want to have to struggle like this. I don’t want to have to pick somebody just for financial reasons. I didn’t want to go work at a low-paying, $5.15 an hour, regular job. I wanted something more. – A I L E E N
College is a chance to learn about yourself and follow your own ideas.
After Hazel dropped out of her unsatisfying high school and went to work while living with her boyfriend, she found the search for a job far worse than she had expected.
Hazel dropped out of high school partly because her learning style didn’t match its fast-paced schedule of short periods that met every day. When she decided to go back to school, she chose a situation that combined high school with community college classes.That pace suited her much better.
» I got a close-up view of what it’s like to be out there in the real world,
» At my first high school, homework was horrible. Every day, every day,
without a high school diploma, without any college education. Finding a
“Here, do this,” with very little explanation, and then the teacher would
job is murder. You cannot work anywhere for more than seven dollars an
go off to help another student. The class size was huge, just packed to the
hour! I called jobs every day in the paper, and even for a door-to-door job
brim, so you got very little attention from the teacher as an individual.
they wouldn’t let me earn more! So I figured out early on that if I didn’t
You went by your school ID number, it was almost like that was your name.
get any more schooling, this was going to be my life. I would be working
I work better if it’s at my own pace, which is what I’m doing now. There’s
maybe three jobs, just to pay for one crappy apartment. And that’s not the
still deadlines, but it’s easier to get things done. They don’t penalize you for
way I want to live. There are people who do that and work very hard at it,
not getting your homework done “this day at this time.” – H A Z E L
and you know, I have respect for them! Because I couldn’t do it. I would
When Niema got to college, she also found its flexibility one of the things she liked best. Not only could she choose the subjects she wanted to study, but she could often choose the times she went to class.
collapse in a quivering mass of flesh. – H A Z E L
Jackie, the student who helped her boyfriend join her at community college, first got focused on college when she saw the future that faced her friends in one of Denver’s poorest high schools.
» I hung out with a lot of people, but they weren’t really into school and
» One of my friends, she didn’t want to go to college because she thought college was too hard. I was like, “Excuse me? No no no.” This is the greatest thing. If I don’t want to wake up before eleven o’clock, I don’t have
that’s probably why I ditched at first too. I thought, “Well, I finally found
to! I get to pick what classes I’m taking and when those classes are. First
people that are cool with me, so I might as well hang out with them,”
quarter, my earliest class was eleven o’clock, and three days out of the
and that’s how I ended up.
week I was done by one. It was like all this free time in the world! Yay!
After a while I told them, “I have to straighten up,” and I was going to class. They started feeling the same way, a little bit. But when I talked
Can’t do it in high school. Doesn’t happen. In college there’s more leeway, and that’s something else a lot of people
to them about going to college, they’re like, “Are you serious? Who goes
don’t know. They go, “Oh, I don’t want people telling me what to learn, I’m
to college here?” Even from the ninth, tenth grade we had a high rate of
so sick and tired of people being on my case. And college is going to be
people dropping out, getting pregnant, or the guys having to drop out
too much work.” And that’s really not the case, you know? I have to take
too, to take care of their girl. I think they kind of wanted that to happen,
three literature classes, and I don’t want to read any more Shakespeare
because they’re so used to that—generation by generation, their parents
ever again in my life. So, my choice? I took an African Literature class,
dropped out of school early. That’s what made me dummy up, like,
this quarter I’m going to take an African-American Lit class, and next year
“I need to wake up, I need to get focused on school.” – J A C K I E
I’m going to take Japanese Literature. You have that choice. College gives you options, and there’s so many things to learn about that you couldn’t find in high school. – N I E M A
12
F I R S T I N T H E FA M I LY
WE CAN DO BETTER
13