Woo-hoo, the weekend is finally here. Its 12:47 right now, and some people might be thinking that I should be sleeping, but hey, I'm a teenager. Turns out we all come alive in the night. Yesterday was a pretty big day for me, and I believe as well as my fellow peers in the Psychology course. It was our first test, and I won't deny it, I was pretty nervous. Way more nervous that finals back at home. I guess its because of who the other students are in my class. Looking around at these students from around the nation (and a couple from around the world), things get kind of...intimidating. These are students whose parents have money, and if they don't go to a private school/boarding school, they go to a public school that is very rich with resources. And I mean rich. Also, these kids are smart. It seems that because their schools have money, they are able to pay for "a better education". Except, you cannot really compare that with WCCUSD, because that's just the way our economy is back home. Richmond/Pinole/El Cerrito/what-ever-else is in the district isn't rich. Luckily, we still manage. People are able to come out of our district with enough intelligence to get them far. Still, it still is a bit scary to be thinking that "these are people that are used to way more vigorous work than me, and I have to be taking the same test as them". In our psychology class, we learned that the mere presence can indeed have an effect on a person. In can have a negative effect, or a positive one. It might have been a negative one for me, but I made the best of it. I did that test, and what is done is done. A paper with questions does not summarize who I am. Who decided that tests were the best way to evaluate how much a person knows on a subject anyway?
Continuing on, after my test, and in the other class, an essay, we all decided to go take a break. We went to the mall, and watched Wanted. It is a very good movie, and i recommend it to all. Yes, that means you Mr. Ramsey, go watch the movie IN THE THEATER. One must see the movie in theater to get the theater effect. Today, I was able to sleep in a little bit later, and some of us was even able to go to an even bigger mall, and hour and a half drive away. It was fun, but I wish it was closer. A lot closer. I have now learned that I reeealllly want to go to a college that is close to a city. And when I mean close, I mean at most 30 minutes away. At least I was able to have that comparison with Cornell and Brown. Brown = city, Cornell = no city.
I think I'm good for now. ttyl ppls.
~Yoline
The 2017 Vanderbilt Cohort Has Been Selected
7 years ago
2 comments:
I am waking up on a Saturday night to. I was up at 4:00 AM with Don Gosney and Madeline Kronenberg waving goodbye to our Summer Enrichment at Dartmouth(SEAD) Students and our students going to Columbia University. The bus left El Cerrito High School at 4:30 AM with all passengers accounted for.
Although I planned to come back home and get a few winks I couldn't and so I stayed up and watched a lot of Wimbledon Tennis. All the while I was on the phone with Mr. Miranda as he gave me a description of the travels with Jennifer, Dzinya, Yijun, Brandon, JP and Jasmine. They were all having a good time, but stuck in Phoenix because too many planes were in the air. Go figure. Too much air traffic. That was the first time that I had heard this. Anyway, they finally got in the air and made it to Hanover at 9:00 PM EST. I was glad that they made it.
I spoke with Andrew Horton and they all made it to New York City. What a place and what a CITY. Yoline if you want a CITY, you want New York, but Providence is big enough. The entire group was having a blast in New York. They were at first drenched with rain from a typical New York afternoon thunderstorm, but once the rain cleared out they were on mainstreet at Times Square. Ms. Kronenberg spoke with their Chaperone and it appeared that everyone was having a blast.
So that is the status of the other two groups. We now have twenty four student on the East Coast and it is exciting. I would have never thought that the Ivy League Connection would be having such a tremendous impact on our community but it has been the talk of the town and even this afternoon, I was at a graduation celebration for our first student to go through our program, Peter Chau who just graduated from Dartmouth. Being with him this afternoon showed me how helping someone can make a difference. I hope that our support has made a difference for you.
No, we are not trying to change the world with the Ivy League Connection. What we are trying to do is give motivated and highly intelligent students an outlet to demonstrate their capacity and ability to thrive in a highly charged academic environment. Too often we hear that West Contra Costa Students lack the drive and determination to succeed academically and that they all want to take short cuts. I, however, saw potential in a lot of students and I wanted to have those students exposed to well known institutions that would provide rigor and also expose these institutions to the what lay dormant in urban commmunities.
I am happy that you have accepted the challenge and shown that students from under resourced areas can succeed if given an opportunity and the same level of resources. So, please continue to network with your peers even during the late hours, but please try to get some proper rest. I learned early on that exercise and rest are key to a great life. It helps relieve stress and also provides you the energy to forge ahead during difficult periods.
Please also encourage your classmates to blog. It does not have to be limited to our students. We want to hear from others about what they experience and what they have learned from all of you. Our journey is unique and we want to celebrate this moment in time. Remember, we define ourselves and we cannot allow others to say that we are low-income, poor, disadvantaged or a troubled community. We set our own course, we set the stage for our lives and we define and establish the protocals that make us who we are.
So, yes, I am now WIDE AWAKE on a Saturday night, after a four hour nap that I took this afternoon. It has been a long and eventful day, but in the end, I am glad that I was able to read your post. It was nice to hear that you are getting something out of being in Ithaca and comparing it to Brown University. This is what makes me happy that we have a student from our district that actually has been to both Ivy League Campuses.
Priceless.
Charles T. Ramsey
School Board Member
West Contra Costa
Unified School District
(formerly known as the bankrupt
Richmond Unified School District)
Ah...the good life! Ain't college life grand?
Like Charles, I was out in front of ECHS to see another batch or our kids off to Dartmouth.
Unlike most people, though, I routinely don't go to bed until around 3:30 so rather than go to bed for a few hours, get up for The Big Sendoff and then back to bed for a few more hours, I just stayed up a few minutes longer, and then headed off to ECHS.
Like Charles, I, too went to the graduation party of one of our first Dartmouth students (Peter). Charles went as a guest while I went to take photos for Peter. This meant I had to be there way early to unload some very heavy equipment (risers for a big group photo). I shot 308 photos. I got out of there about 3:30 and then had to head out to Concord for a graduation ceremony for an apprenticeship class.
By the time I got home at 11:30 I had been up for close to 43 hours and I was starting to feel fatigued. You young people can handle that kind of go-go-go activity a lot better than those of us that are approaching our sunset years.
Something that often comes as a culture shock to a lot of new collegiates is that back home they may have been one of the best and the brightest students at their school but when they get to college, they're surrounded by people who were also the best and the brightest. That means that they're all now "average" and if they want to be the best and the brightest amongst the former best and brightest, they have to reach deep to break away and demonstrate their prowess.
I'm amused by your reference to how a test shouldn't be used as a gauge of what a person knows. While there's some validity to that thought, it's the same argument used by many as a reason why the Exit Exam is invalid. Absent any other way to gauge what a person knows, other than testing, what method do you think should be used? It's definitely a subject that could spur some lengthy and heated discussions.
Another culture shock of sorts is what you described about Cornell being so far away from the world as you know it with big malls and all of the city stuff you're used to. Just as it's something of a shock for you stepping down to rural small town life, imagine what it's like for someone from a Cornell setting going to New York City. This is yet another advantage to these programs--you get to experience things you otherwise wouldn't even think of.
Keep up the good work and tell us everything about what's going on.
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