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 ...
Debate was good for that. Our team did a few outings to the University of Oregon Library, which was a couple hours away. Learning how to use a university library while still in high school was a skill for which I am grateful.
What years did you debate? I did cross-examination from ‘85-88
While I am more tech savvy than Nick Saban, who was finally forced by the lockdown to get e-mail, I’m pretty inept and while I do like the song, it would take much more than that to motivate me.
He did it by following God’s principal of not harboring bitterness and listening to the lies of the enemy of our souls and becoming a victim. He believed in the promise that, through Christ he could do all things! I get so anger when I think of the lies that are told to the black community and that if only truth would rule the day. So much damage done by the lies of the left.
They recruited my nephew who was an all state defenseman....All my nephew wanted was to play, not sit the bench the first year so he turned them down and went to Williams College in Massachusetts
Great story and wishes for best success to him.
But, shouldn’t that be THE Ohio State University? I’ve seen people kicked to the curb for that infraction ;-)
I’m glad for him and wish him all the best. His positive and can do attitude will be a big asset.
But I find it odd that there’s no mention of his grade average and SAT score in the article.
“it would take much more than that to motivate me.”
No wonder you didn’t get accepted to Harvard. :)
I bet Lashawn would do it! :)
All state in Michigan is probably pretty decent for the U.S. After more than two decades in Ontario, I’ve really grown to appreciate Michigan.
My one-bit school rents ice on Friday nights in our small town for pick-up hockey. One of the guys went and did a semester at Oxford and was quickly recruited for the Oxford hockey team (which is dominated by expat Canadians). He was about average at our school, and about average in whatever league Oxford was playing in.
Williams was likely a good choice—especially if he takes hockey really seriously and also wants to fit in studies and graduate in four years. I doubt that the Harvard coach is too concerned about his players reaching more than a satisfactory academic level, though I’ve been told that the hardest thing about Harvard is getting in (I believe that that is a quote from one of their former presidents, though that may be an urban legend).
That’s probably not far from the truth. At least in the 80’s they seemed to have one spot each year for diversity for people from rural western (possibly southwestern) Oregon that my high school keyed in on, and managed to get about half the time (we were the biggest school in the region and had some good faculty). In my year three of us applied, and we were pretty sure that only one of us was going to get in. One of the guys wanted to go so badly that he went out for the football team to better round out his application. He snagged the spot, and I am so grateful. He hated it and ended up leaving after a year, and I probably would have as well.
I hated Cornell too, but in that case hate (or practicality) motivated me to cram four years worth of courses into three (almost four years—I did have a handful of credits that I transferred in, but I believe 6 at most). So sometimes I can be motivated. I also saved a bundle.
Maybe not all the libraries had homework help centers and he walked to the one that did.
Hey, I’ve lost a fair amount of motivation too as I’ve gotten older. Can’t say that I miss it.
And Cornell ain’t bad and it’s got a much more beautiful campus than Harvard, and Ithaca has some great restaurants.
Why do all the lib college towns always have great restaurants?
I went to Berkeley and it’s the same there.
The Cornell campus isn’t bad, but growing up in the Oregon woods, I’m spoiled.
Some of the profs were idiots (really smart well educated idiots, yet still idiots), but I stumbled on some good ones and took all the classes I could from them. It ended up being a pretty good education, all things considered, but in some ways really random. Two of the three best profs ended up tenured at Cornell, but the third was only there for a decade or so.
What a good story! I hope this young man gets everything he wants in his life; he certainly deserves it.
LOL!
From Article: The budding scholar said:
“I never would have achieved it without God, my family, my friends and this environment I have around me.
There’s always going to be a challenge or an obstacle that you’re going to have to overcome or grow out of. But as long as you keep true to yourself and have faith and persevere so that you can overcome it, then you will.”
He got no scholarship, he chose Williams solely for the academics while he could have fun playing hockey and lacross......
His academics allowed him into University of Mich med school but because of foreign nationals and minorities, they couldn't accept him until the following year. So he went to Europe and played hockey for a year, traveled a lot then came home and entered U of M....
Harvard wouldn’t have been able to give a “hockey scholarship”, as that runs contrary to Ivy policy. But if they had wanted him badly enough they could still find away around that.
Sounds like a great guy. Playing both of Canada’s national supports! I’ve heard across defined as hockey with fighting.
His family's income would never have qualified him to receive any type of scholarship any where so that was never an issue.......As I said, for Michael, it was Education first and fun hockey second.........He made the right choice.
63-64, 64-65, 65-66 and was the Capitan of the Student organizers when my large suburban high school put on a state wide invitational tournament.
My debate partner and I are still best friends but live far apart. We get together for family events and fun experiences. We have been best friends since 1960, sixty years.
In college another buddy of mine placed and then won National Speaker and Team awards over a three year period and went on to tour in The English Speaking Debate tournament in Oxford. He garnered a full scholarship offer from Stanford for a Masters but turned it down to be a DJ in Amsterdam and smoke weed.
You are right about restaurants.
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