Isabelle Boundy
\nDecember 8, 2013<\/p>\n
FYSM Color and Money: Race and Social Class Reflective Essay<\/span><\/p>\n For as long as I can remember, my family has kept a \u201cHarvard University, Class of 1961, Dunster House\u201d mug nestled among the other coffee mugs in our kitchen cabinet, and I have often found it amusing to inform people that my family acquired the mug, not because anyone in my family attended Harvard, but rather because my great-grandfather was the Dunster House superintendent, or, really, janitor.\u00a0 Upon graduating high school, my grandfather was offered a full-ride to attend Harvard because of his father\u2019s status as a Harvard employee, but he turned it down, opting instead to pay for his education at Boston College.\u00a0 My grandfather\u2019s decision has puzzled me for most of my life.\u00a0 However, after completing Professor Jack Dougherty\u2019s first year seminar, Color and Money: Race and Social Class, I now have a far greater understanding of the reasoning behind my grandfather\u2019s choice.<\/p>\n The American educational system, and more specifically the college institution, is perceived as a mechanism for social mobility through which those born into lower socioeconomic classes can climb the social ladder and achieve a livelihood greater than that of previous generations.\u00a0 However, after reading Mitchell Stevens\u2019s Creating a Class<\/i>, I understand colleges and universities not as tools for greater social mobility but rather as institutions that suppress those of lesser economic means and legitimize the status of elites (Stevens, 34).\u00a0 The operations of college admissions offices are fundamentally biased towards more affluent applicants. While wealthy students attend SAT prep classes and tutoring sessions, hire college councilors, and row crew, less affluent students take on after school jobs, babysit younger siblings, and attend sub-par public high schools.\u00a0 Everything in these less-privileged students\u2019 lives is stacked against them in the college admissions process.\u00a0 Thus, the overwhelming majority of students on college and university campuses come from upper-middle class, white families and communities that have done everything within their power to get these students into the most elite institutions, starting on the day they were born.<\/p>\n Even for the lucky few who do make it on to college campuses despite coming from lesser means, life on campus presents countless additional challenges from which more affluent students are spared.\u00a0 Interviews conducted of Trinity sophomores exposed the insecurities of students of lesser means, and the isolation they felt when they were unable to keep up with the latest trends and accompany their more affluent classmates on weekend trips to New York City.\u00a0 The interviews exposed even more surprising social trends on campus with regard to racial discrimination.\u00a0 Minority students reported incidences of being stopped by campus safety and asked to present student ID cards.\u00a0 No white interviewees reported being asked to prove that they belonged on Trinity\u2019s campus.<\/p>\n After taking Professor Dougherty\u2019s seminar, I understand college campuses to be undeniably places of intense and systemic elitism.\u00a0 However, discussing the elitist biases of the college campuses and admissions process is arguably an elitist act in and of itself.\u00a0 The vast majority of Americans do not attend college and, for the poorest Americans, the concern is not whether or not they get into college but rather whether or not they will graduate high school.\u00a0 Greater attention needs to be given to making sure students graduate high school with adequate reading, writing, and mathematic abilities so that they can get decent jobs and climb the socioeconomic ladder.\u00a0 We should not be as concerned with college admissions when there is greater issue of students graduating high school and having the skills necessary to be productive members of society.<\/p>\n After growing up in the basement of Harvard University, watching his father mop up after the drunken elite, my grandfather rejected the Ivy League to attend, what was in the late 1950s, a predominately urban, working class, and Catholic Boston College.\u00a0 This was an economically irrational thing for him to do, and something that I understand he later regretted as a principal breadwinner for his own family.\u00a0 But Color and Money: Race and Social Class has helped me to understand my grandfather\u2019s reason for doing so\u2014 for my grandfather to enroll at Harvard University would mean spending four years in intense isolation, surrounded by extreme affluence and privilege.\u00a0 My grandfather knew enrolling in Harvard would mean being the subject of intense condescension, judgment, and even disdain.\u00a0 Thus, my grandfather chose to escape Harvard\u2019s elitism for Boston College and the student body amongst whom he felt a sense of belonging.<\/p>\n After Professor Dougherty\u2019s First Year Seminar, I have a greater understanding of the significance of the mug in my kitchen cabinet, as a reminder of those who are less fortunate and the work that needs to be done to ease social mobility.\u00a0 The lessons I have learned in my First Year Seminar are lessons I will carry for the rest of my life, as I aim to work towards greater social mobility for those who are less fortunate, and greater compassion and understanding towards those of different backgrounds.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Works Cited<\/p>\n Stevens, Mitchell. Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites<\/i>. N.p.: n.p., 2007. Print.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Isabelle Boundy December 8, 2013 FYSM Color and Money: Race and Social Class Reflective Essay For as long as I can remember, my family has kept a \u201cHarvard University, Class of 1961, Dunster House\u201d mug nestled among the other coffee mugs in our kitchen cabinet, and I have often found it amusing to inform people … Continue reading Harvard University, Class of 1961, Dunster House<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":612,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/colorandmoney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/colorandmoney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/colorandmoney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/colorandmoney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/612"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/colorandmoney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2012"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/colorandmoney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2014,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/colorandmoney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012\/revisions\/2014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/colorandmoney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/colorandmoney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/colorandmoney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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