by Alicia Holman

Created on: September 01, 2008

To be able to walk into the doors of a college class is not only an honor, but also an achievement. Choosing to pursue a degree in higher education is not a choice that is taken lightly. From the time we speak our first words to the time we wake up from our first kindergarten nap to when we receive those SAT scores, our family and the world around us is preparing us for the final exam known as college. This is the make or break point for many people and what polishes them up for the career of their choice. Attending college is just the next step in life to many, and to some it is quite a challenge to prepare for such a journey. Many students are at a disadvantage when it comes to college preparation.

While I was attending college, I tutored for Upward Bound. This is a program that is designed to help disadvantaged students prepare for college despite their financial situation. Now in this particular context, disadvantaged does refer to students with a financial burden hindering them from attending college. During my time with Upward Bound, we not only tutors students to help them make the grade and be academically prepared, we also provided assistance in the entire college preparation process. Many of the students in this program came from broken homes or families down on their luck. This led to much frustration and resentment from the student.

When students feel that they must work twice as hard as their financially well off peer, college becomes a farther goal to attain. We bring our children up believing that they can be anything they want if they put their mind to it, when in reality, that is quite false in our society. Yes we would like to think our children are smart enough to be an engineer or talented enough to be on Broadway. But the truth is, colleges don't hand out degrees for free. So we are actually setting our children up for a serious attitude adjustment when we fail to help them recognize that while college is great goal to strive for, grades are only one piece of the pie.

Because of this mentality found in our society, students who find themselves falling behind the curve of college preparation in comparison with their peers begin to take on a "why bother" kind of attitude. This is the beginning of a self-fulfilling prophecy concept. If a student constantly falls behind on an aspect of life, they will soon realize that they deserve to be behind and therefore stop trying to catch up. Disadvantaged students many times fall into this category. A

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