Posted on 04/19/2020 9:26:53 AM PDT by Hildy
Years of hard work have paid off for Columbus, Ohio teen Lashawn Samuel.
Living in poverty and struggling with hunger, Samuel had to be hospitalized at times due to health issues, and lost a friend to gang violence.
Nevertheless, the young man walked 3 miles every day from his home to a local library to study and get help with his homework.
Starting in eighth grade, Samuel began his daily walk from his home to the Columbus Metropolitan Library, where he would sign in to the Homework Help Center at 3:00 p.m., work until the center closed, and then walk back home.
Sometimes he walked home in the dark to his Section 8 housing.
Incredibly, the young man has now been accepted to 12 colleges, with several offering a full scholarship — including his dream college, Ohio State University, where he is planning on attending the Fisher College of Business.
Samuel will be the first person in his family to go to college.
(Excerpt) Read more at disrn.com ...
I’d like to hear his experiences on how he avoided being pulled down by his environment and the people around him.
Wow...well, he’s well grounded and that can never be taken from him.
“Never even got 1 offer of a scholorship.”
It may have been that “uphill both ways” thingy! Oh, and your spelling. :-)
My daughter graduated in 2018 Magna Cum Laude in Aeronautical Engineering with over 12,000 fellow graduates. Everyone received their actual diplomas in a nearly full (parents, and such) 105,000 seat stadium in a ceremony that lasted just over two hours. This kid's choice of major, as if the rest of his story didn't confirm it already, shows he has his head on very straight and will probably excel.
I still ended up going to a liberal indoctrination camp, but there were some really good profs there and I managed to get through without being brainwashed too badly.
I also further developed a weird sense of humour.
And an impressive knowledge of culture.
Check out the song “We didn’t go to Harvard” by the Cayuga Waiters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7Rjk1WGHp8
He gets extra credit. He walked 3 miles to library, not school
There are tons of places one can get a really good education if one know’s what one is doing and/or is lucky, and at most of these one can also get a really bad education.
That said, Roll Tide. (But I’ve got a sister that pulls hard for Ohio State).
He gets extra credit. His 3 mile walk was to the library, not school.
Every time I hear one of these heartwarming “I grew up in a log cabin and walked five miles in the snow to go to school and it was up hill both ways” for some reason a little voice in the back of my head says “Reall?”
Now this kids story may be true and if it is a little exaggerated? Well if you can’t exaggerate on a college application or a job resume where can you? But I am looking at a map of the Columbus library system and a map of the racial distribution in Columbus and I got to tell you it would be fairly hard for a kid in the Columbus ghetto to be 3 miles from a library especially since the main library and the Martin Luther King branch sit pretty much in the middle of the blackest neighborhoods in Columbus.
In any event I still wish the kid good luck because if his life was not quite as grim as he pictured it on his application it probably still was not a bed of roses.
I remember when I was 15-16 years old, my high school debate team partner and I decided that the downtown KC library (twenty miles away) was the place to research and hang out. We Haunted that place.
Keep going, keep up the pressure young man. God rewards the brave and hardworking.
“It takes a lot more work to start from poverty and end up middle class than having been born into middle class and maintained it.”
Very true.
Its so easy to make excuses and remain at your level than to push to excel. This young man had the extra problems of gangs, section 8 housing and downward peer pressure to overcome. That peer pressure seems to keep too many from succeeding.
I know nothing about the business college referenced in the article but I’m sure he will have ignorant required first year reading assignments and pressure from the “Studies” crowd to deal with.
You’re right on that as well.
If he seeks good guidance and works closely with tutors and guidance counselors, I think he will be a success.
Looks like the 3-mile walk was worth it.
You’re right, of course. Personally, I went from a very small suburban high school to the largest college (on one campus) in the country and loved it. And regarding The Tide, I tend to root for ‘Bama unless they’re playing OSU. Lot of respect. Saban being a player for and graduate of Kent State, and former OSU and Browns assistant, helps. Combined, the traditions of the two schools are massive.
Good for him. Sounds like he’s got some Booker T. Washington in him.
I grew up pulling for OSU—being from the backwoods of Oregon. Go Beavers!
I went from a very large rural high school to the largest of the Ivies and hated it, even though for an Ivy it was pretty rural. I’ve sometimes wondered if I would have liked Dartmouth better.
That said, thanks to Franciscan University of Steubenville and Oregon having a lousy economy, my parents and all three of my sisters ended up in Ohio within about an hour of Columbus. My brother is the only one left on the right side of the Mississippi.
“Check out the song “We didn’t go to Harvard” by the Cayuga Waiters.”
That made me go back to watching the original “We didn’t start the fire” by Billy Joel.
Puts today’s happenings in perspective. Just another fire to get through.
Unfortunately, the original is blocked in Canuckistan.
Try using a VPN, that might get you through.
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