A Hope in the Unseen

A great read, especially for first-generation students who come from humble beginnings, is Ron Suskind’s A Hope in the Unseen.  Suskind is a former writer for the Wall Street Journal and penned this true life story following the life of Cedric Jennings, a native Washingtonian raised in one of the roughest areas of DC, the Southeast.  Few children escaped the area to receive a college education, and even fewer with an Ivy League diploma.  Cedric did!  Cedric’s story was featured by the Washington Post for a piece regarding inner city youth and Suskind followed it up with the details of Cedric’s life, from elementary school through the travails that led him to Brown University.  Cedric had to survive the onslaught of murderous gangs, drugs, and poverty, but through it all, he relied on his mother and his own desire to “get out of his situation.”  Cedric was selected into a science program for gifted inner-city youth hosted at MIT during his junior year of high school and quickly learned that his dream of attending MIT was not to happen following his interactions with the Program Director, whom challenged his capacity to learn at a level like MIT!  (That’s right, keep teaching students who are disadvantaged to change their dream… UGH!!!, instead how about helping them learn what they need to do!)  Cedric makes it to Brown and then experiences not only the transition to college, but what it is like not to be in the high socio-economic stratosphere as his roommate and others he is centered around at Brown are.  This is a great story of triumph when a person sets their mind to success, and is given support from teachers and other role models to make it.  I require students in my first generation scholarship program, AnBryce, to read it as an entering first-generation student.  This helps them learn they are not alone, nor should they forget to ask for help!  A great read!