Posted on 04/15/2012 10:11:38 PM PDT by jocon307
Entering my freshman year at Georgetown University, I should have felt as if I’d made it. The students I once put on a pedestal, kids who were fortunate enough to attend some of the nation’s top private and public schools, were now my classmates. Having come from D.C. public charter schools, I worked extremely hard to get here.
But after arriving on campus before the school year, with a full scholarship, I quickly felt unprepared and outmatched — and it’s taken an entire year of playing catch-up in the classroom to feel like I belong. I know that ultimately I’m responsible for my education, but I can’t help blaming the schools and teachers I had in my early years for my struggles today.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
This kid has a good attitude and has worked hard throughout his school life to do well.
Hey, at least he's got the smarts to see through the dumbing down that so many others miss (yes, occupiers I'm thinking of you!)
OK, he went to a school named for Cesar Chavez, so that might have been a hint. But we all can't go to Sidwell, can we?
Anyway, I thought this was worth spreading around. I hope some here may find it interesting.
bump
This has come up before, that one negative consequence of affirmative action is that it can make some black students feel like they’re in a school they can’t handle.
acton boxborough region high school
public school
received the president’s flag of excellence my senior year (Reagan was in office)
went to penn state and northeastern... and was only challenged during discrete math and diffy eqs. all history and english were simplistic. my computer science classes were trivial (except compiler design... ugh). entrepreneurial classes were trivial. i worked 2 or 3 jobs going through. still had high grades throughout
i believe the main difference is... the department of ‘education’.
it hadn’t truly taken hold when i graduated... and the schools were still turning out actual education.
doesn’t seem to be the case anymore
but hey.. at least everyone seems to be on the honor roll these days /sarc
When I hit public school, I ignored school, and learned on my own. I was always marked down for 'not fitting in'.
Only school I ever respected was the military school that was focused. Whether it was Solid State Electronics or Kitchen Safety.
Eff 'em. Learn or don't. The piece of paper means crap these days anyway.
What you can do, proves what you know. And you can't fake that.
/johnny
You missed the best quote.
“Once I got to high school, I maintained good grades simply by listening to my teachers and giving them what they wanted to hear: themselves.”
The school appears to be pretty much Black so I don’t know why he’s whinning about racism and it is called “Ceasar Chevez Charter School for Public Policy.” That seems to be a clue right there.
What's he whining about, anyway?
I still remembered the motivation why I started my own company 4 years after university. The company I previously worked had an overweight, racist black guy who did nothing while the rest of us worked even on federal holidays to please our masters.
Then came the cutbacks and the hardest working guys who were dedicated to the company were sacked while the overweight black guy was the lone survivor. I learned much about office politics in that one effing company.
Shohlda took the civics exam above and called it a day...
LOL.... Sounds like me. Bored to death with school. Was always labeled a “trouble maker.” Got thrown out of school for breaking the rules..... Worked construction while in school. Had no intentions of going to college until April of my senior year when I was working on a black roof in the hot sun and decided that I needed an education so I didn’t have to do that type of work anymore.
Never forgot the look on the face of the guy in the university admissions office when I walked in and handed him my outline of my classes for the four years with my application for admission.
It was really funny to have one of my former high school teachers walk into a class I was teaching at the university and find me there as a full time university professor at 26 yrs old!
What was his SAT score, I wonder.
I give him points for working to bring himself up to speed in his freshman year, instead of giving up. Maybe he'll make something of himself. Not that it matters, except as a philosophical point, because a black Georgetown graduate will have a ticket to be a public nuisance for the rest of his life.
That last nails it.
I’m imagining him in a job like Michelle Obama’s, some administration job in the medical field, everyone knows it would be better if the job didn’t exist, but “we must have diversity.”
Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe he’s the next Thomas Sowell or Walter Williams. They both started out as underprepared students in elite universities and turned themselves totally around.
The worst result is those receiving benefits of affirmative action become ultra sensitive to criticism and instantly play the race card.
“...listening to my teachers and giving them what they wanted to hear: themselves.”
LOL, yes, that was good. It was that that convinced me this kid has something on the ball.
I’ve known plenty of smart people who never can see the BS all around them as well as that.
Being prepared for college is a state of mind and not just having been through a proper and functional education system.
more than 40 years ago, I graduated from HS and went to college where I soon realized that as an 18 yo, I wanted to have a good time and I wasn’t getting anything out of college. Since my family was poor, I was funding my own schooling to boot.
So, I left college for several years in the Navy. The service made me grow up and 5 or 6 years later, I went back to school with a grown up attitude. I’m glad I did it this way, I did quite well after the military made me an adult.
College should not start at 18, it ought to start at 25 so that it gives the students the maturity they need to succeed.
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