were actually merit based, you would necessarily see incredible diversity in class. Instead, everywhere, you see organizations made up of the wealthy descendants of wealthy people.
I feel terribly sad that I read this statement. Sure, you would want to discard your baggage have a better life for yourself and your family, and increasing your financial wealth will help you get there. However, it should not be the other way around. Becoming wealthy should not because of what you are discarding. Changing does not always means discarding.
I think any time you try to migrate to a different group you wind up leaving things behind. Gain something, lose something.
Which, I don't know, seems OK to me. Accents, clothes, and pop culture references might be dear to people for whom culture is all they have. But to me they hold no value by themselves. I wouldn't, for example, avoid an education just so I can cling to the culture I am currently in.
Also, at least among the people I know, a lot of us come from very different backgrounds. Nobody hides their family and their hometown but none of us can relate to eachother's childhoods, so we just don't talk about it a whole lot. Which is OK too.
Anyway, migrating groups I think is always a surreal experience, as is visiting groups you don't belong to.
It's difficult to understand why. If anything, one should feel great pride to be able to attend an elite school while coming from a less privileged family (even though, being smart because of your genes is basically as random as being born in a rich family, so there shouldn't be any pride or shame either way!!).
The term "inclusiveness" is utter bullshit. (no criticism towards you OP) The idea of "trying to include everyone with diverse backgrounds" was created by top leaders who wanted to prop themselves up even more by characterizing themselves as benevolent stewards. Hint - they're usually not. Let's face reality - we're naturally biased and we still don't have any definitive, scalable way to select (include) other human beings without our short-minded biases blinding us.
My parents came to the west in a boat, much like the ones that are sinking every day in the med. They scraped together a living and tuition fees running Chinese food joints.
When I arrived in Oxford, I did realise there were some interesting characters around. One guy with a posh accent stuck waved his chequebook outside his room during a tuition fee demonstration, offering to pay for everyone's tuition if he could just be allowed some peace. There are dudes walking the street in top hats. There are kids with sports cars.
But why should you feel alienated from them? You can be friends with the ones who want to be. They are just as curious about you. Some of them actually feel a bit guilty about having ridden into a top uni on their fathers' coattails. There's also people who've had it worse than you. One friend actually fled from shelling, and was lucky to miss a boat that got sunk by helicopters.
When you meet people, start with what you have in common. You're all young, and academically gifted. You're in the same place, you speak the same language.
What matters in the end is your results, and your results only.
When were you in Oxford? In my day I never saw any top hats, barring the occasional actor; and even the richest kids didn't have cars, because (a) there was nowhere to park them, and (b) you could walk faster than you could drive anywhere.
Top hats are an eccentric thing. Kids did it to get mentioned on HN years later.
I did see some fancy cars, but they were always driven by college fellows or other "adults" -- never anyone of student age.
Did you not think people wore some strange clothes? I was back last week and saw loads of kids in suits. These days it just screams "first day at work".
The example of going out to dinner and then catching a movie is a good one. In a mid to large sized metropolitan area that is an expenditure of $40 - $100 (depending) and that can represent anywhere from .1% to 10% of a person's take home pay. So people gravitate to socializing with folks who have the same sort of budget for recreational expenses.
And it can get even weirder when you're wildly different in available resources. Consider the following illustrative example
Bob is a very high net worth individual, he owns an interest in a Gulfstream jet. While folks are hanging out they hear about a restaurant in Santa Fe (over 1,000 miles away) that is really great. Bob thinks it would be a great place to go for dinner. So he invites folks to dinner, when they show up everyone gets on the plane and flys to Santa Fe and eats at this restaurant which has been reserved (entirely) for this dinner.
Bob is trying to be friendly and help everyone share the experience of a restaurant they were just talking about. Except that everyone on the plane that wasn't extremely wealthy felt really weird about the whole experience. (surreal might be better).
So its easy to be friends with Bob, he's a nice guy, but it is hard to "hang out" with Bob as his idea of a reasonable idea of what to do next, can sometimes collide with your idea of reality.
That goes all the way down to things like skiing (fun, but expensive to do for the day).
To avoid that you need communities of people with similar resource levels, and yes this means that things like the 1st generation outreach program mentioned in the article will collect all of the 'poor people' together, but it gives them a social structure to start from. And if they mix with the the 'not quite so poor' people they can start to move through the variations in strata. Once they graduate they are very likely to be at least part of the "middle" and their kids the "upper middle".
This is an observation that I've come to as well, in that first generation success, no matter what level the financial success, will only move the person up maybe one notch in "class", because the old habits are hard to shake (this is both a good and bad thing).
The kids tend to be one notch farther up as a result of not having the extensive experience their parents went through. Again, for better or for worse.
The author missed the much larger problem in this statement. The school system these students are from are often poor with incompetent staff[1]. The competent staff are mostly dealing with students with problems and leaving the bright students to look after themselves. Resource allocation is a harsh mistress.
1) as an example, $2,000 a year (1988 USD) down the tube because a school official couldn't be bothered to mail a letter.
My friends were very obviously split into two groups -- poorer students from state schools who were first-generation Oxbridge attendees, and rich students from public (UK) or private (US) schools whose parents had been at Oxbridge or Ivy universities. Academically, I fit in well with the wealthier crowd -- my parents both have Oxford degrees and doctorates, and I was there on an academic scholarship -- but financially I was far closer to the first-generation students. On one memorable occasion I was invited to join a group for a weekend skiing in the Alps, and declined when I realized that it would cost me more than my rent for the month; and while all of my American friends flew home between terms (and often for long weekends in the middle of term), I stayed in Oxford over Christmas and Easter because the rent was cheaper than even the lowest-price plane tickets.
But I can't fault Oxford for any of this: Indeed, the reason these socioeconomic strata were so obvious is precisely because they're doing a good job of bringing in students from a wide range of backgrounds. I never saw the University of my College doing anything which stigmatized or isolated students based on their background; the stratification was entirely due to the differences students brought to the university in how they saw the world and their places in it.
I suggest you have understated your relative wealth.
UK students at Oxford today are entitled to £478/month living expense (in 2015 money), which they get mostly as a student loan, to be repaid.
Taking into account inflation, or looking at the equivalent scholarship today, I believe you were almost twice as well-off as the typical student from a poorer background.
[I don't doubt there were students twice as rich again, but I question the suggestion that you weren't treated generously in this context]
I was better off than most of the first-generation students, but not dramatically so.
Students today are entitled to £478/month living expense (in 2015 money), which they get mostly as a student loan.
The Oxford University website says that students typically spend between £951 and £1,405 per month on living expenses. When I arrived in Oxford (in 2001) I was told that students typically spent around £650/month (the scholarship administrator was very apologetic about the value of the living allowance).
I haven't been in the UK for over a decade, so I'm not familiar with the state of student financial aid, but from what you've said I suspect that either the government bursaries/loans have gotten smaller or they were being supplemented by significant University and College awards.
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I think everyone has their struggles, whether it be gender, race, or class based. I just like learning from other people's perspectives.
Many of the kids at this public university just did not get into one of the ivys but definitely middle/upper-middle class.
Many kids in the school that came from poor families often went to a public high school where it was easier to get good enough grades to get into the university. Once they got in though, they were just not prepared for the rigorous competition to get good grades.
On the flip side, rich kids like my sister shadows their cousin during surgery, winter-breaks in Dubai, and studies abroad in France. It's a different life.
Assuming everything is the same, money still gives a stupid amount of advantages.
"Hey you are a programmer? Want to make an app for me?"
In business school, the ratio of mainstream to sidestream was skewed so badly towards the mainstream that it was difficult to even keep my head above water amidst the torrent of "networkers" like you said.
I am a professor (albeit at a non-elite university). How do I persuade students such as yourself to ask questions, to use tutors, to show up to office hours, and to talk to me?
You might (will) have to say it more than once, and very explicitly, because they are used to hearing well-meaning similar statements that they have learned to ignore. But just say it, explicitly. They're not stupid; just conditioned. Breaking through that conditioning is hard, so hard. The rich kids see your office-hours as a right (and, as I expect you know, see extensions on deadlines and arguing their grades up and being entitled to second chances as a right), the poor kids don't really believe they exist. Breaking that conditioning is possible, so long as you can see it to hit it.
I ended up having extended conversations with the majority of my professors this way, and ultimately built relationships which made me feel comfortable about dropping in during office hours.
- Asking for help is a display of weakness, and that student has been conditioned to conceal his or her weaknesses.
- The student has feelings of inferiority that lead him or her to assume that they do not deserve additional assistance.
- The student has given his or her last pennies to the bursar and the bookseller, is literally living in a van and gleaning the trash to meet survival needs, and is avoiding peers and professors to conceal this lifestyle.
- The student has a job, and the work schedule interferes with your office hours. You don't pay them to show up, so you lose the conflict.
- The student is simply unaware that such resources are available in general, or available to him or her, specifically.
- The student has adopted compensation strategies to deal with an environment unsupportive of their goals. Being invisible and anonymous may be one of them. Wearing a "mask personality" in public may be another.
- The student is conditioned to believe that no one offers help without expecting something in return. In some cases, accepting help is actually dangerous. (Remember how I helped you out with your rent? Good. Hide this gun for me. You owe me.)
Just use your position of perceived authority, and order them to show up.
If you teach an intro-level class, draw lots, and assign every one of your students to visit you during your office hours in a specific, scheduled, 10-minute window prior to midterms. This is where you actually teach the student how to interact with professors outside the classroom. With each student, talk a little about your class, and a little about anything else. Make it a pass-fail item on the syllabus. Show up? Get some free course credit. Don't show? 0 points. (If you really kick ass at this, you can play "friend matchmaker" and try to coerce your students into befriending and helping each other.)
Remember, there are no classes in most public high schools on how to "do college". Those kids are learning it as they go.
This is asking the students to show initiative, I don't know how well that would work with contemporary American kids.
So true. Having attended a few colleges in California, I got tired of everyone else going to their parent's cabin over break in Tahoe, Mammoth, or Big Bear. And the dorms would close for a week or two, so I couldn't concentrate fully on my finals while I worried about where I'd stay and not have to sleep a few nights in a park.
> never used any tutors or talked to a professor I had a hard time talking to my professor, and I noticed others from blue-color backgrounds have difficulty as well. Upper middle-class kids never seemed to have a problem talking to their professors, which seemed to give them a significant advantage.
Maybe it was the company I hung out with but there was never really any talk of how rich anyone's background was (in fact it was kind of taboo) -- the same way no one ever talked about what their SAT scores were. It seemed petty.
There were several well off kids in my social circle (though not mega rich or anything) but there wasn't really any flaunting of wealth. In fact, many of the well off people I knew tried to save more money than some less well off people! There were also some poor kids around who people knew about but they were never really looked down upon.
I make as much money as most of my peers at work, but fairly regularly I am made aware of the fact that my upbringing was less affluent than many of theirs. They have stories about exotic vacations they went on with their families, while my stories are about manual labor on farms. On some occasions somebody has made a crack at the expense of blue-collar workers, but I don't feel particularly far removed from that life.
In terms of region, SF, LA, and NYC are just about the worst for being full of "moneyed family" type attitudes. I lived some years in Indiana and it was far more tolerable on that front, despite what you might expect from the respective regions' politics.
Besides the obvious language barrier being a massive separator for some time, there were also plenty of instances where "class" came into play. We couldn't afford to purchase airfare, or to eat out for a while. I felt jealous, or angry at people who did not immediately understand that I won't receive cash from grandparents for christmas, or that I won't be able to get the latest toys and electronics.
Even though it was very hard at first, but I didn't crave community support or entitlement based on my class or language. I didn't want special treatment, because I knew that that would just alienate me even more. I wanted acceptance, just like everyone else who is "different", but instead of attempting to change people around me to tailor to my needs or feelings, I guided my own attitude and expectations to accept certain things as they are. I managed my own social anxiety and didn't expect anyone to tailor to it. I cultivated my own belonging naturally, without reliance on programs or groups that attempt to do it artificially. I even refused to take ESL class for a very long time, fearing that that would socially single me out.
I soon started to socialize and became friends with people of all "classes," and I never attempted to place myself in a group based on financial privilege -- I looked for more important qualities in my friends. Even when I got jealous or angry at someone's privilege, I understood that it is OK for them to be more fortunate, and that I shouldn't expect others to walk in my shoes. I assumed most people, even those that can never fully understand my situation, are good -- and expected nothing from them. After all, my goal was to achieve what they have, and I expected myself to someday enjoy the same privileges.
Here is a recent story that was fairly typical in my experience : http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2423782-left-parentless-a...
It seems that there are those who pursue greatness and success and use their challenges and circumstances as motivation to do better and those that see themselves as handicapped and disadvantaged.
Are there pompous kids? Sure. But I believe that exists anywhere and quite frankly, I felt that those kids were the ones who were missing out. Missing out on relationships with people who were not caught up on the superficial, either because they couldn't afford to be, or didn't care.
Anyway, just my perspective, FWIW.
- Even if you provide resources to students for finding jobs/internships, they don't come with the same connections or experience as their wealthier peers so I'm wondering how much these help. For example, technology companies are typically going to hire those computer science students with the most programming experience, outside of a few small programs run by the larger companies (Google, Microsoft, Facebook) specifically for disadvantaged students.
- Often you see stats on what percentage of students attending a university are low income (by some proxy like Pell grants), and what percentage of them graduate, but I have yet to see stats on career fields and income for these students. As someone from a blue collar middle class background getting an engineering degree I could count on one hand the number of students I met with backgrounds similar to mine (and this is at a fairly large school). I would expect these sorts of stats aren't very flattering to schools, but would love to see the numbers if they exist.
It was rare to find a first generation engineering student who came from a humble background. My peers were fairly affluent, upper-middle class or middle class at the least. Enjoyment was proportional to thickness of their wallet. They didn't do anything abnormal or flashy. But it was hard in so many ways. After all how do you justify skipping their fun events, trips and parties?
I wanted to write some more. But don't feel like reliving that past. So making an abrupt end.
I'd know, I grew up poor. That's the problem, and ONLY problem.
'We can do more to be supportive' - JUST GIVE THEM MONEY. Oh they don't have to pay tuition, that's great. Do they have to pay rent and eat? Do they need to buy textbooks and clothes?
Give them money, end of story.
All this talk of self-esteem issues - please. Every 12-30 year old has self-esteem issues or ego-maniacal issues, time fixes all that. Just let them study and learn to fit in instead of washing dishes.
(I mentioned Harvard specifically a few times because I went there and am familiar, but I believe the situation is the same at a couple of other top ivy league schools.)
If it is as you say it is - then this is just folks boo-hooing about the challenges of... well... being in challenging situations.
You are going to be put in those when it comes to your health, relationships and likely money, sooner or later. Everyone goes through that at some point in time - most come out alive :)
Bottom line: If you are poor and can figure out this loophole, just do it. On the balance I'm very, very glad I did.
This surprised me - I expected someone in this situation to pursue a vocational subject like engineering or medicine.