Media Writing Final Story and Exam
Your final exam will be a news feature story on the state of the
American Dream.
No rough drafts are required nor will they be accepted. Exams
submitted past the deadline time will be subject to a 10-point
deduction.
No exams will be accepted later than the deadline day unless you
have received written permission to submit after the due date. As
with all course work, cite your sources within the text. No citations
page is required or needed.
Assignment Summary
The story of between 1,250 and 1,350 words will be based on seven to
ten interviews and online research
Your central task is to combine interviews with research and
take stock 0f the American Dream.
What your interviewees share with you—their experiences, their views
and their hopes—will form your story’s core. The research will buttress
the interviews. More on this later.
As we know, the American Dream holds great meaning in the United
States. Historically, it has been a firmly held belief that separates the
United States from the rest of the world.
The website Investopedia offers a good, traditional definition:
Understanding the American Dream
The term was coined by writer and historian James Truslow Adams in
his best-selling 1931 book "Epic of America." He described it as "that
dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller
for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or
achievement." He went on to explain, "It is a difficult dream for the
European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us
ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of
motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in
which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the
fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized
by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances
of birth or position."
The idea of the American Dream has much deeper roots. Its
tenets can be found in the Declaration of Independence, which states:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the
pursuit of Happiness.” In a society based on these principles, an
individual can live life to its fullest as he or she defines it. America also
grew mostly as a nation of immigrants who created a nation where
becoming an American—and passing that citizenship to your
children—didn't require being the child of an American.
Making the dream reality means a comfortable and secure middleclass life, complete with home ownership, college educations paid for
with family college funds, great vacations and a host of other perks. It
has long been an article of faith that if you worked hard enough the
American Dream could be yours.
For many Millennials and even younger Americans, the dream has
become less about money and material possessions, and more about
achieving personal and professional goals.
Yet today there is disturbing evidence that realizing any version of the
dream has become impossible or at minimum a daunting task.
This fundamental change is reflected in widespread voter disaffection. Fairly
recently, the Pew Research Center released a study showing conclusively that the
middle class is shrinking. Many other studies and journalistic reports have reached
the sameconclusion.
What made the American Dream become elusive for so many? There
is little question that the 2008 recession was the basic cause. It marked
the bleakest time in American recent history since the Great Depression.
The toll was reflected in the flood of mortgage defaults and the army
of newly unemployed. Still, others who managed to stay employed saw
their household incomes plunge as spouses lost jobs. According to some
analysts, the erosion of the American middle class began years before
the recession.
Officially, the recession is over. Mortgage defaults are down, as are
unemployment rates. However, few would argue that the economy is
truly robust.
And so there is the accompanying conclusion that the American Dream
is in danger of dying or, in fact, has already died.
A New York Times analysis (posted on the class site) finds that the
American middle class is no longer the world’s wealthiest. Canada holds
that coveted spot. The middle class in several other countries have seen
their incomes increase considerably since 2000, while here at home it
has stagnated.
Nonetheless, the United States remains the number one destination for
immigrants. The promise of the American Dream for many of them is
very much alive and still realized.
We’ve posted suggested interview questions, but in brief, your
interviews should show if your interviewee believes he or she has
achieved the American Dream and is enjoying its fruits today.
Depending on your interviewee’s age, you will want to determine if he
or she has hopes of reaching the dream.
Has your interviewee suffered from the effects of the recession? If so,
how? Is he or she doing well today? Does he or she feel optimistic,
pessimistic or uncertain about the future?
Your first step is to conduct a bit of online research. That will provide
the foundation and background for the story
Your next step is to talk to a good cross-section of people about the
American Dream.
This is not an academic paper, but rather a current portrait of how
people feel about the American Dream and, by extension, how the
country is doing and likely to fare. That will be your focus.
Don’t make this a story that dwells on what happened, but rather on
the current situation and how people view the future.
Your reporting, however, should include research on the American
Dream and the economy. Several news reports and studies have been
posted. They provide superb background and may even be cited, but
sparingly, please. Do not make the mistake of recycling the posted research into
your story. You are expected to do your own digging.
Again, however, the story should most heavily rely on your interviews.
And for the most part, you will talk to regular people. A good mix is
quite important so that you don’t end up with a skewed story.
Thus, take ca re to chat with professionals, blue-collar workers,
students, old people, maybe even someone younger than you.
Your seven to ten interviews need not be long—approximately 15
minutes is a good estimate.
In writing, be mindful of not starting your story in a classic academic
fashion, with loads of data only to introduce your first interview
subject after several paragraphs.
Keeping your focus on people is the most effective way to tell this
story. Remember, you are trying to attract readers. Be sure to press for
anecdotes. They will provide illustrative detail.
The most effective way to write this story is by organizing it
thematically. Your research and interviews will unearth themes: The
American Dream’s golden years, when anyone who worked hard
would achieve it; the classic success stories; immigrants who came to
these shores and struck it rich; those who left their homeland only to
fall short of the dream; younger Americans with no realistic hope of
acquiring the comfortable and secure middle class life their parents
enjoyed.
These themes ought to dictate your story’s organization.
Don’t make the basic mistake of presenting interview summaries
randomly. That would produce a terribly disorganized story with no
narrative thread.
Not all interviews will be of equal quality, so don’t feel
compelled to use all of them. You may want to use a small piece of
an interview. High-quality interviews, on the other hand, should
figure prominently in your story.
You are likely to find this among the more interesting assignments of
your academic career. The core question of whether the American
Dream has seen better days is of undeniable historic importance.
This story will require a good deal of work, so please don’t wait until
the very last minute to start on it.
Set aside at least three days to conduct research and another dayand-a-half to write and rewrite. The story’s quality will to a large
extent depend on the quality of the interviews. Hurried interviews will
be superficial. The same is true of research.
Don’t underestimate the time needed to produce quality
work. If you do, your story and course grade will suffer.
**Important Requirement: At the end of your story, please list
the names and contact information for all of your interviewees. Be
sure before the interview that your interviewees are willing to provide
this information. If they are not, then select someone else to
interview. Failure to include this information will result in a
ten-point deduction.
Consult with us as much as you would like on any aspect of this project.
The goal is to ensure your final story is the very best it can be.
Feature News Writing
Written to entertain,
inform, or inspire a
reader.
Characteristics of Features
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Based on interesting angles
Supported with facts and direct quotes
May be humorous or serious
“Shows” what happened- 5 senses
Can be written in first (I, we, our), second
(you), or third (he, she, they, it) person, but
most often written in third person.
Characteristics of Features
⚫
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Grab the reader’s attention and do not let go
Give depth and implication to an event or
issue
Put people into the story
Play on reader’s emotions and make them
think and care about the story.
Must be descriptive!
Features are about people!
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Describe them physically
Let your reader hear them through their
quotes
See them in action-create action in the story
Feature Leads
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Begin at the beginning
Capture reader’s attention
Introduce focus of story
Set the tone for the story
Ask yourself what it was about the story that made
you want to write it in the first place.
Recall any feelings you had as you wrote the story
Remember, Feature leads are not summaries!!
Types of Feature Leads
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Descriptive Lead
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Suspended Interest/Teaser Lead
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Sets the scene for the reader by visualizing the
event
Mysterious, keeps the reader wondering what the
writer is talking about
Well-chosen word lead
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Uses sentence fragments on purpose (at least
three and they should be parallel in construction)
Types of Feature leads, con’t
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Quote Lead
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Question Lead
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Using a unique quote that will make the reader sit
up and take notice, do not use any quote that
more than one person would say
Use a question that only a few people know the
answer to, or one that people are dying to know
the answer to
Allusion Lead
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Alludes to something or someone well-known
Questions to ask yourself
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What is this story about?
What is the angle of the story?
What focus will the story take?
What quotes do I have that are the most compelling?
What are the most important facts?
What is the best way to get readers to care?
How do I interpret the story without adding my own
opinion?
Types of Features
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News-feature
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Informative feature
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Timely news event with human interest angle
Informs or explains in an interesting way
Personality Sketches
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Convey the personality of the person you are
writing about
Include bio boxes and sidebars
Types of features
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Human-Interest stories
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Based on timely subjects and plays on emotion
Presents human side of news in an interesting
and dramatic fashion
Suspense element and surprise ending
Incidents that are unusual, arouses sympathy, or
amuses makes a good human-interest story
In-depth stories
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Dig behind the facts of a news event
Dig for all the facts and talk to everyone
involved
Quotes
FINAL EXAM INTERVIEW GUIDELINES
The grade you earn for your final exam feature story will depend heavily on the
quality of the interviews you conduct. To help you with the interviews, we have
prepared some questions that are worth including. Of course, you likely will find
others useful, and the interview itself likely will prompt additional questions.
Please fully identify interviewees using first and last names. Here are the
suggested questions:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)
What is your name, age, and profession?
Where were you born and where do you live?
What does the American Dream mean to you?
Have you attained it?
If not, why not?
If so, describe what it took to reach that goal.
Do you think your children will be able to live the American Dream?
Explain why or why not.
For immigrants: how is your life better or worse in America compared to
your homeland?
10) Were you or your family affected by the 2008 recession?
11) Tell me how.
12) Do you expect things to be better in the coming years? Why?
13) Are there concrete measures the federal or state government could take
to improve the economy?
14) Why do you think some people are never able to attain the American
Dream?
15) Is the American Dream unique, or can someone achieve the same
things in another country?
16) Does economic wealth define the dream for you?
Poor Students Struggle as Class Plays a Greater Role in Success - NYTimes.com
December 22, 2012
For Poor, Leap to College Often Ends in a
Hard Fall
By JASON DePARLE
GALVESTON, Tex. — Angelica Gonzales marched through high school in Goth armor — black boots, chains
and cargo pants — but undermined her pose of alienation with a place on the honor roll. She nicknamed
herself after a metal band and vowed to become the first in her family to earn a college degree.
“I don’t want to work at Walmart” like her mother, she wrote to a school counselor.
Weekends and summers were devoted to a college-readiness program, where her best friends, Melissa
O’Neal and Bianca Gonzalez, shared her drive to “get off the island” — escape the prospect of dead-end lives
in luckless Galveston. Melissa, an eighth-grade valedictorian, seethed over her mother’s boyfriends and
drinking, and Bianca’s bubbly innocence hid the trauma of her father’s death. They stuck together so much
that a tutor called them the “triplets.”
Low-income strivers face uphill climbs, especially at Ball High School, where a third of the girls’ class failed
to graduate on schedule. But by the time the triplets donned mortarboards in the class of 2008, their story
seemed to validate the promise of education as the great equalizer.
Angelica, a daughter of a struggling Mexican immigrant, was headed to Emory University. Bianca enrolled
in community college, and Melissa left for Texas State University, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s alma
mater.
“It felt like we were taking off, from one life to another,” Melissa said. “It felt like, ‘Here we go!’ ”
Four years later, their story seems less like a tribute to upward mobility than a study of obstacles in an age
of soaring economic inequality. Not one of them has a four-year degree. Only one is still studying full time,
and two have crushing debts. Angelica, who left Emory owing more than $60,000, is a clerk in a Galveston
furniture store.
Each showed the ability to do college work, even excel at it. But the need to earn money brought one set of
strains, campus alienation brought others, and ties to boyfriends not in school added complications. With
little guidance from family or school officials, college became a leap that they braved without a safety net.
The story of their lost footing is also the story of something larger — the growing role that education plays
in preserving class divisions. Poor students have long trailed affluent peers in school performance, but from
grade-school tests to college completion, the gaps are growing. With school success and earning prospects
ever more entwined, the consequences carry far: education, a force meant to erode class barriers, appears
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Poor Students Struggle as Class Plays a Greater Role in Success - NYTimes.com
to be fortifying them.
“Everyone wants to think of education as an equalizer — the place where upward mobility gets started,” said
Greg J. Duncan, an economist at the University of California, Irvine. “But on virtually every measure we
have, the gaps between high- and low-income kids are widening. It’s very disheartening.”
The growing role of class in academic success has taken experts by surprise since it follows decades of equal
opportunity efforts and counters racial trends, where differences have narrowed. It adds to fears over
recent evidence suggesting that low-income Americans have lower chances of upward mobility than
counterparts in Canada and Western Europe.
Thirty years ago, there was a 31 percentage point difference between the share of prosperous and poor
Americans who earned bachelor’s degrees, according to Martha J. Bailey and Susan M. Dynarski of the
University of Michigan. Now the gap is 45 points.
While both groups improved their odds of finishing college, the affluent improved much more, widening
their sizable lead.
Likely reasons include soaring incomes at the top and changes in family structure, which have left fewer
low-income students with the support of two-parent homes. Neighborhoods have grown more segregated
by class, leaving lower-income students increasingly concentrated in lower-quality schools. And even after
accounting for financial aid, the costs of attending a public university have risen 60 percent in the past two
decades. Many low-income students, feeling the need to help out at home, are deterred by the thought of
years of lost wages and piles of debt.
In placing their hopes in education, the Galveston teenagers followed a tradition as old as the country itself.
But if only the prosperous become educated — and only the educated prosper — the schoolhouse risks
becoming just another place where the fortunate preserve their edge.
“It’s becoming increasingly unlikely that a low-income student, no matter how intrinsically bright, moves
up the socioeconomic ladder,” said Sean Reardon, a sociologist at Stanford. “What we’re talking about is a
threat to the American dream.”
High School
No one pictured the teenagers as even friends, much less triplets. Angelica hid behind dark eyeliner,
Melissa’s moods turned on the drama at home, and Bianca, in the class behind, seemed even younger than
she was. What they had in common was a college-prep program for low-income teenagers, Upward Bound,
and trust in its counselor, Priscilla Gonzales Culver, whom everyone called “Miss G.”
Angelica was the product of a large Mexican-American family, which she sought both to honor and surpass.
Her mother, Ana Gonzales, had crossed the border illegally as a child, gained citizenship and settled the
clan in Galveston, where she ruled by force of will. She once grounded Angelica for a month for coming
home a minute late. With hints of both respect and fear, Angelica never called her “Mom” — only “Mrs.
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Poor Students Struggle as Class Plays a Greater Role in Success - NYTimes.com
Lady.”
Home was an apartment in a subdivided house, with relatives in the adjacent units. Family meals and
family feuds went hand in hand. One of Angelica’s uncles bore scars from his days in a street gang. Her
grandmother spoke little English. With a quirky mix of distance and devotion, Angelica studied German
instead of Spanish and gave the fiesta celebrating her 15th birthday a Goth theme, with fairies and dragons
on the tabletop globes. “Korn chick,” she fancifully called herself, after the dissonant metal band.
But school was all business. “Academics was where I shined,” she said. Her grandmother and aunts worked
at Walmart alongside Mrs. Lady, and Angelica was rankled equally by how little money they made and how
little respect they got. Upward Bound asked her to rank the importance of college on a scale of 1 to 10.
“10,” she wrote.
Melissa also wanted to get off the island — and more immediately out of her house. “When I was about 7,
my mom began dating and hanging around a bunch of drunks,” she wrote on the Upward Bound
application. For her mother, addiction to painkillers and severe depression followed. Her grandparents
offered her one refuge, and school offered another.
“I like to learn — I’m weird,” she said.
By eighth grade, Melissa was at the top of her class and sampling a course at a private high school. She
yearned to apply there but swore the opposite to her mother and grandparents. Protecting families from
their own ambition is a skill many poor students learn. “I knew we didn’t have the money,” Melissa said. “I
felt like I had no right to ask.”
New to Upward Bound, Melissa noticed that one student always ate alone and crowded in beside her. “She
forced her friendship on me,” Angelica said.
Bianca joined the following year with a cheerfulness that disguised any trace of family tragedy. As the eldest
of four siblings, she had spent the years since her father’s death as a backup mother. To Bianca, family
meant everything.
She arrived just in time for the trip at the heart of triplets lore — the Upward Bound visit to Chicago. While
they had known they wanted more than Galveston offered, somewhere between the Sears Tower and
Northwestern University they glimpsed what it might be. The trip at once consecrated a friendship and
defined it around shared goals.
“We wanted to do something better with our lives,” Angelica said.
Ball High was hard on goals. In addition to Bosco, a drug-sniffing dog profiled in the local paper, the
campus had four safety officers to deter fights. A pepper spray incident in the girls’ senior year sent 50
students to the school nurse. Only 2 percent of Texas high schools were ranked “academically
unacceptable.” Ball was among them.
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Poor Students Struggle as Class Plays a Greater Role in Success - NYTimes.com
Melissa now marvels at what a good parent her mother has become to her younger brother after she
stopped drinking and was treated for her depression. But when she returned from the high school trip to
Chicago, the conflicts grew so intense that Miss G. took her in one night. “I really put her through a lot,”
said Melissa’s mother, Pam Craft. “Everything she did, she did on her own — I’m so proud of her.” Miss G.’s
notes variously observed that “there are limited groceries,” “student is overwhelmed” and “she’s basically
raising herself.”
While faulting her mother’s choices in men, Melissa made a troubling choice of her own with her
ambitionless boyfriend. Among the many ways he let her down was getting another girl pregnant. Yet as
many times as they broke up, they got back together again. “He is going to bring her down,” Miss G.
warned.
Despite the turmoil, Melissa earned “commended” marks, the highest level, on half her state skills tests,
edited the yearbook and published two opinion articles in the Galveston newspaper, one of them about her
brother’s struggle with autism. Working three jobs, she missed so much school that she nearly failed to
graduate, but she still finished in the top quarter of her class. It was never clear which would prevail — her
habit of courting disaster or her talent for narrow escapes.
Returning from Chicago, Bianca jumped a grade, which allowed her to graduate with Melissa and Angelica.
Angelica kept making A’s on her way to a four-year grade-point average of 3.9. “Amazingly bright and
dedicated,” one instructor wrote. A score of 1,240 on the math and reading portions of her SAT ranked her
at the 84th percentile nationwide. When the German teacher suddenly quit, the school tapped her to finish
teaching the first-year course.
Outside school, Angelica’s life revolved around her boyfriend, Fred Weaver, who was three years older and
drove a yellow Sting Ray. Fred was devoted — too devoted, Mrs. Lady thought, and she warned Angelica not
to let the relationship keep her from going to college. Fred’s father owned a local furniture store, and
everyone could see that Fred’s dream was to run it with Angelica at his side.
Senior year raced by, with Miss G. doing her best to steer frightened and distracted students though the
college selection process. Despite all the campus visits, choices were made without the intense supervision
that many affluent students enjoy. Bianca, anchored to the island by family and an older boyfriend, chose
community college. Melissa picked Texas State in San Marcos because “the application was easiest.”
Angelica had thought of little beyond Northwestern and was crestfallen when she was rejected. She had sent
a last-minute application to a school in Atlanta that had e-mailed her. Only after getting in did she discover
that she had achieved something special.
Emory cost nearly $50,000 that year, but it was one of a small tier of top schools that promised to meet the
financial needs of any student good enough to be admitted. It had even started a program to relieve the
neediest students of high debt burdens. “No one should have to give up their goals and dreams because
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Poor Students Struggle as Class Plays a Greater Role in Success - NYTimes.com
financial challenges stand in the way,” its Web site says.
Plus an unseen campus a thousand miles away had an innate appeal. “How many times do you get the
chance to completely reinvent yourself?” Angelica said.
Rich-Poor Gap Grows
If Melissa and Angelica felt that heading off to university set them apart from other low-income students,
they were right. Fewer than 30 percent of students in the bottom quarter of incomes even enroll in a fouryear school. And among that group, fewer than half graduate.
Income has always shaped academic success, but its importance is growing. Professor Reardon, the
Stanford sociologist, examined a dozen reading and math tests dating back 25 years and found that the gap
in scores of high- and low-income students has grown by 40 percent, even as the difference between blacks
and whites has narrowed.
While race once predicted scores more than class, the opposite now holds. By eighth grade, white students
surpass blacks by an average of three grade levels, while upper-income students are four grades ahead of
low-income counterparts.
“The racial gaps are quite big, but the income gaps are bigger,” Professor Reardon said.
One explanation is simply that the rich have clearly gotten richer. A generation ago, families at the 90th
percentile had five times the income of those at the 10th percentile. Now they have 10 times as much.
But as shop class gave way to computer labs, schools may have also changed in ways that make parental
income and education more important. SAT coaches were once rare, even for families that could afford
them. Now they are part of a vast college preparation industry.
Certainly as the payoff to education has grown — college graduates have greatly widened their earnings lead
— affluent families have invested more in it. They have tripled the amount by which they outspend lowincome families on enrichment activities like sports, music lessons and summer camps, according to
Professor Duncan and Prof. Richard Murnane of Harvard.
In addition, upper-income parents, especially fathers, have increased their child-rearing time, while the
presence of fathers in low-income homes has declined. Miss G. said there is a reason the triplets relied so
heavily on boyfriends: “Their fathers weren’t there.”
Annette Lareau, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, argues that the affluent also enjoy an
advocacy edge: parents are quicker to intervene when their children need help, while low-income families
often feel intimidated and defer to school officials, a problem that would trail Melissa and Angelica in their
journey through college.
“Middle-class students get the sense the institution will respond to them,” Professor Lareau said. “Working-
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Poor Students Struggle as Class Plays a Greater Role in Success - NYTimes.com
class and poor students don’t experience that. It makes them more vulnerable.”
Matthew M. Chingos of the Brookings Institution has found that low-income students finish college less
often than affluent peers even when they outscore them on skills tests. Only 26 percent of eight-graders
with below-average incomes but above-average scores go on to earn bachelor’s degrees, compared with 30
percent of students with subpar performances but more money.
“These are students who have already overcome significant obstacles to score above average on this test,”
Mr. Chingos said. “To see how few earn college degrees is really disturbing.”
Triplets Start College
Melissa lasted at Texas State for all of two hours. As soon as she arrived, her car battery died, prompting a
tearful call to Miss. G., who arranged a jump. Her dorm mates had parents to haul boxes and hover.
Melissa unpacked alone. With four days left until classes began, she panicked and drove 200 miles back
home.
For all the talk of getting away, her tattoo featured a local boast: she was “B.O.I.” — born on the island. Her
grandparents ordered her back to school. “I really didn’t want to leave” the island, she said.
Midway through the semester she decided she had made a mistake by going to Texas State. She had picked
the wrong time to leave home. She would move back to Galveston, join Bianca at community college and
transfer to a four-year school later. But when she tried to return the financial aid to Texas State, she
discovered it was too late. A long walk across the hilly campus led to an epiphany.
“I realized there was nothing in Galveston for me,” she said. “This is where I need to be.”
Angelica had a costlier setback. For an elite school, Emory enrolls an unusually large number of low-income
students — 22 percent get Pell grants, compared with 11 percent at Harvard — and gives them unusually
large aid packages. But Angelica had failed to complete all the financial aid forms.
Slow to consider Emory, she got a late start on the complex process and was delayed by questions about her
father, whom she did not even know how to reach. Though Emory sent weekly e-mails — 17 of them, along
with an invitation to a program for minority students — they went to a school account she had not learned
to check. From the start, the wires were crossed.
As classes approached, she just got in the car with Mrs. Lady and Fred and drove 14 hours to Atlanta
hoping to work things out. But by then Emory had distributed all of its aid. Even with federal loans and
grants, Angelica was $40,000 short. The only way to enroll was to borrow from a bank.
Forty thousand dollars was an unfathomable sum. Angelica did not tell Mrs. Lady, to protect her from the
worry. She needed a co-signer, and the only person she could ask was Fred. That would bind her future to
her past, but she feared that if she tried to defer, she might not have a future — she might never make it
back.
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Poor Students Struggle as Class Plays a Greater Role in Success - NYTimes.com
“I was like, ‘I don’t care what kind of debt it puts me in — I’ve got to get this done,”‘ she said.
Fred answered her request with his. They got engaged.
A few weeks later, Hurricane Ike hit Galveston, with Katrina-like consequences. About a sixth of the
population never returned. Mrs. Lady lost her apartment and much of what she owned. Fred, consumed
with rebuilding the store, reduced the modest sums he had promised to send Angelica.
Social life was awkward. She often felt she was the only one on campus without a credit card. Her
roommate moved out, with no explanation. But one element of college appealed to Angelica and Melissa
alike: the classes. Other debt-ridden students might wonder why the road to middle-class life passed
through anthropology exams and lectures on art history. But Melissa was happy to ponder tribal life in
Papua New Guinea and Angelica stepped off the 18-hour bus ride home and let slip an appreciative word
about German film.
“My family said ‘O.K., now you go to some big fancy school,’ ” she said.
With A’s, B’s, C’s and D’s, her report card looked like alphabet soup. “I was ready for Galveston College — I
wasn’t ready for Emory,” Angelica said. But she salvaged a 2.6 GPA and went home for the summer happy.
“I thought the hard part was over,” she said.
At the end of the summer, Angelica and Melissa marked their ascent as college women with the perfect road
trip. Melissa had decided to become a speech therapist. Angelica would practice child psychology.
Somewhere between the rainbow in Louisiana and the blues bar in Orlando, they talked of launching a
practice to help poor children. Fortune smiled all week.
“We were where we should be and we had the world at our feet,” Melissa said.
Melissa
She returned to a campus that was starting to feel like home. She had a roommate she liked and a job she
loved, as a clerk in a Disney store. But despite the feeling of deep change — or perhaps because of it — she
got back together with her high-school boyfriend. “That was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done,” she
said.
In the middle of Melissa’s sophomore year they became engaged. He moved near the campus to live with
her, and Melissa charged most of their expenses on her credit cards. He was enrolling in the Job Corps
program, and they agreed they would pay down the bills together after he became an electrician.
Melissa hit an academic pothole — a C in a communications course, which kept her out of the competitive
speech therapy program. But she decided to aim for graduate-school training, and her other grades soared,
placing her on the dean’s list both semesters her junior year. When her mother made a rare campus visit,
Melissa hurried to show her the prominent display on the student center wall.
http://www.nytimes.com/.../23/education/poor-students-struggle-as-class-plays-a-greater-role-in-success.html?hp&_r=0&pagewanted=print[12/23/2012 7:18:44 AM]
Poor Students Struggle as Class Plays a Greater Role in Success - NYTimes.com
“That was one of the proudest moments of my life,” Melissa said.
Just before her senior year, Melissa planned a trip to celebrate her 21st birthday. Preparing to leave, she
discovered her money was missing. Only one person had her bank code. After finishing Job Corps, her
boyfriend was jobless once again and acting odd — as if he were using drugs.
No one but Melissa was surprised. Although she returned the engagement ring, she could not return the
$4,000 in credit card debt he had promised to help pay. With her finances and emotions in disarray, she
started her senior year so depressed she hung up black curtains so she could sleep all day. She skipped
class, doubled her work hours, and failed nearly every course.
“I started partying, and I was working all the time because I had this debt,” she said.
If the speed of her decline stands out, so does her lack of a safety net. It is easy to imagine a more affluent
family stepping in with money or other support. Miss G. sent her the names of some campus therapists but
Melissa did not call. She waited for an internal bungee cord to break the fall. She came within one F of
losing her financial aid, then aced last summer’s classes.
She is now a fifth-year senior, on track to graduate next summer, and her new boyfriend is studying to be
an engineer. At home, she had a way of finding the wrong people. “I haven’t found any wrong people out
here,” she said.
With more than $44,000 in loans, she can expect to pay $250 a month for the next quarter century, on top
of whatever she may borrow for graduate school. She hides the notices in a drawer and harbors no regrets.
“Education — you can’t put a price on it,” she said. “No matter what happens in your life, they can’t take
your education away.”
Bianca
Bianca missed the Florida road trip, though no one remembers why. She liked to talk of getting away, until
it came time to go.
Among the perils that low-income students face is “under-matching,” choosing a close or familiar school
instead of the best they can attend.
“The more selective the institution is, the more likely kids are to graduate,” said Mr. Chingos, the
Brookings researcher. “There are higher expectations, more resources and more stigma to dropping out.”
Bianca was under-matched. She was living at home, dating her high-school boyfriend and taking classes at
Galveston College. A semester on the honor roll only kept her from sensing the drift away from her plan to
transfer to a four-year school.
Her grandfather’s cancer, and chemotherapy treatments, offered more reasons to stay. She had lived with
him since her father had died. Leaving felt like betrayal. “I thought it was more important to be at home
http://www.nytimes.com/.../23/education/poor-students-struggle-as-class-plays-a-greater-role-in-success.html?hp&_r=0&pagewanted=print[12/23/2012 7:18:44 AM]
Poor Students Struggle as Class Plays a Greater Role in Success - NYTimes.com
than to be selfish and be at school,” she said.
The idea that education can be “selfish” — a belief largely alien among the upper-middle class — is one poor
students often confront, even if it remains unspoken. “Family is such a priority, especially when you’re a
Hispanic female,” Miss G. said. “You’re afraid you’re going to hear, ‘You’re leaving us, you think you’re
better.’ ”
In her second year of community college, Bianca was admitted to a state university a hundred miles away.
Miss. G. and her mother urged her to go. Her mind raced with reasons to wait.
“I didn’t want to leave and have my grandfather die.”
“I had to help my mom.”
“I think I got burned out.”
Bianca stayed in Galveston, finished her associate degree, and now works as a beach-bar cashier and a spa
receptionist. She still plans to get a bachelor’s degree, someday.
“I don’t think I was lazy. I think I was scared,” she said. In the meantime, “life happened.”
Angelica
After the financial aid disaster in her first year, Angelica met the next deadline and returned as a
sophomore with significant support. Still, she sensed she was on shakier ground than other low-income
students and never understood why. The answer is buried in the aid archives: Emory repeatedly inflated
her family’s income without telling her.
Angelica reported that her mother made $35,000 a year and paid about half of that in rent. With her
housing costs so high, Emory assumed the family had extra money and assigned Mrs. Lady an income of
$51,000. But Mrs. Lady was not hiding money. She was paying inflated post-hurricane rent with the help of
Federal disaster aid, a detail Angelica had inadvertently omitted.
By counting money the family did not have, Emory not only increased the amount it expected Angelica to
pay in addition to her financial aid. It also disqualified her from most of the school’s touted program of
debt relief. Under the Emory Advantage plan the school replaces loans with grants for families making less
than $50,000 a year. Moving Angelica just over the threshold placed her in a less-generous tier and forced
her to borrow an additional $15,000 before she could qualify. The mistake will add years to her repayment
plan.
She discovered what had happened only recently, after allowing a reporter to review her file with Emory
officials. “There was no other income coming in,” she said. “I can’t believe that they would do that and not
say anything to us. That seems completely unfair.”
Emory officials said they had to rely on the information Angelica provided and that they will not make
http://www.nytimes.com/.../23/education/poor-students-struggle-as-class-plays-a-greater-role-in-success.html?hp&_r=0&pagewanted=print[12/23/2012 7:18:44 AM]
Poor Students Struggle as Class Plays a Greater Role in Success - NYTimes.com
retroactive adjustments.
“The method that was used in her case was very standard methodology,” said J. Lynn Zimmerman, the
senior vice provost who oversees financial aid. “I think that what’s unusual is that she really didn’t advocate
for herself or ask for any kind of review. If she or her mother would have provided any additional
information it would have triggered a conversation.”
Unaware she had any basis for complaint, Angelica found a campus job she loved, repairing library books.
It was solitary and artistic work, and it attracted a small sisterhood of women who appreciated her
grandmother’s tamales and her streak of purple hair. One day her boss, Julie Newton, overheard her
excitedly talking about Hegel.
“She was an extremely intelligent woman and an unusual one,” she said.
Yet even as Angelica’s work hours grew, so did the rigor of her coursework. Meetings with faculty advisers
were optional and Angelica did not consult hers. When it came time to declare a major, she had a B-plus
average in the humanities and D’s in psychology. She chose psychology.
By the end of her second year, she felt exhausted and had grades to show it. Her long-distance love life was
exhausted, too, and she briefly broke up with Fred. She went home for the summer to work at Target and
dragged herself back to a troubled junior year.
She moved off campus to save money but found herself spending even more. “I would sit and debate
whether I could buy a head of lettuce,” she said. Fred was no longer helping, and her relationship with him
snapped. That he had backed a $40,000 loan only made the split harder. They had been together since she
was 15.
“It was days of back and forth, crying,” she said.
This was no time to tackle Psychology 200, a course on research methods required of majors. The devotion
of the professor, Nancy Bliwise, had earned her a campus teaching award. But her exacting standards and
brusque manner left student opinion divided.
“Quite possibly the greatest professor at Emory,” wrote one contributor to the Web site Rate My Professor.
Others found her “condescending,” “horribly disrespectful,” and “plain out mean.”
Midway through the semester, Angelica just stopped coming to class. Professor Bliwise called her in and
found her despondent. “She was emotionless and that scared me,” the professor said in an interview.
Angelica said she had to work too much to keep up, but could not drop the course without losing her fulltime status and her aid. So she planned to take an “F.”
Alarmed, Professor Bliwise raised other options, then asked — empathetically, the professor thought — if
Angelica had considered cheaper schools. She herself had worked her way through Cleveland State then
earned a doctorate at the University of Chicago.
http://www.nytimes.com/.../23/education/poor-students-struggle-as-class-plays-a-greater-role-in-success.html?hp&_r=0&pagewanted=print[12/23/2012 7:18:44 AM]
Poor Students Struggle as Class Plays a Greater Role in Success - NYTimes.com
Angelica sat stone-faced, burning. All she could hear was someone saying she was too poor for Emory. “It
was pretty clear if I couldn’t afford to be there, I shouldn’t waste her time,” she said.
That was the beginning of the end. Angelica failed that course and three others her junior year, as her
upside-down circumstances left her cheating a $200,000 education for a $9-an-hour job. She was not one
to make it easy, but Emory never found a way to intervene. “Is there a way to reach out to her?” Professor
Bliwise asked in an e-mail to the dean’s office.
The dean’s office left messages. Angelica acknowledged that she was slow to respond but said she got no
answer when she did. The school did an electronic key card check to verify whether she was still on
campus. More professors expressed concerns. “Personal issues are interfering with her ability to
concentrate,” one warned. Angelica contacted campus counseling but said all the appointments had been
taken.
Emory can hardly be cast as indifferent to low-income students. It spends $94 million a year of its own
money on financial aid and graduates its poorest students nearly as often as the rest. Its failure to reach
Angelica may have come up short, but that is partly a measure of the sheer distance it was trying to bridge.
When Angelica finally found a way to express herself, she did so silently. Her final piece for a sculpture
class was a papier-mâché baby, sprouting needles like a porcupine. No one could mistake the statement of
her own vulnerability.
“It was a shocking piece,” said her professor, Linda Armstrong. “She had a way of using art to tap into her
deepest emotions and feelings. I don’t think she understood how good she was.”
Angelica spent the next summer waiting for an expulsion letter that never came. Another missed deadline
cost her several thousand dollars in aid in her senior year, and Emory mistakenly concluded that Mrs. Lady
had made a $70,000 down payment on a house. (In describing the complicated transaction with a
nonprofit group, Angelica failed to note that most of the money came from a program for first-time home
buyers.) Emory officials said the mistake did not affect her aid, but the difference between the school’s costs
and her package of loans and grants swelled to $12,000 — a sum she could not possibly meet.
She skipped more classes and worked longer hours.
“I felt, I’m going to be on academic probation anyway, I might as well work and pay my rent until they
suspend me.”
Finally, Emory did — forcing her to take a semester away with the option of reapplying.
The tale could be cast as an elite school failing a needy student or a student unwilling to be helped, but
neither explanation does justice to an issue as complicated as higher education and class.
“It’s a little of both,” said Joanne Brzinski, a dean who oversees academic advising. “We reached out to her,
http://www.nytimes.com/.../23/education/poor-students-struggle-as-class-plays-a-greater-role-in-success.html?hp&_r=0&pagewanted=print[12/23/2012 7:18:44 AM]
Poor Students Struggle as Class Plays a Greater Role in Success - NYTimes.com
but she didn’t respond. I always fault myself when students don’t do as well as we’d like them to.”
“It’s such a sad story,” she added. “She had the ability.”
Ms. Newton, Angelica’s former supervisor at the library, wondered if her conflict went beyond money, to a
fear of the very success she sought. “I wouldn’t go as far as to say she was committing self-sabotage, but the
thought crossed my mind,” she said. “For someone so connected to family and Grandma and the tamales, I
wondered if she feared that graduating would alienate her.”
A long bridge crosses the bay to Galveston Island. Angelica returned a year ago the way she had left, with
Mrs. Lady and Fred at her side. She is $61,000 in debt, seeing Fred again, and making $8.50 an hour at his
family’s furniture store. No one can tell whether she is settling down or gathering strength for another
escape.
A dinner with Melissa and Bianca a while back offered the comfort of friends who demand no explanations.
Melissa suggested they all enroll at Texas State. But Bianca does not know what to study, and Angelica said
that she had gone too far to surrender all hopes of an Emory degree.
“I could have done some things better, and Emory could have done some things better,” she said. “But I
don’t blame either one of us. Everyone knows life is unfair — being low-income puts you at a disadvantage.
I just didn’t understand the extent of the obstacles I was going to have to overcome.”
Kitty Bennett contributed research.
http://www.nytimes.com/.../23/education/poor-students-struggle-as-class-plays-a-greater-role-in-success.html?hp&_r=0&pagewanted=print[12/23/2012 7:18:44 AM]
Unemployment Stories, Vol. 28: 'I'm Inclined to Simply Disappear Into Silence'
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more than 12 million Americans remain
unemployed. Millions more have dropped out of the labor force entirely. The upcoming
sequester deal could cause sharp cuts in unemployment benefits. Each week, we bring you true
stories of unemployment, from the unemployed themselves. This is what's happening out
there.
The other Hollywood
I am a twenty-five year old woman living in Michigan and I don't see the point in living.
I did everything I was supposed to do: I graduated from high school, I went to
university. I got my bachelors and I worked hard. I love to work, I have a strong ethic
for it, and I'm at my best when I'm busy. But there is so little decent employment out
there and I wonder what all that time and money spent on school was worth.
I got my degree in Film just when movies were starting to get big in my state. "The
Hollywood of the Midwest," I heard it called. The timing was serendipitous and like
most young people I felt I was destined for great things. But those film jobs were scarce
and competitive— hiring only so many people in state— and no one seemed interested
in a fresh grad.
It has been many months since and after an internship and a deferred paying job I
didn't see a cent for, I'm back living with my folks. I'd go elsewhere for work, but I
honestly can't afford it. I'd take the terrible, boring jobs so many of my contemporaries
accept without complaint, but I'm so depressed over my state in life I can't seem to find
the energy to care enough to survive. I have been so very lucky and blessed to have
parents that support me both financially (though I wish so hard I could finally be totally
http://gawker.com/5986713/unemployment-stories-vol-28-im-inclined-to-simply-disappear-into-silence[2/25/2013 1:24:47 PM]
FURRIES
12:20 PM
‘Furry Convention of Unacceptable
Adults’ Scars One Hotel Guest’s
Cheerleading Children for Life
Seth MacFarlane was not a very good Oscar host.
But you know who liked him a ton? New Elitist
Charles Murray. Yes homo.
KRISTEN STEWART
11:45 AM
Why Did Kristen Stewart Look Like
She’d Been Hit by a Car at the
Oscars?
ART HEIST
11:20 AM
‘Humans of New York’
Photographer: DKNY Stole My
Photos After I Turned Them Down
[UPDATE]
Another person was struck by an oncoming train
this morning, making this the eighth subwayrelated injury in six days.
XO JANE
10:55 AM
1,139-Word Essay Composed about
the Experience of Receiving a Lena
Dunham Tweet
JENNIFER LAWRE…
Jennifer Lawrence
10:50 AM
Did a Shot Before Going Into the
Oscars Press Room and Here’s the
Result
Unemployment Stories, Vol. 28: 'I'm Inclined to Simply Disappear Into Silence'
independent) and emotionally. But my dad (very reasonably) said he won't continue to
help after I turn 26. I know it's supposed to give me initiative to get my life together,
but even with this date looming I just can't find the energy to care about selfpreservation.
Lately the guilt sends me combing the web in the wee hours, searching for a soothing
solidarity… so finding these volumes of Unemployment Stories is like a hand reaching
out to grab hold of. But I still feel worthless. Useless. A waste of space and life. And the
response to my bemoaning is almost always some variant of "I have no sympathy for
you." It's like no one wants to listen and frankly I'm inclined to simply disappear into
silence.
The Great Depression, part two
Over the last 10 years I have had 7 different jobs all which I have been laid off from or
fired due not fitting in with the culture of the companies ideas. I have always worked
hard and have tried to impress the powers that be so I could move up in the company.
All I have ever wanted is to take care of my wife and kids. It never really worked out, for
some reason I seemed to always be picked out of a group as the first to go if there was a
firing or lay off. I never understood that, because I always tried my best never missed
work never messed around, but never really buddy up with the powers that be. Each
time I got laid off or fired my confidence became more and more non existing. Now I
have a part time job that doesn"t pay that great and my world is crashing before my
very eyes.
I am helpless to stop it. Nobody will hire me for jobs that I used to have and I have to
fluff up every resume to look like I know what the hell I am doing. I have always
struggled to find out who I am and what I want to do, I think this comes from being
adopted and never knowing really where I came from. I never had a father figure in my
life to show me how to be a father, a husband or a provider. I have been winging it my
whole life. My mother was divorced twice and was always chasing my older brothers
since I was the good and responsible child. I was alone and had to fend for myself. I
struggled through high school like most kids, but never really thought I was college
material because everyone always told me so. The only one who believed in me was my
wife so four years into our marriage I had a college degree. I was working part time for a
marketing company through college and they hired me full time when I graduated. It
was a great time in our life my wife had just got her master's and I got my
undergraduate plus daughter was about to be born. My mother came down from Utah to
watch daughter while we both worked. I was promoted at work to a field manager
shortly after that. It was a great time. Then we were having rolling blackouts throughout
the summer I had no Idea that companies where going through difficult times. It was
my first real job at thirty years old. Then in the late summer early fall I was laid off
from my job. I had no idea this was coming, I just got promoted. So this was the first
time in my life that I was out of work. I had always had some type of job. Seven months
I had no work and watching a new baby life was different but I was working through it.
I got a job working for a manufacturing company as a sales guy traveling all over the
country. I loved it seeing new places meeting new people. I was making 55,000 a year!
A big step up from where I had been. It was hard work always being held accountable to
a guy who was younger than me and smarter than me. He had a Harvard MBA and let
everyone know it. I was up to the challenge. I work there for almost two years. The
company was struggling due to the fact there were two different bosses and two
different visions. So the company was sold to another company within our industry. I
survived the first rounds of cuts, I lasted a year there. The headquarters was in LA and
we were stationed in Orange County, so after a year they let everyone go. Another
http://gawker.com/5986713/unemployment-stories-vol-28-im-inclined-to-simply-disappear-into-silence[2/25/2013 1:24:47 PM]
IKEA
10:09 AM
IKEA Stops Serving Meatballs After
Some Found to Contain Horse
Meat
HIGHER LEARNING
9:40 AM
If You Go to Vet School, You Will
Be Broke
JIMMY KIMMEL
9:17 AM
‘Movie: The Movie’ The Sequel:
Jimmy Kimmel Brings All of
Hollywood Together to Make Fun
of Movies
THE OSCARS
3:46 AM
Here Are All of Seth MacFarlane’s
Predictable Sexist, Homophobic,
and Racist Oscar Jokes
THE OSCARS
2:28 AM
First Lady of U.S. Awards ‘Best
Picture’ Oscar to CIA Propaganda
MORE STORIES…
Unemployment Stories, Vol. 28: 'I'm Inclined to Simply Disappear Into Silence'
setback and we just had our third baby. Life was great but disappointing that I was out
of work again. Meantime my wife was working and really enjoying being a mother and
having a life outside the home. This time I was out of work for almost a year and a half.
I got job at Qwest software a really great company here in also Viejo; I was now making
a little over 65,000 and finally thought my dream job was here. It was close, I love the
people and the company culture it was ideal for me. I worked there for a year and a
half, always got along with my co workers and bosses. Then it happened again, I was
laid off. This was getting depressing; I mean what is wrong with me. Is it the economy?
Or is it really me and I just enjoy telling my wife I am out of work again.
As the depression gets more and more severe I fall into a fog that I can't get out of. I
hate myself for not being the provider that I should be, I am mad at my kids for
reminding me that I am home watching them instead of working and supporting them. I
am angry with my wife since she is cold and distant and un-empathic towards my
feelings and depression. She wants me to take medicine I refuse, she wants me to go to
a therapist but I don't want to, but when we go she doesn't want to go anymore because
the doctor is not ripping me the whole time. They actually tell my wife she needs to
work on things. This infuriates her and then stops going. It was my entire fault and
these doctors are too blind to see it. When I got laid off at Qwest my dream job I was so
depressed that I could care less who I hurt or what I said. I mean I was really hurting
and nobody cared. My wife wasn't always mad at me, she never told me how sorry she
was that I was hurting so badly nor did she comfort me in my darkest hours. My
mother never talked to me and when she did it made me mad because she would think
it was all my wife's fault. Nobody from the church came over and said how can we help
or what can we do. I was alone and hurt and depressed. Not a very good environment
for the wife and kids. I was always angry, I mean nobody would talk to me it was all
bottled up and I was explode when I couldn't take it anymore. I was miserable to live
with never knowing when I would be set off. All I ever wanted was my wife to help me
and to understand the pain I was going through. My lashing out was the only way I
could get her attention. I was dying a slow death and nobody cared. I was screaming for
help but it was like seeing a couple fights in a store and everyone watches but does
nothing. I was out of work for almost two years. Any normal person would have ended
their life and been done with it.
In the last two years my wife served me divorce papers twice and filed a restraining
order against me and change the locks to the house. Told me it was over and I was dead
to her. This is all the while that I am in a depression that was so bad that I was sleeping
in the streets for two months. Did I deserve my wife to take action; yes something had
to be done to get me to realize that I needed to change. I was at a crossroads in my life.
What will history end up writing about me? Was I going to give up and just end it or
was I going to change a fight for the family that I love. I decided to fight, I decided
change the way I acted to take my medicine and to treat My wife like a princess and the
wonderful mother that she is. It was rough at first she didn't want me around she didn't
want me near her. I cried everyday just wanting her to accept me back into the fold of
the family unit. She wanted me to move, she wanted me out of her life. I fought it
because it was worth it. I never wanted to go back to the way I was before. Finally I got
a job selling copiers door to door to businesses. It was a tough job, but it was income
and I was happy for the work. Things were going well between my wife and I, we went
on family vacation and had the best time ever. Our relationship seemed to be healing.
Then over the summer, I got fired for not selling enough copiers per month, like I said it
was a tough job but I was willing to do anything to make it work. So back to no money
and the pressure on my wife, and more depression to follow. Although I keep taking my
medicine, it is rough. I am wondering what the hell is wrong with me. We fight more; we
bicker about the stupidest things. I am so paranoid that every time that I see her talking
I think she and her friends are conspiring against me. Don't get me wrong I understand
why my wife doesn't want to do this anymore. Either do I, but I can't and won't give up
on us. I understood why she wrote me a letter for the third time in a two year span
telling me she wants out. You would think that I would get it, hey stupid she wants out
http://gawker.com/5986713/unemployment-stories-vol-28-im-inclined-to-simply-disappear-into-silence[2/25/2013 1:24:47 PM]
Unemployment Stories, Vol. 28: 'I'm Inclined to Simply Disappear Into Silence'
of the relationship. I can't something bigger than myself is driving me to stay, to not
give up...
Nobody talks about how bad the economy really is, all the media portrays is the life
styles on the rich and how everyone else is doing fine in this economy. Nobody talks
about what is really going on in the country that we are living in the same times as our
grandparents, the great depression part two, although this time it is harder because you
have everyone in the world instantly telling you that it is your fault for not being a
better provider. If you can't make it with support from family and friends, then there is
no hope.
Such a creature as me
Let me preface this by saying my story is not as compelling as the others I have read in
your articles. I still feel I should write about it, at least as a therapeutic exercise.
As of two days ago, I am 24. I graduated high school with fine grades and was attending
a 2-year college for my associate's degree when I had a minor health scare. Well, not so
much a health scare as a slow decline in my physical state. I had become deformed over
the past several years because of some malformed vertebrae in my spine. The result was
a severely kyphotic back (hunchback) and a bowed chest. I realize I've gotten a bit off
track here, but bear with me.
I stopped attending school out of shame for my appearance. It seemed that everyone
around me was normal and there was just no place for such a creature as me. I was only
a couple of classes short of my AA, but I was not going back. So I started applying to
jobs. I figured if I could get some income going, I could at least finally move out of my
parents' house. I applied all over town and never heard back from anyone. I didn't have
any references or work experience so I was never seriously considered. I wasn't too
upset though, because I have never had any interest in going outside. I always see
normal people and become immensely spiteful.
I realize there are many people far worse off than I am, but those aren't the people you
see when you have such a condition. You see the people who are making easy progress
through life, buying houses and starting families. It becomes harder and harder to make
an effort to apply when you know you'll just be starting at the bottom again, always
working towards what they got years ago. It's easier just to wait until the pot reaches
the boiling point and let yourself cook.
Working those connections
I'm writing this; in its place, I am not writing my final essay for grad school. I was
moved to write after realizing that I was budgeting even my words for the day.
I just turned 27. I did everything "right": went to college, graduated with minimal debt,
studied in an area that was professional (accounting, CPA track). As if that mattered in
2008, when no one was hiring. Or 2009, when I graduated into what seems now like an
endless room of people my parents' age waiting for a callback. I had four years of
professional experience, but that did not matter. I had paid my dues after solving every
little problem for attorneys as a file clerk. Suffering actually nets you nothing, which was
especially awful when I couldn't collect unemployment. I was an intern at a Big Four
accounting firm; there were CPAs in line for accounts receivable jobs.
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Unemployment Stories, Vol. 28: 'I'm Inclined to Simply Disappear Into Silence'
And holy hell did things turn bleak. Through social media I had built a vast network of
potential business contacts. And I really mean that, despite what people think of the
Internet and its noise. I knew commercial real estate agents in California, lawyers in
New York, used car dealerships in Texas and medical specialists in Utah. Freaking Utah.
I lost touch with some of those people, and I no longer hear from many of them. It
wasn't simply a recession, where you couldn't get a job at Walmarts. In the years since
2009, it's as though some of those people died. Prospects abroad dried up and blew
away and only the local connections I see face to face existed. I had never heard such
silence.
I worked those connections to the bone, and it did pay off: I landed a parttime job with
"fulltime" responsibilities, less pay and no benefits. But it was something on a resume I
had been building since I was 17 and goddamnit, I wasn't going to stop that now.
That job was so awful, the environment so toxic, I can only say this: the high point of
that experience was a potential cancer diagnosis. If I was going to die, I thought, I could
just give up. No one could blame me for not having insurance; no one could ever say
that I hadn't tried. And seriously, tried at what? As with everyone in my generation,
there's an ever-present voice in the back of my head yelling at me for not doing better,
or "trying harder" (what the fuck does that even mean?) or struggling with the guilt of
loathing a job but being unable to not work.
I didn't have cancer. I lost the job to an employee's child who was going to work for
free. She was more than welcome to it. I have since nearly finished a second bachelor's
and am applying to grad school. I am so afraid of looking for work again. I am terrified
of what I am going to find when I try to get out of my parent's basement. I have no idea
what I am going to do when I complete this program with ever more debt.
Dear diary
Today, after being unemployed for three weeks and one day, I have decided that I have
no future. I have no future because, I had plans and goals that have yet to be realized
despite how creative I try to be, despite how many cover letter drafts I write and
resumes that I revamp. I am bright, articulate, driven, motivated with decent experience
and a graduate degree and yet these three confidence draining weeks point to the fact
that I have no future. There is so little that I can apply for out there and even a smaller
number still that I get interviewed for. Patience was never one of my strong suits but, I
didn't think that after working since I was 14 and going to school for most of my life
that I would not be able to land a position that required education above ‘some high
school.' I have applied to, on average three jobs a day since 11/14/2012 and have gone
on a total of three interviews; two of which were for jobs that I applied for in early
November. One of which, was a job I had held earlier. No one calls you back after you
have donated your time to an in person meeting, no one cares. I had interviewed for a
job on Friday 11/30/12, a job that just feels right. The company is growing, I have a
networking in and the office is so beautiful that it just speaks to me. I keep checking my
phone in hopes that, they call back soon. They telephoned Monday to ask me a question
regarding our conversation. The human resources director could not remember whether
or not I left a prior position to pursue my graduate degree or left after receiving in. I
still can't decide if that is a good sign or a bad. Hopefully, a good one – meaning they
cared enough to want to have all of the facts right. I spoke briefly to my networking in
and he says that as far as he knows, they haven't made a decision yet. I am going to
send out formalize thank you notes in addition to the thank you emails that I have
already sent. I am hoping that it sways them. I never thought that at 25, I would feel as
though everything is so bleak I've searched for almost three years now to find a job in
my graduate degree field with no avail. I have however spent plenty of time in retail
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Unemployment Stories, Vol. 28: 'I'm Inclined to Simply Disappear Into Silence'
looking for a way in and up. I did make it to department manager for a large retail
chain and to assistant store manager for a smaller one. But still, I was hoping, for more
based on interpersonal skills, experience and school. No such luck. I call it luck because
ambition and motivation have failed. It is exhausting to be driven and go nowhere,
although, I assume that would make me a great NASCAR driver. Just keep driving until
the race ends, go fast, go hard. You still end up going nowhere.
They say try this job website or that. They say network. I have regularly gone to
networking events since graduation in May 2010. I smile, I firmly shake hands and I
give strangers my business card and resume. Not only that, I give them a piece of my
desire to land a career. Floating from retail positions, only builds my resume in one
direction. They don't see that I have counseled, trained and developed a team. When
they see retail, they picture me with a name tag, behind a cash register, getting yelled at
by some middle aged slob because I didn't fold that shirt to her liking before putting in
the bag.
Here is what you should see, someone bright and ambitious. Ask me about my
experience in the Academic Judiciary or as Treasurer for Student Government. See my
presentation skills, in my stories about being a Teaching Assistant and running training
seminars for the staff and for other building leaders. Understand, that although I fit the
birth year definition of a Millennial that I am not shiftless or lazy or living off my
parents with a big entitled grin on my face. Understand that the customer services that I
have learned from retail, translate to being able to placate delicate situations and show
that my interpersonal skills are among the better out there. Read my cover letters –
specifically tailored to each position that I apply for. See that they are not only position
specific but tell stories that my resume cannot. See the story about working with autistic
youth or volunteering for an arts council and homeless shelter. See what I see in myself
and you will see why not interviewing me wasn't a mutually beneficial decision. But,
perspective employers can't see that, no matter how pressed my suit is at networking
events, no matter how calm, informed and articulate I am during interviews. And
because they don't see anything in me, I am starting to doubt myself and once that
doubt fully creeps in, I truly will have no future.
My daughter's unemployment
This is not my unemployment story, but the toll that my daughter's unemployment has
taken on me and her. I was lucky. I got a master's degree and had job security for life. A
job in 30 days after graduating. My daughter has a master" degree in Library Science
and is underemployed at a library that seems to be hell bent on proving that no one who
works there and then earns the degree will get anywhere. She works part time. She has
been working on a computer certificate and is in an internship for web design but still
no offers of employment or any recognition from her employer. It is disheartening to
hear more fortunate family members behave as if she is not trying hard enough. One
member told me"well she isn't getting any younger." She must apply to 20 jobs a week
for the past 3 years. It has made me depressed an anxious about her future to the extent
that I can barely sleep some nights. I think about the waste of her talent. She graduated
with honors from college and a high GPA from high school even with learning
disabilities and ADHD. She was bullied throughout grade school but still fought her way
through. Still no reward only criticism. I want to avoid family and friends whose
children have had more luck. One friend especially rubs it in. I have lost faith in
America. My father was a WWII vet disabled in the Battle of the Bulge (but he still
worked all his life) and why did he do that - so his granddaughter could be treated like
scum and passed over for employment.
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Unemployment Stories, Vol. 28: 'I'm Inclined to Simply Disappear Into Silence'
Previously
The full archive of our "Unemployment Stories" series can be found here.
[Thanks to everyone who wrote in. You can send your own unemployment story here.]
47 discussions in response to Hamilton Nolan
DarkFriend and 1 more an hour ago
REPLY
Indiscriminate… and 18 more
REPLY
an for
hourthe
ago
Anyone interested in putting together a medical fund
24 year old with the spinal REPLY
problem? Surely there's a surgery and therapy thatGawker,
could help
straighten
out.
why(literally)
did you publish
thehim
letter
titled, "Great Depression, Part Two" ???
The man is a domestic violence abuser. He
admits to "exploding" in anger at his wife
and kids. She got a restraining order against
emdroid and 1 more 36 minutes ago
him. But then, because of the nature of
the
REPLY
ofdesired
domestic
violence,
took
I consider myself blessed to have met professionalscycle
in my
field
of workshe
who
hadhim
back.
struggled through crappy jobs (retail management, food service) for several years before
"making it". It showed me that you aren't failing if you haven't found your footing in your
You should not have published his letter.
career path yet, but you will fail if you refuse to move forward and take the jobs you can get to
His letter is the longest, by far -- no
support your longterm dream. It is possible to end up in a career path with a promising future
surprise, because he seems so absolutely
but it's not usually the first thing that happens after you graduate undergrad. Maybe back in
self-focused, selfish and narcissistic -- and
the day, but not anymore. The "I did everything right" mentality seems to lead people to
all it does is justify his abuse of his wife and
conclude that you'll attain that dream just because you went to school. More »
children. "Unemployment Stories" is a great
feature you guys do, but to give voice to this
violent abuser -- come on. More »
GingerBelvoir and 5 more
REPLY
2 hours ago
To the Film grad from Michigan: Cleveland
is getting a lot of film work these days. The
Captain America sequel is filming here this
summer and they just announced on the
news last week that they are accepting
Thidrekr and 2 more 2 hours ago
resumes for work on the movie (I don't
REPLY
know the website, sorry, but try one of our
The woman living in Michigan either needs to set her
working
in local
localsights
newslower--consider
affiliates - wkyc.com.
That's
TV news in some capacity (there are more than just
journalists
needed)--or
move awhere
where
I saw the
story). There's
lot ofthe
film
action in film is--New York City or Los Angeles. work in Toronto, too. I know you said it's
easycompetitive
for you to move
but tax
perhaps
those
Michigan, in the last few years, introduced a seriesnot
of very
film/TV
credits,
so
areas
are
close
enough
for
you
that
a
move
perhaps I can see where the initial allure started, but it's a very unstable environment and they
I feel
for you...it
seems
got burned when the state's GOP governor pushed is
tofeasible.
get the tax
credits
revoked
and like film
industry
work
in
Michigan
just
dried is
uplikely
Hollywood immediately fled. The credits were restored from what I hear, but Michigan
overnight.
Goodwhen
luck Ontario,
to you and
all of
thea
never going to be a top destination for film production,
especially
which
has
other
letter full
writers
here. industries and
highly supportive government, stable tax credits and
an army
of existing
qualified individuals, is next door. More »
DJHads and 2 more
REPLY
an hour ago
These stories go to show how many bad
degree options there are in college. Listen, I
feel for all of these people, but I cannot for
the life of me figure out how you can not
even get a job.
When I got out of college, I couldn't get even
a sniff at an interview in my field (Software
http://gawker.com/5986713/unemployment-stories-vol-28-im-inclined-to-simply-disappear-into-silence[2/25/2013 1:24:47 PM]
Unemployment Stories, Vol. 28: 'I'm Inclined to Simply Disappear Into Silence'
Engineering). After about 3 months, I
decided that a job is a job and looked for
ArchibaldPhilpotts and 2 more an hour ago
ANY job. While I was turned down for jobs
REPLY
like stocking shelves for being way over
I'm usually very sympathetic to these and I enjoy reading
other
people's
stories,bites.
mostly
qualified,
I had
some minor
I was all
because I went through a period of unemploymentgeared
myself up
(exactly
a
year
ago);
now
I
haveina
to work for Best Buy, which
decent job that I am admittedly unhappy with, so they
remind
metemporary.
to suck it up
and be grateful
my mind,
was
I received
a call
for what I have.
from a staffing firm. More »
BUT, these have to be some of the worst letters I have TheSilhouettes
seen in this seriesand
yet.3 Imore
hate it when
REPLY
other people get all "victim-blamey," but these letters
are extremely whiny and are just inviting
an hour ago
the "no one owes you anything" comments. And based on their inability to construct a
The girl who can't get out of bed has a
sentence, I don't see any of them as having basic qualifications for any entry-level position
mental health issue, she needs some
(especially the 2nd guy. More »
combination of therapy and a kick in the
ass. If you want to work in movies you have
to be in LA. Tough noogies but that's how it
is. The only film school worth a damn is
USC. If you went somewhere else you made
a mistake. The guy who's been fired, and
fired first, seven times in only a few years is
doing something to piss his employers off
and he needs to figure it out or get
somebody to level with him and tell him.
REPLY
Nobody's
that
unlucky.
There,
I'm
glad
"I'd take the terrible, boring jobs so many of my contemporaries accept without complaint,that
but
I could
sortenergy
all thattoout
forenough
you. No
I'm so depressed over my state in life I can't seem to
find the
care
toneed to
Stickfig13 and 3 more 2 hours ago
survive."
thank me, just my good deed for the day.
JWolf22 and 1 issue.
more Go talk to REPLY
This sounds more like a mental health issue than and unemployment
someone....
34 minutes ago
I think some of these people don't realize
that being honest in interviews or on
resumes will get you nowhere. I just cannot
understand why people think being honest
about something that will make them look
bad will somehow make them more likable
in an interview. It won't. Trust me, I
appreciate honesty as much as the next
person but unfortunately sometimes lying
will get you farther. With that said here is
some advice:
1. Keep your resume short. You may think
having a long resume shows you have
experience but to an employer it's just more
crap to read. Keep it short with roughly the
past 10 to 15 years of experience or past 5
careers I would say. More »
Show all
SHOW
ALL
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Unemployment Stories, Vol. 28: 'I'm Inclined to Simply Disappear Into Silence'
Assemblyman Dov
Hikind, King of OneWay Sensitivity,
Partied in Blackface
Yesterday
How Can I Stop
Losing and Breaking
My Headphones?
The Sports Fan: What
I Learned From Three
Days Of Watching
Baseball With Bill
Murray
From Dream To
Disaster: The Story Of
Aliens: Colonial
Marines
Oscars Splash
Long lost continent
discovered beneath
the Indian Ocean
Italians Make Sexy
Drones, Too
Scientists Find Lost
Continent In the
Indian Ocean
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