Abstract
This article presents the life histories of two “nontraditional” college students—Demetrius and Christine—as a means to explore the concept of “outsiderness” and its impact on undergraduate student success. Through multiple interviews and observations conducted over the course of a full year, the article first outlines the life circumstances that compelled both students to leave formal education during adolescence. Then, the article details how Demetrius and Christine managed to return to college despite formidable personal and financial challenges. Although both students demonstrate tremendous promise in their college-level coursework, they are wary of their own college readiness, primarily due to their “nontraditional” educational trajectories and a lack of clarity about instructors’ expectations. Hence, the article concludes by considering the forms of support that might help similar nontraditional students succeed in first-year coursework, and eventually graduate from college.
Introduction
Midway through our first interview at the beginning of the fall 2016 semester, Demetrius turns in his chair, staring at one of the walls in the conference room: The thing is when you come from a situation where, of course, poverty is rampant—just the whole environment not being a productive environment—you meet a lot of people. You meet really good people that are forced to do some not-so-good things . . . If you just bagged groceries for the rest of your life—even though you had the ability to be a doctor—I’d feel just as sad for you as the people who just chose to go a different route and aren’t here anymore.
Demetrius considered it a “miracle” that he was enrolled in college classes at the age of 28. Broad shouldered, with an infectious grin and long dreadlocks cascading down both sides of his face, Demetrius often radiated a cheerful, Bahamian demeanor that belied his rough background growing up in Miami. Reflecting on the childhood friends who were no longer “here anymore,” Demetrius admitted the following: It hurts. When y’all actually spent intimate times together, times in abandoned houses and—you know what I mean? Just putting money together just to share a burger or stuff like that, when that could’ve been the person that was influencing you to keep your head up. We have a thing in Miami where we put all our friends on T-shirts. They die and we memorialize ‘em by putting ‘em on a shirt. I got a wall full of shirts that go back from middle school, and it’s almost like, even now, I don’t even want to call home. Because it’s guaranteed that when you come home, you’re gonna hear about somebody that you know died.
Demetrius was not the only individual in his college who had to transcend adverse childhood circumstances. During a focus group, writing instructors at Demetrius’ college were surprisingly dispassionate about discussing writing-specific hurdles, such as grammar and sentence structure. Instead, they became unanimously animated when one of the instructors lamented the number of students who “mysteriously [disappeared] after finishing several assignments.” At one point in the conversation, an instructor pointed to the 12-seat, oval conference table around which we were seated, asserting that students at the college were dealing with “wounds the size of this table”: They’ve just had so much to deal with in their lives, their classes, and their past toxic—can I say that?—yes, their toxic relationships with past teachers and other authority figures. I’ve had hour-long tutoring sessions where my entire goal was to build [the student’s] confidence enough so that they didn’t completely shut down once I was gone.
Another experienced instructor who previously taught writing in two low-performing Florida high schools, a prison facility, and a drug rehabilitation center, immediately agreed. He spoke at length about the lack of confidence among students like Demetrius. Despite his background working in several challenging institutions, he said was “surprised” when he first started teaching at the college: I feel bad saying how unprepared [the students] were. I really learned what a non-traditional student meant . . . For example, last week I had [a student] in tears who said, “My old instructor told me I didn’t have any thoughts in my writing.” And to her that meant, “I’m stupid. I don’t have any thoughts.” For everything you write, you have thoughts! And I told her, “There are times when your ability to communicate those thoughts can interfere with the mechanics. The thoughts are there.” To tell someone that, and marginalize them, and say, “You don’t have thoughts”—It’s the worst thing you can tell a student.
“Outsiderness” and the Nontraditional Student
In this article, I will depict and analyze the life histories of two college students—Demetrius and Christine—as a means to explore the concept of “outsiderness,” and its impact on undergraduate student success. Both Demetrius and Christine are representative of a growing proportion of college students who are designated as “nontraditional,” as they are compelled to leave formal secondary education, earn a general educational development (GED) certification as adults, and navigate college while juggling multiple jobs. Due to their limited formal educational background, students like Demetrius and Christine are often placed in remedial coursework when they enroll in college.
As I discovered over the course of a year-long ethnographic study of first-year remedial coursework, however, many students like Demetrius and Christine demonstrate scholastic promise that belies their placement in remedial coursework, and their college instructors consistently give them high marks in assignments. Hence, they do not conform to a stereotype of “nontraditional” students as academically deficient. Such students are, nevertheless, often wary of their own college readiness, primarily due to their “nontraditional” educational trajectories and a lack of clarity about institutional practices and instructors’ expectations.
One way to consider the orientation of nontraditional students to college is to depict the transition through a cultural lens. To this end, the theoretical concept of cultural discontinuity has been proposed as a way to make sense of educational achievement gaps for students who experience a “cultural disconnection between [their] home environment and that of the school” (Cholewa & West-Olatunji, 2008, p. 55). As noted by Tyler et al. (2008), analogous concepts, such as cultural conflict, cultural dissonance, and cultural misalignment have also been explored by educational scholars. Although some of the literature is problematic due to its portrayal of nondominant cultures as fostering deficit behavior, other studies have helpfully examined student experiences with cultural dissonance. For instance, Allan (2002, 2003) has demonstrated how a monocultural environment in international schools not only creates moments of cultural dissonance for students from nondominant cultures but also impedes the prospects for intercultural learning for students who hail from a majority culture. Major (2005) has extended this work by defining the “dissonance” stage as a period of “interpersonal and sociocultural divergence” (p. 87) in which feelings of culture shock, psychological turmoil, and incompetence take root.
For this article, however, neither is my focus on specific cultural practices—nor am I examining issues explicitly related to race or gender. Demetrius is a Black 28-year-old who persevered through homelessness in one of the most perilous urban environments in the United States. Meanwhile, Christine is a White, Catholic 22-year-old who has lived in several rural environments throughout the Southeast United States and largely avoided formal education due to family turmoil and financial limitations. Furthermore, I am not arguing that the cultural transition to first-year coursework is so foreign as to be virtually unmanageable. I instead draw inspiration from the work of Feuerverger and Richards (2007) who—in a study of immigrant and refugee students at a Toronto, Canada, high school—use the concept of “outsiderness” to depict not only the “tensions and dilemmas” faced by students but also students’ “strength and resilience” (p. 557). Feuerverger and Richards’ framework of “outsiderness” recognizes that students may experience feelings of “deficiency, confusion, or even despair” (p. 560) as they make sense of new surroundings, particularly during specific inflection points in which a sense of disorientation is especially acute. And yet, “outsiderness” is also viewed a “positive force,” in that, it acknowledges the unique strengths that students have cultivated through past experiences, embraces the potentially liberating ability to view dogmatic practices from a fresh perspective, and, perhaps most important, does not limit the potential for student agency.
In what follows, I detail the “sense of outsiderness” experienced by both Demetrius and Christine as they progress through their first year of coursework. Afterward, I consider the ramifications such crises might have for the retention of similarly promising college students. I contend that the retention of students like Demetrius and Christine is not merely dependent on the continuous acquisition of academic skills and the reduction of “exit points,” as emphasized by some literature on undergraduate first-year coursework, in general, and remedial education, in particular (e.g., Edgecombe, 2011; Hern, 2012; Rodriguez, Johnson, Mejia, & Brooks, 2017). Using Feuerverger and Richards’ concept of “outsiderness” as a guiding paradigm, I instead maintain that (a) a deeper consideration of developmental students’ backgrounds; (b) their relationships with academic faculty, support staff, and other students; and (c) their ability to receive useful, actionable feedback from multiple sources can each have a profound, positive impact on their progression through coursework and their ability to attain career goals.
Method and the Research Setting
There are several commonly recognized approaches to conducting life history research. In this article, I employ the portal approach to life history through which an individual’s understanding of his or her life experiences can shed light on a larger cultural process or narrative (Tierney & Lanford, (2017)). I do not wish to make claims of generalizability. Rather, I am interested in providing thick description (Geertz, 1973) of Christine’s and Demetrius’ life histories in service of three goals: (a) to engage readers with a narrative of deep resonance, (b) to share information that has the potential to transform contemporary thought about nontraditional students, and (c) to encourage readers to consider how the empirical data and conclusions presented here may be transferable to other educational contexts (Lincoln & Guba, 1985).
The locus of analysis for this study is a single higher education institution within the U.S. state of Florida. The data for this study come from a year-long ethnography of a single higher education institution in Florida, referred to in this article by the pseudonym “Orange State College.” Orange State College annually serves approximately 20,000 students on six campuses.
During the 12 months in which I was embedded in Orange State College’s daily activities, I was fortunate to have prolonged engagement with Demetrius and Christine. For a full semester, I observed them in writing classes and tutoring sessions for approximately 12 hr each. Both Demetrius and Christine consented to three formal interviews over the course of the 2016-2017 academic year. All six interviews lasted between 45 and 90 min, and the total length of my recorded data with them was 336 min. Transcriptions were completed by a third party and reviewed by me for accuracy.
I also had informal conversations with Demetrius and Christine in different areas of the Orange State campus. Frequently, I came across Christine in the writing center and library on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Demetrius took classes at one of Orange State’s branch campuses, and I visited it regularly on Wednesdays. Because the branch campus was quite small, we often recognized each other’s presence and shared a snack at one of the campus’ picnic tables. After the end of the spring 2017 semester, I met with Christine twice at a local coffee shop to offer feedback on her writing and catch up on developments in her life. Demetrius allowed me to visit his home on more than one occasion, where I verified many of the details he shared about his childhood and adult life. Demetrius and Christine both had my phone number; Christine was more active with text messages, and some of the data from those messages are presented here.
To establish credibility, I triangulated multiple forms of data, including interview transcripts, personal memos, writing samples, text messages, and descriptive statistics from the institution under study. In addition, I freely shared my findings, as well as preliminary drafts of my work, with Demetrius and Christine. This process of member checking not only ensured that I captured their voices and perspectives in a faithful manner but also frequently engendered a considerable degree of self-reflection (Morse, Barrett, Mayan, Olson, & Spiers, 2002). Member checking also encouraged Demetrius and Christine to reflect on their previous statements, making follow-up interviews more conversational while building trust that an accurate representation would ultimately be presented (Aston, 2001).
As with many life histories, power relations are also essential to recognize and unpack. To many students at Orange State College, I was symbolic of privilege, as I was a White, doctoral student from a prestigious, private university, and a middle-class background. In the Orange State metropolitan area, middle class can be reasonably considered “wealthy.” Although I had lived in Florida for several years previously and understood many aspects of the regional culture, Demetrius and Christine may have relished the opportunity to tell their story to an “outsider.” More than once, I helped them with schoolwork. Although I looked on such events as an expression of gratitude, I suspect that they may have interpreted such events differently—and may have seen me as more of a friend than as a researcher. Thus, I was quite sensitive to the intimate stories that they shared, and, as a result, I feel that the process of member checking was especially crucial in this study.
Data Presentation
In this section, I will present data on Demetrius and Christine in turn. I have organized the data for both individuals in three sections: (a) early influences, (b) life as education, and (c) building relationships in college.
Demetrius
Early influences
Teachers recognized Demetrius’ intelligence early. In second grade, he was placed in a gifted program and bussed from Miami Gardens (also known to locals as “Murder Gardens”) to a “rich school” in suburban Aventura, a “whole different zip code.” Demetrius, in his discussions with me, does not talk much about that experience. He tosses it aside with a wave of his hand and a quick observation: “you know how brutal kids can be.”
Demetrius does talk at length about the influence his father, a Vietnam veteran with a theology degree, had on his life. Although Demetrius returned to the Miami public school system by third grade, he tells me that he was “in a unique position because [he was] the one black guy who [had] his father in his life”: My dad had a plumbing business . . . I can remember every day at the school and him picking me up in the truck, going to different jobs, see him paying people out, and I always—I never saw somebody paying my dad. I always saw my dad paying out employees. I never saw him get a paycheck in my life. So, it’s something that’s in me.
When Demetrius reminisces about his father, his smile widens, and he looks directly in my eyes. Because both our fathers served in the military and were involved in athletics, many of our informal conversations before and after class sessions revolve around our fathers, as well as the life lessons we felt we learned from them. One lesson that Demetrius internalized from his father concerned the value of work: I’ve always known how to make my own money, whether it be illegally or legally. My dad always told me, “Son, nothing in this world ever gonna be free. You have to work.” You know what I mean? But he also told me to never be ashamed. “Don’t be ashamed.” He told me, “I would rather see you wash someone’s car for $10.00 than to beg someone for $10.00 or to steal $10.00—because you could go to sleep at night and feel like a man.” That’s what he preached to me.
Demetrius’ pride in his family’s Bahamian heritage is evident. He occasionally shares stories about prominent Bahamian celebrities with whom he is related. He also talks with pride about his first year of high school:
Demetrius: When my dad was alive, I got my first car at 15 years old. I was the kid in the neighborhood with all of the privilege . . . Ninth grade, got to high school. I was playing football—did real good. Played on JV and then moved up to varsity in the same season.
Michael: What position?
Demetrius: Nose guard and middle linebacker. I was right in the thick of it. But then [my dad] wound up getting diagnosed with cancer, so that caused me to miss a lot of school, a lotta days—the days that I would be there would be just so crazy. Like, even now. It was so traumatic that I even now sometimes remember things that I couldn’t remember. They’re just coming back to me now. And I don’t regret it. My dad . . . always talked to me like an adult. He always explained stuff to me.
Demetrius pauses for a few seconds. I offer to stop the recording, but he waves me off:
Demetrius: Naw. So he died May 12, 2007. I was supposed to graduate 2008, but my tenth, eleventh, and twelfth-grade year, I was with him hand and foot, taking care of this guy like no other son that you can’t even explain.
One of the first things I noticed about Demetrius was the laminated picture of a tombstone on the front of his college binder. He catches my eyes glancing toward the binder. “Yes, that’s for him.” He continues, After that, I went homeless in Miami . . . [my dad] had encouraged me to get back in high school, try to get my diploma. But, you know, real life started and I’m hungry and—what are you gonna wear? My friend’s dad owned a crack house, and that’s where I began to basically work. I had nowhere else to go.
Life as education
Demetrius’ story about his father is illustrative of the difficult, and often circuitous, paths that many students navigate to attend Orange State College. According to statistics from the college’s institutional research office, approximately seven out of every 10 students attending Orange State live at or below the poverty level. Whereas the median student age at Orange State was 20 years during the 2006-2007 academic year, the median student age for the 2014-2015 academic year was 27 years. Few students today attend Orange State immediately after high school. Those who do generally have vastly different educational experiences, encompassing a broad spectrum of high schools throughout the United States or high schools in other countries. Despite repeated efforts to standardize the Florida primary and secondary curricula through testing and accountability measures, students from Florida are no more likely to have a common high school experience. For instance, Demetrius reflected on his ninth-grade curriculum at his Title 1 school in Miami:
Demetrius: I had no math, and we only had English for the second half of the year.
Michael: What caused that?
Demetrius: We’d come to class, and we’d have a sub every day. And on our progress reports, everybody got a “B” on it, so we were all like, “Cool. We got a free period.”
Michael: I see.
Demetrius: But they also added an FCAT class to seventh and eighth period that year. I think it was my year that it became mandatory that you had to pass the FCAT to be promoted. 1
Michael: What did they do in the FCAT class?
Demetrius: Just teaching for the test. It was really simple. I passed the test without knowing two whole sections of it. The science is just all critical thinking. The answer is really in the question.
After a few days of 10th grade, Demetrius never returned to high school. The medical bills generated by his father’s illness and subsequent death wiped out whatever money Demetrius could have used to continue his education. He was homeless for a full year and realized that he was “completely on a crash course.” I ask whether that year was the toughest of his life: Nope. That wasn’t the toughest for me. That was maybe the most scary time for me, but it wasn’t the toughest because I was still in a familiar environment. Just being somewhere familiar doesn’t feel as bad. You don’t feel as homeless.
Due to support from his aunt and encouragement from peers, Demetrius eventually “escaped” his hometown, resettling in a different part of the state. The transition was difficult, partly because he went from “having money in his pocket doing the wrong things” to being “dead broke.” Nevertheless, Demetrius earned a GED, as he puts it, “in record time”:
Michael: How quickly did you get it?
Demetrius: Maybe like a month. I had to go to the classes. When we get to the financial aid aspect of it, it starts getting tricky. What happened was around the same time [my aunt] tried to claim me, we did my financial aid, her taxes came back denied and my financial aid came back. I had to redo it because I had already been claimed.
Michael: By who?
Demetrius: My mom. She had claimed me for two years.
Michael: And you hadn’t seen her in all that time, right?
Demetrius: Nope. So now, I stopped doing what I’m doing. Now I have no money. I’ve got my—okay, whoop dee doo, I got my GED. The smart kid in school . . . None of this stuff really does anything for me. Like, every time somebody tells me, “Wow, you’re smart,” I actually get a little upset.
Through sheer tenacity, Demetrius cleared up his dependent status with the Internal Revenue Service, learned how to fill out his aunt’s taxes, resubmitted multiple forms to his college’s financial aid office, and managed to enroll in his first college writing class that year: The teacher—this old white lady—she was nice. But the very first day, I think we had to write a whole paper—like an “about me”—and it had to be in cursive. I’d never learned how to write in cursive. So I was floored on the first day. It was too much. I didn’t even know how to approach my teacher. I was so mad. What could I say? “The only reason I didn’t turn this paper in was because, honestly, I never learned.” I’m thinking, “I’m in college now. I’m gonna sound like a complete idiot. I probably look like a complete idiot. I’m outta here.”
Having had no previous experience with financial aid forms or college-level coursework, Demetrius made two assumptions—that the paperwork would always be “too much of a burden” and that his lack of preparation in high school meant that he would always lack the skills necessary for college success. Hence, he avoided college for 6 years after attending his first writing class in 2010. He reflects on that period in his life: I knew that this whole system wasn’t necessarily created for people like me to flourish in. But I’m also smart enough to realize that I’m learning every day, regardless of where I’m at. If I was in a crack house, and I learned how to cook, then guess what? I just went to science class. And a little bit of economics as well. Even learned a little bit of law, of what’ll happen if the police comes.
In talking with Demetrius, it becomes apparent that he genuinely treasures the lessons he learned through his life experiences. Chief among these lessons is the ability to understand people’s motives. Demetrius tells me that he takes great pride in his ability to “read energy in people,” calling it the “most important thing that I’ve had in life.” He explains further, Growing up in the streets of Miami, if you don’t know how to read people’s energy, that’s the difference between living and dying. That’s the difference between getting robbed and leaving safe. That’s the difference between being arrested for something that you didn’t do and not being arrested—just knowing when the temperature changes, just knowing how to look somebody in the eye. And that takes a degree of you being able to be honest with yourself as well. I was actually forced to get to know myself. That’s—and I think that’s what separates me from mostly everybody else [at Orange State College]. For whatever reasons, I had no choice but to become my own best friend.
Combined with the life lessons from his father, Demetrius sees this self-knowledge as a source of great strength. In the intervening years between his first college experiences and the present, he paid off loan debts and built his credit from scratch. He developed relationships with people in the area who could emotionally and financially support his return to school. I ask Demetrius whether he takes pride in the fact that he figured things out largely on his own. He stops to think for a couple of beats and answers: The thing is, when it’s a matter of survival . . . you’re not awarded certain feelings when you have to be this way in order to survive . . . Even being a kid, nobody asked me which Happy Meal I wanted. You just get the one that you get.
Before I can ask a follow-up question, he continues, “I don’t even look for the easy way no more. I actually ask for the hard way because I don’t need what others need.”
Demetrius also has cultivated a long-term relationship with a young woman from the Orange State area who is “solid middle-class. Went to a [private] college up North and everything.” Although they have very different backgrounds, and they occasionally find it difficult to understand each other’s perspectives, Demetrius seems to enjoy the ways in which they reconcile their vantage points. He shares one example: You know, we were talking about metaphors and analogies in writing class last week, and I gave my girl this one: I told her the difference between me and everybody else is that everybody else can get on the elevator, but I have to take the stairs. And when I said it like that, she understood.
Building relationships in college
After fighting through so many obstacles to attain a college education, Demetrius initially claimed to me that he “felt pretty confident” when he arrived at Orange State College in his late 20s. After we developed a stronger rapport, though, he confided that “I never realized how afraid I was.” Primarily, he was “unsure” as to whether or not the people working for the college would accept him. He was also unsure whether his physical appearance would be misread: I guess when you see me, you probably see that I am Black, with dreads and a goatee, then you associate that with whatever you’ve been taught. But, in 2017, the only thing that I can advise people is to try to get to know someone before you make a judgment. None of these people know me. But I know if I’m judging off of what energy I came out with, it would probably be an energy of frustration.
Throughout the fall semester, I noticed that Demetrius sat in the first row of every class session, usually in a position where he was visible not only to the instructor but also to every student in the class. He was consistently engaged and asking questions. Instructors raved about Demetrius’ involvement in class discussions, and I noticed that a few older students started to rely on him for information about upcoming exams and essay deadlines.
And yet, Demetrius confided to me during the fourth week of classes that the feeling of “being on an island” was starting to wear on him. “I know they notice me and look to me for help. That’s what I want. But I’m not really getting much back.”
Another concern for Demetrius involved the seemingly disconnected nature of coursework with everyday life. On more than one occasion, Demetrius told me that his corequisite “writing studio” class was the only one he truly enjoyed because the instructor, a writing center tutor named Raymond who was in his late 20s, “kept it real.” To explain rhetorical language, for example, Raymond played three commercials in class and asked students to identify appeals to the “emotions” (pathos), “logic” (logos), and “credibility” (ethos). Demetrius was particularly animated during this discussion, laughing at one commercial for title loans: I’ll give you this—the woman on that commercial is dressed to impress. They say the business has been there forever. And—emotionally—you want to flash money like that cause if you go to the club, the security guard will say “oh, you can go ahead, ma’am, free for you. $60.00 for you.” For people like me, what do you think the best thing would be to do? Some people would say, “Turn around and walk out,” but if I go to this loan place, I can pull out $1,000.00 out of my pocket [at the club] in all $20’s . . . and pay each one for it slowly and smile. So this [commercial’s] got all three—it gets me emotionally, pulls in the logic even though I know [the title loan business] has some angle, and [the woman] has cred.
Having a second person explain certain concepts was also important to Demetrius, and he explained why Raymond, at times, covered academic material in a manner that made more sense than Dr. Jones, his instructor for first-year writing: I think that [my studio facilitator] can be a more effective teacher than Dr. Jones, and Dr. Jones is really nice. But Dr. Jones is getting up there in age. And he’s not bad; it’s just a fact of life. It’s just—your style is getting a little dated.
By the beginning of the summer semester, I noticed that Demetrius seemed more confident and comfortable with people on campus. One morning, I asked him whether he was enrolled in any online classes for the summer, as he previously had difficulties with digital access.
Demetrius: Not anymore, but they put me in one for psychology at the beginning of the semester. It was tough to change, too.
Michael: How did you get it changed?
Demetrius: I just kept showing up at the advising office until they had to take me. And then I told them, “I have no computer, I have no iPad, no nothing. What are you doing to me here?”
Michael: Well, good for you. I tend to be shy in situations like that.
Demetrius laughed and retrieved his binder. He pulled out his most recent psychology exam; an “A” was emblazoned on the top of the paper. Then, he taught me a lesson about the importance of being visible, having confidence, and speaking out:
“But I’m leading the pack in all of my classes. You see what I’m saying?”
Christine
Early influences
Christine tosses her blonde hair back as she squints at a map on the computer screen. “There!” Pointing to Tennessee, she states, I was born in Florida, but my family always moved around. We moved to Tennessee when I was three. We moved to Alabama when I was six, and we moved back here when I was eleven. This is the longest we’ve ever resided in one area.
“So,” I ask, “you went to high school here, in this town?”
A slight frown creeps over Christine’s face, and she speaks slower, betraying a slight Southern drawl that is typically concealed by her high energy level: Well, I didn’t go to high school. I was homeschooled. Actually, through the stress of Alabama—there was a whole bunch of lawsuits and stuff—my mom started showing symptoms of stress and all that. Everybody was just health-wise down. Just horrible. I didn’t even finish—I think I finished sixth grade in math, but I had never wrote a paper my entire life.
Similar to the way Demetrius and I bonded over the subject of our fathers, Christine and I regularly shared our personal stories about moving multiple times as children. Christine discloses that she made few friends during her childhood, but she insists that moving between cities had little to do with her relative isolation. Instead, she grins with pride about how she “took on the role of mother at [age] eleven”: I had to raise my four younger siblings. I taught them, which kind of sacrificed my own personal life . . . I was waking them up every morning, getting them started on lessons, meals, bedtime, what they are allowed to do, what they weren’t allowed to do all that up until about 16.
Christine tells me that she has “a different personality.” When I probe what she means by that comment, she shifts in her chair. She pulls her knees up and rests her chin on them. After a few moments, she says, “I guess I didn’t make friends mainly because I didn’t relate”: It sounds so stereotypical, but they spent their time doing useless things. They never found time to do what I liked to do, which was work out, or do something—skydive—something other than hang out at the mall. I see no point in hanging out. I enjoy living. Going to the mall every Saturday is not life.
Christine is athletic and loves spending time outdoors, saying she “feels alive” when she hikes through the woods or gets to “visit the countryside in other places.” She gushes about “[spending] time in the Appalachians: ‘That was fantastic!’”
During our initial conversations, Christine seemed reluctant to discuss at length why she decided to return to school. Repeatedly, she shook her head, laughing a little while saying, “oh, it’s complicated!” In March, however, she brings it up while I am helping her revise an essay she wrote about “The Influence of Technology on Children.” I read aloud the following sentence: When they are faced with boredom, children will be inclined to seek entertainment that requires the least amount of physical and mental effort, like a computer, social media, video games, or TV.
At the end of this sentence, Christine looks up at me and declares, It was only last year that I realized, “I am twenty.” I still needed to get my GED. I realized things don’t always end up how you think they’re going to end up . . . You need to start doing something. You can’t just sit around doing nothing.
Life as education
Christine has a remarkably detailed LinkedIn profile. Her past employment includes 3 years as a “stable hand” at a local farm, 5 months as a “team leader” at a smoothie cafe, 2 years in elder care, 2 years as a “front desk associate” at Gold’s Gym, and several years as a self-employed “housekeeper.” Christine has held many of these jobs concurrently to build such a lengthy resume by the age of 22. She also lists at least 15 skills ranging from “health care” and “nursing” to “leadership” and “fundraising.” When I ask Christine about the jobs she currently juggles while attending classes, she explains, “I’m a research assistant for house insurance—house defaults and stuff—as well as I work 20 hours a week being a nanny. I only work two jobs now.”
On her LinkedIn profile, however, the section for “education” simply states “2001-2014, Elizabeth Ann Seton.” Christine’s had spoken about her Catholic background, but I was intrigued by the omission of Orange State College. One day, while we discuss her spring class schedule, I ask why her college is not listed in her profile. She responds with a bit of a sigh: My parents never really, they were never advocates for college just because—and maybe it was just the time that they grew up—everything was about partying. So they had [that] idea of college . . . Until last year, I had never really entertained it.
Orange State College is a commuter institution, with no residential halls and few opportunities for networking, much less partying. On the main campus, the student center consists of a snack bar that is open for 6 hr a day, a pool table, and two ping-pong tables. Student activities revolve around a handful of intramural sports that have sparse attendance. I ask Christine whether her parents feel more comfortable with her attending Orange State, instead of a residential institution in another town, and she nods vigorously in response. And yet, she is quick to remind me that she “[needs] to keep an eye on my younger sisters too.”
Perhaps sensing my next question, Christine adds that she is “100 percent happy” that she was homeschooled. She cites two reasons: One. My mom was very insistent on one thing—she was very adamant about us reading. We read like munchkins. We’d go to the library. That was a huge part of our life—a ton of reading. I think that’s where the majority of my vocabulary just kind of—developed. Two. I believe that the hardships we went through growing up—they helped me to adapt to different situations. I see other students here. They get flustered instead of thinking of ways to fix problems. I had to figure out things myself.
With this statement, I probe: “You don’t wish you had that time to explore?”
“No,” she interjects.
I believe I gained a lot from all that happened. A lot of independence. A lot of things you don’t learn in public school that, regardless of my lack of knowledge in certain areas, enabled me to catch up really fast. I have something that I don’t think—that they can get.
Christine’s reading abilities and adaptability served her well when she decided to return to college. Like Demetrius, Christine prepared for the GED in a limited space of time, telling me that her study plan was “intentional”: I booked all four, and I had to make it by that time. I had no choice. You know how you kind of set something so you don’t have a choice? My family’s big on procrastination sometimes, so that’s a predisposition on my own—I have that tendency, so I wouldn’t allow myself to have that. So I got my GED and passed all four tests . . .
With the faintest hint of a smile on her face, Christine adds, “ . . . which was a lot to cram for in one month.”
In her capacity as “schoolteacher” for her four younger siblings, Christine emphasizes the importance of time management. During one spring morning, I watched her orchestrate the educational activities of her younger sisters. Christine showed me her detailed itinerary of activities, organized into 20-min blocks devoted to tasks such as multiplication and reading discussion. “They lose their focus after that much time, I learned. So I need to switch it up.”
Christine’s pace as a teacher is faster than the pace of the classes she takes at Orange State College. Later, away from her family, I ask whether her college classes are frustrating. She exclaims, Yes! Just like eating is a priority, make [time management] a priority. No Netflix. Focus. Study. Find your groove. Find where you study best. If you study best with TV on, that’s great. But be aware of the things that distract you.
Christine also says that she believes in “setting high standards” for her siblings. When I ask her to expand on that statement, she says the following:
Christine: I’m very much a believer if you start a kid in first grade, and she doesn’t know that Kindergarten’s supposed to exist, she’s going to hold herself to a higher level. That’s what I’ve been doing my whole life. You don’t see another option, so you don’t feel like, “Oh, but I’m supposed to start here.” So you push yourself, and you make it.
Michael: Do you ever worry that your sisters will start to dislike education?
Christine initially glances away and shrugs. After a few moments, though, she clarifies that I don’t require that they be great or even good. All I desire is that they put in their greatest conceivable effort. Because of that, they often believe—especially my youngest—that I do not care about them, and I only notice their faults.
Then, Christine surprises me with an apology “for what I’m about to say cause I know you like writing and all”: I hate English. But I give everything I possibly have into it. I feel like I have more resilience, a stronger sense of survival than a lot of [students] at other places . . . For me, being in college, it’s like my life is on the line.
Building relationships in college
Much like her childhood and adolescent years, Christine finds it difficult to make friends at Orange State College. We talk at length about how the college has few places for students to socialize when they are on campus. Christine points out to me that most of the students who attend Orange State full time are “18 or 19 year olds.” Stating that she would love to spend time with more of the older students, Christine characterizes the younger students accordingly: I have an actual desire to learn. I feel like they’re just there to get it done and out of the way. That’s why I can’t really start a group with anyone because I feel like . . . they just have a desire to pass.
Christine’s “desire to learn” is conspicuous in each of her classes. She is almost always the first to volunteer to read a selection from one of her essays aloud. One day, when Christine stays home due to an illness, her writing instructor wearingly tells the class, “Ok, now. I need volunteers, and Christine isn’t here, so someone will have to take up the slack.” Although Christine’s enthusiasm seems to indicate that she feels comfortable in the college environment, she confides to me that she frequently has “times,” especially during the first semester, where she questions her suitability for college. For example, even though she receives nothing but “A’s” on her writing assignments, Christine worries that her writing instructor is “very biased”: But in a good sense toward me, because I wrote about things that luckily she viewed in a positive way. I don’t really want to rely on it because, academically, I don’t know. Are you saying [my paper is] great because you feel empowered that I told you’re a great person for being a stay-at-home mom? Or, are you telling me it’s great writing because it actually followed the criteria of what great writing should be?
Christine’s insecurity about her writing abilities caused her to spend more money on coursework than she arguably needed to. Although she passed her college writing assessment, Christine chose to take the developmental writing class for “extra help”: Even to this day, I feel like there is an exception, or someone’s just being nice. I still feel like I succeed because this person helped. It wasn’t my abilities. Something happened. There was some kind of mistake.
Besides being sensitive to the subjective interplay between writing content and writing ability, Christine frequently questions whether “college is worth the hassle.” In this regard, Christine’s frustrations revolve around enigmatic course requirements. As an example, she mentions the “1,000 stipulations” specified by her writing instructor: We have to have three sources. Two paragraphs have to share a source. You have to start each paragraph with a single phrase from the thesis. The paper has to be five pages long. It has to have a paragraph and a half on each single page. I don’t see any of these things in the books I read, so it’s really confusing!
Christine constantly desires “more information” about course content due to her lack of formal education. As a result, she actively seeks it out whenever she is not in class, teaching her siblings, or busy with one of her jobs. By the middle of the fall semester, I learn that each of the tutors in the writing center know her by name. One of the librarians tells me that Christine is one of the few students he recognizes, explaining that “I’ve gotten used to students just wanting me to find the sources for them. [Christine] wanted to know why I was using specific search terms, why I was choosing a database, why one source would be more credible than another.” The librarian’s statement is in accordance with Christine’s confession to me that “following unexplained rules” is “her biggest fear”: I want more information. I like asking questions about everything. I like things explained because I feel so behind on the basic things. Like, at the beginning [of the class], I was saying, “What the hell is MLA? I don’t know what that is.”
Although Christine desires supplementary information about specialized academic topics such as Modern Language Association (MLA) citations, she is wary of information from other students, as she tells me that she was “burned” earlier in the semester by advice from another student. Unfortunately, the college writing center closes at 6 p.m. each day, and help from resource librarians is often only available during normal business hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. These restrictions, largely attributable to state budget cuts to higher education, make it difficult for working adults like Christine to access the help they need. Moreover, approximately 50% of the first-year writing classes at Orange State are taught by adjunct instructors who have neither ample time nor an office to provide additional support. During a student focus group conducted in the middle of the academic year, Christine’s frustrations boiled over, and she classified what she learned at Orange State as “mincemeat”: It almost seems like you go to college, and they say, “Go do this.” And you have to figure out how. You have to figure out when, where, why, what to do. And especially with my teacher. Like she says, she doesn’t hand out, “This is what’s expected in your paper.” She kind of verbally gives it here and there . . . It’s not structured. It’s not clear.
The lack of interaction and detail was especially difficult for Christine, as she felt that face-to-face feedback was essential for her success in writing classes. When on-campus support was not available for her writing assignments, Christine detailed one source of inspiration: I have a huge problem with getting my thoughts out. I have good thoughts; I can’t get them out on paper though. So sometimes I’ll have my brother say a couple words or start a sentence. Because of that sentence, I have a whole new train of thought of my own. It really helps to get started, somebody say something, and I can literally feed off of that.
At one point, though, Christine shared that she was “frustrated enough” to consider leaving permanently: “I was sitting in front of the computer writing an English paper and thinking, ‘I don’t see myself making it anywhere or going anywhere.’ There definitely was that desire to leave it all.” Christine added that she was starting to believe her “parents were right. I [hadn’t] learned anything I couldn’t have taught myself—even more efficiently—outside of school.” Eventually, though, she decided to return because “credentials don’t come with doing something yourself. They come from doing it through a system.”
As the year progressed, I realized that I had become a part of Christine’s support system. For instance, she texted me one morning with the following entreaty: Hey Mr. Lanford. Can I ask a huge favor! I am supposed to do a documentary evaluation but have so much going on with my family right now that it’s stressing me out and I feel like I have no idea what to do or where to begin or even if I am doing it right. Can I send you what I have written along with the rest of my outline and maybe you could take a look and simply tell me if I’m doing what should be done for a documentary evaluation and doing it right!! If you can that would be amazing, if not I totally understand! I get being busy!!!
My reply, stating that I would be happy to help, was met with several genuflecting emojis. The assignment required a delicate writing touch, as the student needed to be clear about his or her opinion of the documentary while analyzing its rhetorical appeals. Nevertheless, Christine persevered with the paper and received an “A,” as she did with every other writing assignment. At the end of the academic year, I asked Christine to reflect on her first-year experiences. She succinctly expressed her feelings: “It’s unnecessarily hard where it shouldn’t be. And it’s not hard enough where I thought it would be.”
Discussion and Analysis
Based solely on their external appearances and demographic characteristics, Demetrius and Christine would seem to have little in common. As Demetrius wisely counseled earlier in this article, however, it is good “to get to know someone before you make a judgment.” Several parallels can be drawn between the life and educational experiences of Demetrius and Christine. These similarities, in turn, have analytical power in understanding their position as “outsiders” and in considering how to provide the most effective support for nontraditional students.
One of the most important similarities between Demetrius and Christine concerns their resilience and persistence despite substantial financial and societal obstacles. Demetrius and Christine each emphasized how their decision to earn a college credential was an issue of “survival.” For Demetrius, it was “a matter of life and death.” Meanwhile, Christine avowed that “[her] life [was] on the line.” This sense of earnestness caused Demetrius to persevere through long-term credit-related issues and financial aid complications, whereas Christine juggled several jobs while attending to familial duties relating to her mother and her siblings. Both individuals successfully earned a GED after a mere month of preparation. Although Demetrius and Christine would be justified in feeling a sense of pride over their considerable accomplishments, the urgency with which they perceived their situations caused them to focus on long-term goals, not simply short-term achievements.
Both students placed great value in the skills they cultivated through life experiences. Demetrius asserted that his greatest asset concerned his ability to “read energy in people.” As he stated, “growing up in the streets of Miami, if you don’t know how to read people’s energy, that’s the difference between living and dying.” Another way to describe Demetrius’ ability to read people is to say he has a critical mind-set—a disposition to question any information that is presented to him. This is exemplified by his rhetorical analysis of the title loan commercial in Raymond’s writing studio. Through such a narrative, it is easy to understand why instructors loved having Demetrius in their classes. Christine is similarly critical, going so far as to interrogate the internal logic behind an instructor’s grading practices, even when she receives an “A.” In her studies, Christine is not merely content to produce a satisfactory paper, and she is less concerned with grades than in internalizing information and demonstrating knowledge. She has a strong desire to learn why something works, and she is willing to devote substantial time to explore a topic in depth, especially if it involves unfamiliar content. According to Christine, time management is another crucial skill that sets her apart from her peers who attended formal schools and may have become accustomed to relaxed expectations. Through her teaching methods, Christine even turns a potential deficit (a lack of clarity about her homeschooled siblings’ grade levels) into an advantage (by holding them to high academic standards that are based on ability, not age).
In addition, both individuals learned to become comfortable with themselves due to a certain degree of social isolation. After the death of his father—the person who had greatest influence on his life—Demetrius stated that “I had no choice but to become my own best friend.” Moreover, as Demetrius so memorably depicts, his wall is covered with shirts that memorialize friends who never survived the same childhood environment he managed to escape. Hence, Demetrius proudly declares that he does not “need the easy way no more. I actually ask for the hard way because I don’t need what others need.” His viewpoint is likely influenced by his father, who preached the values of hard work and self-reliance. Christine is equally comfortable in her own skin, admitting that she saw “no point in hanging out” with others, if she could be participating in a different activity from which she would derive greater pleasure. This perspective informs her sense that she has “a desire to learn,” whereas her peers have a “desire to pass.” Although she would like to have a peer group on which she could rely for information and support, Christine is content with identifying people who can help with specific academic questions.
To summarize, Demetrius and Christine are not hampered by insufficient motivation, underdeveloped critical thinking abilities, or an inability to demonstrate measurable academic skills that are necessary for college-level work. If anything, they exhibit abundant positive qualities in these areas. What causes Demetrius and Christine to consider leaving college are two negative issues relating to the “sense of outsiderness” I outlined at the outset of this article. First, both students suffer from a lack of understanding as to what constitutes college readiness. Consider, for example, how an instructor’s seemingly simple request for cursive writing caused Demetrius to leave school for several years. This story is illustrative of a larger issue with college writing, specifically, and undergraduate coursework, more broadly. Students enter these classroom environments with a dearth of knowledge about their own college readiness and their instructors’ expectations. Early in the semester, apprehensive students may leave college unnecessarily if they feel that they do not have the requisite skills to succeed in coursework. Concurrently, there is a lack of institutional information about how to identify and ameliorate individual student deficiencies during the first few weeks when confidence may be in its most fragile state.
Second, the largely impersonal nature of the community college campus environment threatens to alienate both Demetrius and Christine at various points throughout their first academic year. Ambiguous directions and/or requests from instructors can create a crisis of confidence in students who are already uncomfortable with academic expectations or unsure about their academic trajectories. Furthermore, Demetrius and Christine are “wary” of their younger peers, and consider them to be unreliable sources for information about coursework and assignments. Demetrius instead finds Raymond, his supplementary writing studio instructor, helpful because he translates many writing-related concepts into language that is germane to his life experiences. Christine develops close relationships with tutors in the writing center who can answer many of her questions about academic concepts, such as MLA citations, that she believes to be covered by high school curricula (but is just as challenging for her peers). These relationships keep Christine engaged with her coursework, even though she is frustrated by aspects of the college experience that seem “unnecessarily hard.”
Epilogue
In the fall of her second college year, Christine sent me a text message with “exciting news.” We met over coffee, and per usual, she received an “A” on one of her writing assignments. But this time was different. As she described, “This is the first paper I haven’t visited the writing center. I did it all myself, so I [am] just very pleased!”
Even more important to Christine was “exciting news” relating to her younger sisters: In my general psychology class, they were teaching about all these negative living environments. And every thing that was listed, my sisters were living in! And I was seeing the results with them—no attention, detached, emotionless. And I was like, “This can’t continue. I can’t control anything if I’m living 30 minutes away.” So they had to move in with me. My parents were very opposed to it, and I actually got down on my knees and—I know this sounds dramatic—but I said “Please let them move in with me. They’re not going to have a chance if you keep this up.” “So three of my sisters just moved in with me,” she said with a bright smile. I’m in the process of getting them prepared for college. My oldest sister—she’s 19—just recently got her GED and has taken her SAT test. My 17 year old—she was constantly having her attention divided. So I set up the GED for a certain date so she had no choice but to be ready. She was ready. She ended up taking it. And she balled out! My youngest sister—she’ll be 15 in December. I’m going to get her to graduate with the GED by 16. Cause there’s no reason not to! She’s way past where I was—and look where I’m at!
As for Christine’s long-term plans, she says that she is “thinking about a nursing degree,” which she could attain in 2 years, given Florida’s current shortage of nurses. I mention the possibility of earning a medical degree, and she initially scoffs at the prospect. But no more than 10 seconds later, a serious expression flashes across her face, and she says “you never know”: Something I realized since I started going to college is that [other students] are in no way superior in knowledge to me. They are just as ignorant, or naïve, or whatever you want to call me. I didn’t even know what a Scantron was. Half the terms that [teachers] used, everybody else just knew. But, at the same time, when it came to actual academic success, and knowledge, and ability, I was right up there with them.
After completing his first full year of college study, Demetrius’ confidence is also high. He tells me that, “because I’m 28 now, I believe my brain is completely developed. Also, I think all of the factors that made me ‘at risk’—I think I’ve mastered them. It’s only one other place for a person like me to go.” Even when Demetrius receives a disappointing grade in a biology class, he explains, “I’ve already hit brick walls before. But I’ve scaled them, went around them, went through them. So now it’s a little different. One thing I do know is that I’m not going to give in—or give up.”
He plans to “start [a] food truck,” not because his “passion is even in food or anything like that.” Rather, he explains, “at the very simplest level, we have to eat.” I have come to expect such pragmatism from Demetrius, and I smile at his logic. Nevertheless, Demetrius also pleasantly astonishes me with an idea that is more idealistic: But my thing now is I gotta help my friends out that can’t see the picture . . . When I am talking to my friends and I say, “Dude, it’s time to cut the shit,” the thing is, they’re not against it. Most people that are doing the wrong thing in the streets . . . if you came to them with an opportunity that seriously could work, they’ll drop that shit so fast. Some of my friends are very bright, but they just don’t have the ability to see outside of one block that they’re on. You have to see heaven to know it exists.
Demetrius stops, as if he is surprised by his own optimism. But after a moment, he continues, “When you look at one person in hundreds of thousands, I guess it kind of doesn’t matter. But I’m sure that some of the great thinkers are getting basically shoved down the drain.”
This article takes the position that one person, even among hundreds of thousands, matters a great deal. In telling Demetrius’ and Christine’s life history, this article sheds light on two of the many astute thinkers who not only combat exceptional odds to earn an undergraduate credential but also express complex concepts in eloquent, effective, and insightful language. By hearing their stories, drawing upon their talents and strengths, and easing their transitions to the potentially alienating college environment, we can ensure that future nontraditional students are presented with greater opportunities to succeed.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.