CCJ4931 CUNY John Jay College American Dream Paper

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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.

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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 ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ 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 ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ 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! ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ Describe them physically Let your reader hear them through their quotes See them in action-create action in the story Feature Leads ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ 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 ⚫ Descriptive Lead – ⚫ Suspended Interest/Teaser Lead – ⚫ 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 – Uses sentence fragments on purpose (at least three and they should be parallel in construction) Types of Feature leads, con’t ⚫ Quote Lead – ⚫ Question Lead – ⚫ 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 – Alludes to something or someone well-known Questions to ask yourself ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ 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 ⚫ News-feature – ⚫ Informative feature – ⚫ Timely news event with human interest angle Informs or explains in an interesting way Personality Sketches – – Convey the personality of the person you are writing about Include bio boxes and sidebars Types of features ⚫ Human-Interest stories – – – – 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 ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ 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 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 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. 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 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. 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 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 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 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- 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 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. 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 “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' SIGN IN TOP STORIES LATEST STORIES MONDAY, FEB 25, 2013 TOMORROW'S NEWS NEWER STORIES… HELLO FROM TH… Unemployment 1:55 PM Stories, Vol. 28: ‘I’m Inclined to Simply Disappear Into Silence’ HELLO FROM THE UNDERCLASS Unemployment Stories, Vol. 28: ‘I’m Inclined to Simply Disappear Into Silence’ FEB 25, 2013 1:55 PM Share Share Like 18,215 134 65 GET OUR TOP STORIES FOLLOW GAWKER HEARTWARMING 1:40 PM Hundreds Attend Burial of Vet with No Family After Funeral Invitation Goes Viral on Facebook YELLING 1:30 PM Kanye West’s New Song Goes, ‘WAAAA WAAAAAAAAAAAAA’ Hamilton Nolan You and 252,763 others like Like As we spend the day arguing over a satirical this.252,763 people like this. Sign Up to Like see what your friends like. tweet about a Hollywood awards show, 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. 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' 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 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' 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. 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' 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 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' 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 About Help Jobs Legal Privacy Permissions Advertising Subscribe Send a tip http://gawker.com/5986713/unemployment-stories-vol-28-im-inclined-to-simply-disappear-into-silence[2/25/2013 1:24:47 PM]
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Running Head: AMERICAN DREAM

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American Dream
Student’s Name
Institution Affiliation

AMERICAN DREAM

2
American Dream

In his 1931 book ‘The Epic of America,’ historian James Truslow Adams defined the
‘American Dream’ as “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller
for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement.” As for me, I
consider the ‘American Dream’ as what I would consider a ‘perfect life.’ A life full of happiness,
cars, love, good job, healthiness and spare time for my family and I. My American Dream may
be very different from that of others, and that’s what makes us all individuals. I believe my
American Dream is still alive, and I work hard to achieve it. According to Samuel J. Abrams,
most people believe they are living the American Dream. To most, their American Dream does
not involve wealth or a successful career but good family life and having the freedom of choice
in how to live (Abrams, 2019).
According to my research, the American dream is all about hustling for most people in
the US today. In an interview with Steve Williams, an Uber driver, achieving the American
dream requires much toiling and sacrifice. Steve is a 35years old American man who has been
working as an uber driver for quite long. The Haiti-born man moved to New York City 16 years
ago and has been working as an uber driver. To him, the American Dream means having
adequate family time while still earning. Steve says he works 10 to 13 hours a day, “sometimes
more.” He proceeds to concede that he lost his family time and, therefore, have not attained his
American Dream. After expenses, but before Uber takes its cut of 25%, Steve earns a total of
$2,342 after month. Steve states that life in America is better as compared to his home country.
Achieving the American dream is, however, becoming hard for him each day given the unstable
economy, inequality, and technological advancements. He adds that the American Dream is
unique and some people fail to achieve it because of the economic instability in the country.
In another interview with Doreen Navuluri, a Philippine-born nurse and who works at a
local hospital, her American Dream is attainable. Doreen states that she believes she is “living
it.” “I am living it. My American dream.” Doreen migrated to the United States in 1987 at the
age of 29. The country was experiencing “nursing shortage” at the time, which allowed her to
become a citizen in the US. She was married with two daughters by then and was working at a
small-town hospital in the Philippines. All she wanted was a “new environment.” Lucky for her,
she passed the U.S Licensure Exam on her first attempt, escaping the threat of deportation. Her
American dream has been to be financially stable and to expose her two daughters to the other
side of the world. She hopes they get financial independence as well, which is also her American
dream. Doreen believes the American dream is unique since it has been pursued for decades.
Doreen will be retiring end this year and believes she has served well enough to ensure her
children, grandchildren as well as other people in the community attain their American dream.
I also interviewed a student from our school in an attempt to find out what his American
dream was and whether he believes it is attainable. Arnold Roberts is 21 years old and was born
and raised in Seattle. According to, American dream to him is all about having a better future for
his children and family. He hopes to get a full-time job after school and become financially
stable to support his children and family. He identifies higher education as the main factor that
will help him to achieve his American dream. He, therefore, believes that with education, his

AMERICAN DREAM

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American dream is attainable. Roberts hopes that with his efforts, his children will be able to live
the American dream. Roberts, however, the cost of education is too high for some students to
achi...


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