Photo By Richard Liu
We associate the words Post Traumatic Stress Disorder with soldiers who come back from war after battle. They are not free from those stressful deeds which stay in their memory for a lifetime. We also hear PTSD to describe the struggles of survivors of sex abuse. There is a lesser form of PTSD that affects first generation college students. Life always exacts a price, and that price can be for first generation college students like conquering barriers in a foreign land. I am pleased that people are beginning to see that college is not the only ticket now for someone to enter the middle class.
Back in my day as a teenager, college was seen as a distant possibility and, in fact, in the middle-class factory town in which I grew up what was valued was work with your hands and not your mind. That was the value system of my upbringing. I had enough experience in factories and other places, Bargain City (equivalent to Walmart today), the Krylon Paint Factory, a janitor, steel mill, and the Nice Ball Bearing Company.
However, I loved to learn, read, and wanted a better life after my father’s stroke when I was in 10th grade left us existing on the margins. So, I made my way to eventually be studying at Yale, Duke, and Duke Medical Center. When I heard Tim Walz say, “I didn’t go to Yale.” That statement made me wince. Walz didn’t see Yale as a badge of honor but more like something that was the opposite of where working-class people could or would go. His message was for those who would consider J D Vance for Vice President far away from what blue collar workers would do. His message was for others including who he saw as privileged. I heard him say it twice in two venues. I must admit I was temporarily embarrassed. I wanted to shout, “Do you know where I am from? Do you know what I had to do to get there?” Do you know the price?
There is a phenomenon known as first generation college students. We are different. I was pleased that there was an article in the Yale Alumni Magazine that was a response to the end of affirmative action. The article indicated that the university had a way of “legally” increasing the diversity of the school. Amy Gutman, past President of Penn, has been a leader in this area with a program to increase the number of first-generation students at Penn and learn from them on what it is like for she was one herself.
There was a survey of first-generation college graduates that included questions or observations from these students. What we take for granted turns out to be eye opening to others. One student said that he didn’t know that people could own two homes. Others observed that others didn’t seem to think about money and how to spend it and make it stretch.
When I got to Berkeley at Yale, I was a fish out of water. I had to fall back on the words of my mentor as a kid, The Reverend Noble M. Smith, a great athlete and priest. “Never let anyone out work you.” He died too young after living an extraordinary life based on those words to me.
I was angry when the press would refer to EA as an elite school (implying privilege) instead of an independent school. Think before you say that my students were privileged. They were privileged to go to a school where once you get to EA you have the privilege of working from 8 in the morning to 3 in the afternoon and then practicing a sport or community service, home for dinner and looking into an evening of homework 5 days a week but to thrive academically to be working on schoolwork during the weekend then as well. I often said to students that they should “watch their time” for time management was a skill that was necessary in their tight schedules. They the faculty, and administration work incredibly hard over the long haul.
One of the fathers of one of our graduates who I advised couldn’t wait to call me and tell me of his conversation with his son at Princeton who was taking 6 courses (4 is the norm) and playing 2 sports. He asked his son what he learned at EA. He was moved by his response. His son’s response was, “I loved to learn, but I also knew that I could work harder than I ever thought I could.”
Before I retired, an alumnus, who communicates on a somewhat regular basis with me, asked me to meet with his daughter before he would send her to EA. I agreed. Tell her what it is like. She was upbeat, self-assured, and ready to learn. I told her what it would be like to be a student here. She didn’t lose the smile and positive attitude that she brought to the meeting. She had a great career at EA and has done a great job at a university in the South. She takes advantage of everything that comes her way and learned how to work hard to keep her passion moving forward which requires time management skills.
EA is not for everyone, and neither is Yale, but if you whisper my mentor’s words in the inner ear of your soul, you will have a gift of choices in your years ahead. There have been many surveys of what surprised first generation students when they got to college. I could identify with responses such as I didn’t know that some people had two homes. One of my students was in shock when her first English assignment was James Joyce’s Ulysses which is a thick volume. When I asked how many chapters she had to read before her next class after the weekend, she responded, “All of it!” She had to speed read it.
But here is what must be learned no matter how much education you have. You will at times find yourself living in two different worlds between the haves and have nots. But I had an advantage as I have experienced great diversity in my life. I discovered that happiness is not related to attending EA or Yale or any other school. My friends from high school are just as happy as anyone. I learned early on that top tier schools give you choices in life and choices are the core ethical component in ethics. But positive psychology created by Marty Seligman, founder and mentor, includes three ingredients that all people need to be happy, and they are available to all. It is a progression. First, is pleasure which is short term experience. Second, is engagement with others, and third is knowing that lasting happiness is found in recognizing something that is larger than us which can be a belief in God, service to others, a participation on a team or other shared experience or anything that takes us out of ourselves which usually is worth the effort.
We can keep score in one practical way of who is happier, Trump or Harris, and who has given so much to others and not to themselves, Trump mentioned “I” 262 times in his Republican Convention Address. Harris used the word “I” 83 times in her Democratic Convention address.
Walz statement, “I never went to Yale!” is a way of saying therefore I am like so many of the group with whom he was speaking. People who went to Yale who worked hard and went there know that just that fact doesn’t yield happiness or bliss. It’s when the I becomes a WE!
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