Middle-school student Cassandra Lin admires “the unexpected hero.” She loves the YouTube story about a young boy from Malawi who created windmills out of bicycle parts to generate electricity for his village. “I think that was great,” Cassandra says. “Even though he never finished school, he built windmills. He learned on his own. Nobody expected a Malawian kid to generate electricity.”
And nobody expected a kid from Westerly, RI, to create an award-winning recycling program called T.G.I.F. that generates fuel for the needy in her community. But that’s exactly what this sparkly, no-nonsense seventh grader has done. To Cassandra, it’s all no big deal. It’s what she does with her friends after school.
Choosing a school is only the first step in planning an academic career. After making a selection, students must match interests and passions with academic programs, extracurricular activities, internships, and other opportunities and then make important decisions about their college experience. Unfortunately, many students operate with little to no information about how to construct an experience that will meet their long-term professional and personal goals.
Regardless of the actual capabilities of the education pipeline today, young men of color have trouble understanding their options and navigating the system while concurrently managing the circumstances of their lives. Their individual situations points simply to the reality that this group has to be unusually creative and resilient when it comes to earning a degree.