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The hardest part about growing up poor was knowing I couldn’t mess up. Not even once.

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I think we have an ideology about talent that says that talent is a tangible, resilient, hardened, shiny thing. It will always rise to the top. To find and encourage talent, all you have to do as a society is to make sure the right doors are open. Free campus visits, free tuition, letters to the kids with high score s . … You raise your hand and say, “Over here!” And the talent will come running, but that’s not true … [i]t’s not resilient and shiny … [t]alent is really, really fragile.

— Malcolm Gladwell

I grew up in East Oakland, California, as the youngest son of Teochew-Vietnamese immigrants. School was always easy for me — I never really felt challenged throughout elementary school. Amid the droves of teacher strikes and substitutes, the truly dedicated teachers of Oakland’s Maxwell Park Elementary School were few and far between.

But in fifth grade, I was fortunate enough to be taught by Mrs. Harris, who changed my life forever. On weekends, Mrs. Harris invited students to her house for lunch. Using her own money, she gave away trinkets to those who did well on assignments.

And during a parent-teacher conference, she did something unthinkable and so incredible that I didn’t fully comprehend its impact until years later. She begged my parents to have me apply to private middle schools to get me out of the failing Oakland public schools .

My parents, who don’t speak much English, did not understand what was happening. They didn’t know what a private school was, let alone why anyone would pay for school when there was free public education. Neither graduated from high school before fleeing from Vietnam to America with my eldest brother in tow. While they valued education for their children, they thought of education as uniform and binary — you either went to school or you didn’t. And as long as their kids went to school, that was good enough.

If it had been up to my parents, nothing would have happened. But Mrs. Harris was hell-bent on making sure that I would have this opportunity for a better education. Every day, she would ask me, “So have you started applying yet?” “Did your parents look into Head-Royce yet?”

After weeks of hounding my parents, Mrs. Harris, my brother, and most of my 16 aunts and uncles managed to convince my parents to look into this private school idea. Thanks to their efforts, I ended up applying to the prestigious Head-Royce School in Oakland, taking the admissions test, and getting accepted.

But I didn’t attend. Instead, I ended up going to the local public middle school because my parents and I had failed to turn in the financial aid forms before the deadline . It took a village to push my parents to apply to Head-Royce, but there wasn’t anyone around to help us with something as mundane yet essential as filling out the financial aid forms on time. There probably were people who could have helped us, but my parents didn’t want to bother anyone by asking for help. That was their immigrant mindset: You shut up, work hard, and definitely don’t burden others.

I got a voicemail from the head of admissions at Head-Royce, asking if I still wanted to enroll despite the lack of financial aid. Growing up, I never really thought that we were poor, or at least I didn’t understand what that meant. The words “federally assisted lunch program” actually made me feel special since I got free lunches at school.

But once I found out that the school’s tuition cost more than my parents made in a year, I realized there was a world beyond what I had known. Before applying, I had no idea that Head-Royce or private schools even existed, but now that I had a window into that world, it felt like the window had been boarded over, shutting me out.

Here’s the crazy part — I internalized this whole process to mean that I wasn’t good enough for Head-Royce. I had taken a shot at the big leagues, trying to get into a better school, and I had been rejected. I wasn’t smart enough. I hadn’t worked hard enough. I wasn’t enough.

At first, my parents complained about the unfair system. However, soon after, both my parents and I took the closed door to mean that I wasn’t good enough, that I hadn’t scored high enough on the tests, that Head-Royce didn’t want me after all. If I had and if they did, they would have given me a scholarship. I felt awful and ashamed. I wasn’t good enough.

It’s a feeling that has persisted throughout my life, even as I attended an excellent college and started a successful company. It’s a feeling that many people like me — people who have fought their way out of poverty — struggle with. This is a problem we need to fix, and fast.

I really needed someone to believe in me

I might have given up on myself, but Mrs. Harris refused to give up on me. When she found out that I wasn’t going to Head-Royce, she went to work on a backup plan. We tried to get into a better public middle school in the wealthy part of Oakland, but nothing came of our efforts. Undeterred, Mrs. Harris contacted and pushed to get me into the Heads Up summer program, which offered free classes at Head-Royce for underserved kids.

During summer classes at Heads Up, I felt challenged academically for the first time ever and really started to love school. That newfound appreciation for education also rubbed off on my parents — they somehow saved up enough from their minimum wage jobs to pay for a math tutor whose house I went to twice a week that year. Mrs. Harris changed everything. I hope she’s reading this, since I don’t think I ever even said thank you. Thank you.

Those summer classes gave me hope during sixth grade, which ended up feeling like a lost year. I can’t remember any of the teachers’ names. I just have memories of the English teacher who the kids made cry and the substitute math teacher who yelled at me when I corrected him on how to do long division — never mind why a sixth-grade class was still being taught long division.

I applied again to Head-Royce, this time for seventh grade. We applied for financial aid as soon as it opened up and had several people check over the forms to make sure everything looked right. Thanks to the generosity of the Malone Family Foundation , I received a financial aid package that allowed me to attend the school.

Head-Royce felt like paradise. Everyone there was smart and loved to learn. The coursework was actually challenging. I loved it. Even so, I never felt like I fit in. I never, ever told anyone about what had happened when I had previously applied to Head-Royce — it remained a huge, shameful, dirty secret. I don’t think I ever got over that feeling that I wasn’t good enough, though it certainly motivated to me to work my butt off.

Years later, at Stanford, where a large percentage of the student body receives some financial aid, I maintained that internalized feeling of not belonging in this world, of not being good enough. I never talked about it. Not at Head-Royce. Not at Stanford.

Why the feeling of not being good enough haunts kids who grew up poor

On my way to a friend’s new luxury apartment in San Francisco last month, I listened to an episode of Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast called “Carlos Doesn’t Remember . ” I quickly found myself in tears — the protagonist’s story was my story. It was probably many of your stories.

Carlos is a smart, hard-working high school sophomore from a bad part of LA. He was fortunate enough to meet Eric Eisner, a former entertainment lawyer who founded a program called YES to help kids like Carlos get a scholarship to an elite private school. It sounds like he’s got his ticket out, but it’s never that simple. You don’t just leave behind where you came from because you get a scholarship to a good school.

Gladwell revisits a moment in Carlos’s life when his private school teachers were concerned that he didn’t play with the other kids during recess. It wasn’t due to a lack of friends, because he was usually very gregarious in the classroom. Nor was it due to him feeling self-conscious as the only Hispanic kid at the predominantly white school. Eisner found out: H e literally couldn’t play because his shoes were three sizes too big and he couldn’t afford another pair .

Carlos had also been accepted to a prestigious boarding school but didn’t enroll because he didn’t want to leave his sister alone in foster care. He doesn’t like to talk about these things — in fact, he claims he doesn’t remember any of these incidents.

Carlos’s story highlights a problem that I’ve experienced but was never able to articulate. While scholarships are supposed to be an equalizer — and we as a society should continue to make education more affordable and scholarships available — the real battle underprivileged kids face can be much more insidious and intangible. My co-founder Ricky Yean touched on this battle in “ Why it’s so hard to succeed in Silicon Valley when you grew up poor ” :

Tangible inequalities — that which can be seen and measured, like money or access — get the majority of the attention, and deservedly so. But inequalities that live in your mind can keep the deck stacked against you long after you’ve made it out of the one-room apartment you shared with your dad. This is insidious, difficult-to-discuss, and takes a long essay to explain.

Being poor, you cannot afford to fuck up the opportunity that comes along

After listening to Gladwell’s podcast, I realized that both Ricky and I — any many others who’ve tried to escape poverty — are motivated by survival instinct. Once you see a way out, you become laser-focused on that opportunity. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a scholastic or sports scholarship, or a less traditional path. Being poor, you cannot afford to fuck up the opportunity that comes along.

You don’t take it for granted because you understand you’re playing by someone else’s rules. Even today, Ricky and I often feel like that. Given the long odds we beat to get here, sometimes in our heads, our world feels very fragile; at any moment, the clock could strike midnight. We’ve encouraged each other to talk more openly about these feelings, in an effort to strengthen and reinforce the reality of what we’ve built.

As Gladwell points out, it’s often only possible for poor kids like me to reach their potential when we have a champion who can not only show us the way but help carry us there. Mrs. Harris was that hero for me. She wasn’t a big-shot lawyer in this case; she was just a teacher who believed in me. She made opportunities happen for me, and she persisted when things hit unexpected roadblocks.

But not every kid is lucky enough to have a Mrs. Harris. Or an Eric Eisner. Remembering that and thinking about how many underprivileged kids must be experiencing this on a daily basis is why Carlos’s story brought me to tears.

We as a society need to do more to not only find these lost diamonds in the rough but dig them up, champion their cause, and push open doors for them — like Mrs. Harris did for me.

We always need more Mrs. Harrises and Eric Eisners, but this isn’t just a call for champions. I believe that in order to level the playing field for underprivileged, minority, or other disadvantaged groups, providing opportunities is not enough — we need to start talking openly about the differences in background, mindset, and opportunities that persist even after you attempt to level the field.

When discussing diversity, people often bring up the idea of a pipeline, where the focus is on bringing in as many qualified, underrepresented, or underprivileged candidates as possible. But perhaps we should start thinking about it as less of a pipeline and more of a leaky funnel.

The fact is when you grow up poor or disadvantaged, there are innumerable places where you might drop off before you have a chance at a better life. As Gladwell points out, many of the brightest students in Carlos’s hometown end up gang-affiliated as early as the eighth grade, long before free SAT prep courses, scholarships, and admissions officers can open up doors for them. We have to do more to ensure that the underserved know what opportunities are available to them and help them through every step of realizing those opportunities.

In the face of adversity, you have far fewer chances, a much smaller margin for error. The oversights and slights you internalize over the course of many, many years make the rare opportunities you find even rarer and leave you unable to capitalize on what’s left. If we want to start to spot and seal the cracks and leaks that leave people behind, we need to begin the dialogue on unseen inequalities and unexpected drop-offs.

To everyone who has experienced this— who has felt like they don’t belong or aren’t good enough — the world needs to hear your story. Only then can it begin to give current and future underdogs a better chance at a better life. And just remember: You are good enough. You do belong.

David Tran is the co-founder and CTO of PRX.co , a venture-backed , software-powered PR startup. Previously he started Crowdbooster, a social media optimization solution, was an entrepreneur in residence at Stanford's StartX, and graduated from Stanford with a BS in c omputer s cience. David spends a lot of his free time training for marathons and rooting for the Warriors, the A's, and the Stanford Cardinal.

This essay is adapted from a post that originally ran on Medium .

First Person is Vox's home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines , and pitch us at [email protected] .

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Robert Sampson, Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences, is one of the researchers studying the link between poverty and social mobility.

Rose Lincoln/Harvard file photo

Unpacking the power of poverty

Peter Reuell

Harvard Staff Writer

Study picks out key indicators like lead exposure, violence, and incarceration that impact children’s later success

Social scientists have long understood that a child’s environment — in particular growing up in poverty — can have long-lasting effects on their success later in life. What’s less well understood is exactly how.

A new Harvard study is beginning to pry open that black box.

Conducted by Robert Sampson, the Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences, and Robert Manduca, a doctoral student in sociology and social policy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the study points to a handful of key indicators, including exposure to high levels of lead, violence, and incarceration as key predictors of children’s later success. The study is described in an April paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“What this paper is trying to do, in a sense, is move beyond the traditional neighborhood indicators people use, like poverty,” Sampson said. “For decades, people have shown poverty to be important … but it doesn’t necessarily tell us what the mechanisms are, and how growing up in poor neighborhoods affects children’s outcomes.”

To explore potential pathways, Manduca and Sampson turned to the income tax records of parents and approximately 230,000 children who lived in Chicago in the 1980s and 1990s, compiled by Harvard’s Opportunity Atlas project. They integrated these records with survey data collected by the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, measures of violence and incarceration, census indicators, and blood-lead levels for the city’s neighborhoods in the 1990s.

They found that the greater the extent to which poor black male children were exposed to harsh environments, the higher their chances of being incarcerated in adulthood and the lower their adult incomes, measured in their 30s. A similar income pattern also emerged for whites.

Among both black and white girls, the data showed that increased exposure to harsh environments predicted higher rates of teen pregnancy.

Despite the similarity of results along racial lines, Chicago’s segregation means that far more black children were exposed to harsh environments — in terms of toxicity, violence, and incarceration — harmful to their mental and physical health.

“The least-exposed majority-black neighborhoods still had levels of harshness and toxicity greater than the most-exposed majority-white neighborhoods, which plausibly accounts for a substantial portion of the racial disparities in outcomes,” Manduca said.

“It’s really about trying to understand some of the earlier findings, the lived experience of growing up in a poor and racially segregated environment, and how that gets into the minds and bodies of children.” Robert Sampson

“What this paper shows … is the independent predictive power of harsh environments on top of standard variables,” Sampson said. “It’s really about trying to understand some of the earlier findings, the lived experience of growing up in a poor and racially segregated environment, and how that gets into the minds and bodies of children.”

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The study isn’t solely focused on the mechanisms of how poverty impacts children; it also challenges traditional notions of what remedies might be available.

“This has [various] policy implications,” Sampson said. “Because when you talk about the effects of poverty, that leads to a particular kind of thinking, which has to do with blocked opportunities and the lack of resources in a neighborhood.

“That doesn’t mean resources are unimportant,” he continued, “but what this study suggests is that environmental policy and criminal justice reform can be thought of as social mobility policy. I think that’s provocative, because that’s different than saying it’s just about poverty itself and childhood education and human capital investment, which has traditionally been the conversation.”

The study did suggest that some factors — like community cohesion, social ties, and friendship networks — could act as bulwarks against harsh environments. Many researchers, including Sampson himself, have shown that community cohesion and local organizations can help reduce violence. But Sampson said their ability to do so is limited.

“One of the positive ways to interpret this is that violence is falling in society,” he said. “Research has shown that community organizations are responsible for a good chunk of the drop. But when it comes to what’s affecting the kids themselves, it’s the homicide that happens on the corner, it’s the lead in their environment, it’s the incarceration of their parents that’s having the more proximate, direct influence.”

Going forward, Sampson said he hopes the study will spur similar research in other cities and expand to include other environmental contamination, including so-called brownfield sites.

Ultimately, Sampson said he hopes the study can reveal the myriad ways in which poverty shapes not only the resources that are available for children, but the very world in which they find themselves growing up.

“Poverty is sort of a catchall term,” he said. “The idea here is to peel things back and ask, What does it mean to grow up in a poor white neighborhood? What does it mean to grow up in a poor black neighborhood? What do kids actually experience?

“What it means for a black child on the south side of Chicago is much higher rates of exposure to violence and lead and incarceration, and this has intergenerational consequences,” he continued. “This is particularly important because it provides a way to think about potentially intervening in the intergenerational reproduction of inequality. We don’t typically think about criminal justice reform or environmental policy as social mobility policy. But maybe we should.”

This research was supported with funding from the Project on Race, Class & Cumulative Adversity at Harvard University, the Ford Foundation, and the Hutchins Family Foundation.

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I Grew Up Poor — Here's How It Changed My Life

Why judging the poor isn’t actually helping anybody.

When I was 11, I kept a box full of moments, a written record of all the times I thought my mom was being a bad mom for being poor.

My mother was poor and imperfect, but she wasn’t poor because she was imperfect.

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Essays About Growing Up: 5 Examples and 7 Prompts

Essays about growing up help us view and understand various experiences from different perspectives. Check out our top examples and prompts for your writing.

How do you know when you’ve finally grown up? Me, it happened when I was in high school. I realized I matured when I had no qualms about looking for ways to help my family financially. I didn’t think I had a choice, but at the same time, I desperately wanted to aid my parents in ensuring we had food on the table. 

I was a fast food crew member, a librarian, and many other odd jobs I could talk about for hours. Some judge my parents’ poor financial literacy when I tell my stories, but I never did. All of it was a part of my growing up; without these experiences, I wouldn’t be the person I am today. 

Growing up is a unique experience for every person, influenced by our surroundings and influences. With so many variables, each person has their own story about growing up; take a look below to see the best example and prompts to begin writing your own. You might also like these essays about youth .

5 Essay Examples

1. social influences on children’s growing up by anonymous on ivypanda.com, 2. growing up in the 626 by katie gee salisbury, 3. growing up in poverty determines the person’s fate by anonymous on gradesfixer.com, 4. growing up on the streets by writer bernadette, 5. growing up with hearing loss by anonymous on ivypanda.com, 1. what does growing up mean, 2. the effect of my environment on my growth, 3. growing up rich or poor, 4. family values and growing up, 5. growing up with siblings, 6. your best memories growing up, 7. changes while growing up.

“Human growth and development is a complicated process which is inevitably impacted upon by socioeconomic circumstances within which an individual is growing up.”

To demonstrate the social influences that can impact a child’s experiences growing up, the essay offers several credible citations from professionals, such as Damon and Lerner, the writer and editor of “ Handbook of Child Psychology .” It looks at how social factors, such as living conditions, access to resources, and others, can affect a child’s overall development as they grow. Ultimately, the writer believes that parents play a huge role in the development of their children. You can also check out these essays about development .

“Something welled up inside my throat. All of a sudden I felt a burning urgency to stake a claim, to assert that I was one of them, that I too belonged in this group. ‘Hey guys, I’m Chinese too,’ I ventured. A classmate who carpooled with my family was quick to counter, ‘Katie, that doesn’t count.'”

Salisbury shares her experiences as an overachieving Asian-American, focusing on her grievances at being biracial, not connecting to her heritage, and people’s assumption of her being white. She talks about her life in 626, the area code for Arcadia, Southern California, where most Asians reside. At the end of her essay, Salisbury offers facts about herself to the reader, recognizing and accepting every part of herself.

Looking for more? Check out these essays about time .

“Economic mobility is the ability of someone or a family to move up from one income group to another. In the United States, it is at an all-time low and is currently decreasing.”

The author shares their opinion on how a family’s financial situation shapes their children’s future. To back up their claim, the essay provides relevant statistics showing the number of children and families in poverty, alongside its dramatic effects on a child’s overall development. The writer mentions that a family’s economic incompetence can pass on to the children, reducing their chances of receiving a proper education.

“As a young black woman growing up on the hardcore streets of North Philadelphia, you have to strive and fight for everything. The negativity and madness can grab and swallow even the most well-behaved kids.”

Bernadette opens her readers’ eyes to the harsh realities of being a young black woman throughout her essay. However, she also expresses her gratitude to her family, who encouraged her to have a positive mindset. Her parents, who also grew up on the streets of North Philly, were determined to give her and her siblings a proper education. 

She knows how individuals’ environments impact their values ​​and choices, so she fought hard to endure her circumstances. She also notes that the lack of exposure to different social norms results in children having limited thinking and prevents them from entertaining new perspectives. You might be interested in these essays about dream jobs .

“The world is not accommodating to people with hearing disabilities: apart from professionals, barely anyone knows and understands sign language. On top of that, many are merely unaware of the fact that they might be hurting and making a deaf person feel disrespected.”

The essay discusses critical issues in children growing up with hearing impairments. It includes situations that show the difference between a child growing up in an all-deaf family and a non-deaf environment. While parental love and support are essential, deaf parents should consider hearing impairment a gift and be aware of their children’s needs. 

If you are interested in learning more, check out our essay writing tips !

7 Prompts for Essays About Growing Up

Growing up is a continuous sequence where we develop and experience significant changes in our bodies and how we think and feel. It’s the transition between being a child and an adult, so define what childhood and adulthood entail in your essay.

Then, describe how an individual grows up and the indications that they progressed physically and intellectually. For a fun addition to your essay, include questions your readers can answer to see if they have matured.

Many studies show how people’s environments, such as home, community, and school, affect growth. These environments significantly impact an individual’s development through interactions. For this prompt, write about the factors that influence your overall development and explain how you think they affected you. For example, those who studied at a religious school tend to be more conservative.

Money is essential for survival, but only some have easy access. Most people act and make decisions based on how much money they have, which also influences their behavior. In this prompt, cite several situations where money affects parents’ decisions about their children’s needs and wants and how it affects the children as they grow up.

Discuss how financial constraints impact their emotions, perceptions, and choices in life. Choose high, average, and low-income households, then compare and contrast their situations. To create an in-depth analysis, use interview research and statistical data to back up your arguments.

Studies show that children understand rules and have already formed their behaviors and attitudes at seven. Before this age, children are surrounded by relatives who teach them values through experiences within the family. For this prompt, use real-life examples and factual information to discuss the importance of good parenting in instilling good values ​​in children.

Growing up with siblings is an entirely different experience growing up versus being an only child. Use this prompt to explain how having a brother or sister can impact a child’s progress and discuss its pros and cons. For instance, having siblings means the child has more role models and can get more emotional support. However, it can also mean that a child craves more of their parent’s attention. Discuss these points in your essay, and decide the “better” experience, for a fun argumentative essay.

In this essay, choose the best memories you had from childhood to the current day that has contributed significantly to your principles and outlook. Describe each memory and share how it changed you, for better or worse.

Talk about the changes people expect as they grow up. These physical, emotional, or mental changes lead people to act and think more maturely.  Add studies demonstrating the necessity of these changes and recount instances when you realize that you’ve grown up. For example, if before you didn’t care about your spending, now you’re more frugal and learned to save money. For help with your essay, check our round-up of best essay writing apps .

Maria Caballero is a freelance writer who has been writing since high school. She believes that to be a writer doesn't only refer to excellent syntax and semantics but also knowing how to weave words together to communicate to any reader effectively.

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I Didn’t Know I Was Poor Until I Applied to College

As a kid, I divided rich and poor into two categories: Rich people have big houses and fancy cars, and poor folks have nothing. Measuring myself against those extremes, I felt like I didn’t fit in either.

Growing up, I didn’t have video games or cable TV, but I had a yard where I could make mud pies. To my parents’ dismay, I once tried to dig a hole in that yard that went all the way to China. To my parents’ joy, I used that same yard to pick white daisies to demonstrate capillary action of water in plants. My project—adding color to the white flowers by sticking them in empty spaghetti sauce jars of food dye and water—won a blue ribbon in my fifth-grade science fair.

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There were times when I wished my Pro Wings shoes from Payless were Nikes, or my dollar store dolls were Barbies. But most of the time, I was happy. My childhood was filled with laughter, family dinners, and library books. I couldn’t afford to buy tickets to summer blockbusters, so I borrowed every Shirley Temple, Nancy Kwan, Rita Moreno, and Sidney Poitier VHS tape I could find at the public library. While other kids saw movies about mutants and robots, I reveled in Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers routines.

All of that fell away when I started writing admissions essays. I only had one thousand words to describe who I was and where I came from to the outside world, and it was not enough space for nuance. So, I simplified. I truncated the complexities of my existence into compound words. My neighborhood, with its cul-de-sacs of homes and organic gardens (before organic was a thing), became a “low-income community.” My friends and our families, with our love for weekend barbecues and 35-cent Thrifty Ice Cream cones, belonged to a “working class.” I tried as well as I could to reconcile how I saw myself—a B-average student with dreams to make a difference in this world—with how society labeled me—a statistic, a member of the free-lunch population, a poor child. It was an early exercise in translating poverty into terms people with economic privilege could understand.

The complexities of who I am, and where I am from, got lost in the translation. I am the daughter of Vietnamese “boat people” refugees. My mom worked in sweatshops and my dad was a day laborer. Even with all their love for books and knowledge, my parents never had the chance to finish high school. Their academic dreams were dashed by poverty and war. They couldn’t help me navigate the school system or study for the SAT because it was new for them, too. But that doesn’t mean their histories were an obstacle I had to overcome. They were a source of strength: They sheltered me, nurtured me, motivated me, and loved me.

My family and community may not have been financially wealthy, but that doesn’t mean we were less than. I didn’t feel downtrodden. I was not Oliver Twist.

We make a mistake when we assume poor children think of themselves as poor. Poverty as a label perpetuates false notions of identity—for those being labeled and for those making decisions on their behalf. It also flattens kids into stereotypes: Some are burdens to the society who aren’t expected to amount to anything, and others are grit-filled diamonds in the rough who only have luck to thank. People are tokenized, otherized, commercialized, criminalized, and even romanticized. We’re reduced to an “us” versus “them” and categorized as good or bad apples.

When it comes to poverty, there’s no such thing as “us” or “them.” Most Americans—4 out of 5 of us—will experience some kind of economic hardship in our lifetimes. But when that happens, we probably won’t think of ourselves as poor. We’ll be “down on our luck.” We’ll be “having a tough time.” That makes it harder for people to ask for the help they need—after all, food stamps are for “poor” people. And it makes it harder to admit it when you accept support, because we treat the narratives of “taxpayer” and “social service recipient” as if they’re mutually exclusive.

Those lines are designed to be blurred. I’m proof—a Head Start student that became an Ivy League graduate. Thanks to public schools and the National School Lunch Act, I received an education and never went hungry. Thanks to Medicaid, I had the dental and health care that I needed to thrive as a child. Thanks to Pell Grants, Stafford Loans, and Work-Study, I went to and finished college. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, I was insured when I was unemployed.

I didn’t realize I was poor for 18 years. Perhaps it was because of the combination of support I received from my family, our community, and the effective policies and programs that were in place when I needed them the most. Every library book, free lunch, and after-school activity I had mattered. With them, a curious kid became a public school teacher, now doctoral candidate. Without them, you wouldn’t be reading this today.

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The Senate Health Bill Could Fire the People Who Keep Me Alive

The last thing I ever expected was to be an employer, but that is exactly the situation in which I find myself. I don’t employ people as part of a business, or anything even remotely profitable. I employ caregivers who keep me alive.

Under the Senate’s latest health care bill, my caregivers are at risk of losing their jobs. And if they lose their jobs, my life will be at risk.

Six years ago, I was diagnosed with a multi-system disease—myalgic encephalomyelitis, or chronic fatigue syndrome—that inhibits my body’s metabolic system. Although the disease differs from person to person, my condition has been degenerative over the years; for more than a year starting in 2015, it left me unable to speak, eat, or lift my head higher than a pillow.

This is the type of physical debilitation that requires a caregiver.

For the past two years I’ve been completely bedridden, and I’ve hired numerous caregivers to perform myriad tasks for me. They have administered my daily oral medications and flushed my IV with syringes full of saline and heparin. They bring me my toothbrush every morning, and they help me go to “the bathroom” by emptying a plastic urinal beside my bed. They help me bathe by placing a flattened inflatable bathtub on my bed, which I scoot onto so they can inflate it around my body. They fill the tub with water so I can clean myself, then they drain it, I towel off, and they deflate the tub so I can crawl out.

These tasks are essential to my health, and I depend on my caregivers to help me perform them. But the stark reality is that I simply couldn’t afford to employ caregivers without Medicaid.

I receive around 48 hours of paid caregiving every week through California’s In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS), which gets half its funding from the federal government. For the 48 hours a week they cumulatively work, my caregivers are paid California’s minimum wage: $10.50 per hour. Because I believe that is an unfair wage for such a demanding job, I supplement their pay as much as I can —usually an extra two dollars an hour.

Under the Senate health care bill, Medicaid would face massive cuts—up to $772 billion by 2026. Combined with the House budget, which was released earlier this week, those cuts would jump to $1.5 trillion . That would almost certainly cause dramatic reductions to caregiving services in California, as well as every other state in the country. But these cuts will not only impact patients; they will take a toll on the caregiving field and other industries related to health care.

“Caregiver” is an umbrella term that includes several job titles, such as personal care aides and home health aides. These positions account for millions of jobs, and past projections have estimated as much as 38 percent growth in some fields by 2024. But since Medicaid is the largest public payer of long-term caregiving services, the cuts outlined in the BCRA could end up eliminating their jobs, along with others in health care and the broader economy. The Center for American Progress has estimated that the House version of the health care bill—which is substantially similar to the Senate bill—would cost the American workforce 1.8 million jobs by 2022.

Each one of those jobs has dozens of lives attached to it and is part of a vital social equation that nobody should reduce. Not only are jobs and livelihoods at stake, but so is the health of millions of people. Cuts to vital services like Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income, and IHSS will tear down decades of efforts to protect and nurture the working poor, sick people, the elderly, and the disabled.

Instead of giving me the help I need to live and potentially improve my health enough that I can once again contribute to the economy, this bill would put my life in an incredibly vulnerable position. It would also take jobs away from health care professionals like my caregivers. This may be acceptable to some, but to the many millions of people whose fates hang in the balance, it’s entirely unacceptable.

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Paul Ryan Doesn’t Like It When We’re Angry

Last week, Speaker of the House and all-around nice guy Paul Ryan (R-WI) released a video and a statement asking Americans to be more civil to one another. It was part of a push for legislation that Rep. Charlie Crist (D-FL) introduced a month ago to make July 12 a National Day of Civility. The bill, which was offered in response to the shooting that critically injured House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) and three others, encourages Americans to “be more respectful and polite to others in daily life.”

On the one hand, I can’t think of anything more American than responding to a mass shooting with a bill that suggests that everyone should remember to say “please” and “thank you.” But on the other, Ryan’s plea that we all just calm down—that we not “base our arguments on emotion” and instead “have a great debate on ideas and principles”—feels like a willful misunderstanding of the stakes that this administration has created.

In the past six months, this administration has pushed hard to dismantle the health care system. It is rolling back financial and environmental regulations, undercutting public schools, and hacking away at the legal system. It has been actively hostile to immigrants, tried to defund Planned Parenthood, and responded to the police shootings of 547 Americans by suggesting that the officers “ choked .” These aren’t “ideas and principles” that we can chat about while we wait for someone to tap the next keg . They’re people’s lives. These policies will be felt intensely, and immediately, by the people that Speaker Ryan governs. And as long as the stakes are this high, I—respectfully—decline to be polite.

Politeness is a luxury, and it’s one that most Americans cannot afford. Polite people can raise their hand and wait quietly, confident that they will be called on and have their voices heard. But most of us never get called on. So what Paul Ryan is seeing—what is bubbling to the surface in the absence of politeness—is anger. This administration’s policies are forcing people to fight for their lives, and we are really, really mad.

Our anger gives us power. Anger allows us to demand attention instead of just hoping for it, which makes it one of the best vehicles that citizens have to exercise their rights in a representative democracy. Anger brings millions of Americans to a march in the middle of winter, it fuels them as they climb to the top of a 270-foot crane , it keeps them on-message even when they are under arrest and being dragged away without their wheelchairs .

Our anger makes Paul Ryan uncomfortable, so he is framing it as if we are out of control. It’s a centuries-old tactic to dismiss and discredit our rage. We saw it when Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) was silenced for reading a letter, and when Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) was told her questions were too aggressive . We see it when a protest is called a riot, and when a politician refuses to engage with a constituent who is “too emotional.”

So I am sorry, Speaker Ryan, if you don’t like the way we’re talking. But we don’t like the way you’re governing, and we’re going to make you listen to what we have to say about it.

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The House Budget Thinks I’m “Wasteful Spending”

This morning, the House Budget Committee released their budget plan for fiscal year 2018. It’s filled with some of conservatives’ greatest hits—work requirements, block grants, cuts to programs that help low-income people—and it’s all couched in language about how the government needs to reduce “ wasteful spending .”

The problem is, I’m a product of that “wasteful spending.” So is my dad. He was a character, and deeply embarrassing in the way that only dads can be. He was known around our small town as the chatty Starbucks regular who would talk to complete strangers for hours or as the old man riding a unicycle (on special occasions, he also juggled and wore a clown suit). At movie theaters, he would stand up and dance during the ending credits, while I quickly walked away so people wouldn’t see us together. He brought a camera with him everywhere, and took pictures constantly, while I attempted to hide my face behind napkins, or my hands, or anything else within arms’ reach. He still framed those pictures, whether or not I was visible—there was one in his bedroom where a volleyball eclipsed my entire head.

My dad was complicated. He was terrible with money. He ran his law practice on a barter system, trading legal advice and representation for furniture or housecleaning services or—in one particularly memorable instance—three swords.

He was also an addict. This was a surprise to virtually every person he met—myself included. I knew he spent time in rehab when I was five, but I still couldn’t quite believe it when—after ten years of sobriety—he relapsed and disappeared for two days during my sophomore year of high school. He came back, filled with guilt and shame, promising that it would never happen again. But it did happen again, so his wife left him. And then it happened again, and he lost his law practice. And again, and we lost our house. And eventually, it led to a new job working for Mexican drug cartels.

My dad’s story ended the way these stories tend to—he died. But not right away. First he was arrested, under drug charges that would have imprisoned him for 15 years. But after six months, the prison doctors ran some tests on a lump on top of his head. It turned out to be stage 4 melanoma. He was only supposed to live another three to six months, so he was granted a compassionate release from prison.

My dad lived for another 22 months after that—about four times longer than the doctors predicted. He died in the comfort of our home on the evening of October 25, 2010.

Those two years brought my father back to me. He and I became closer than ever—reflecting on the days when his criminal nickname was “el abogado,” when the months he spent in solitary confinement briefly drew out aspirations of priesthood, when he convinced his high school principal to let him grow out a beastly-looking beard to take on the role of Jesus in the annual play, and when we both realized that forgiveness can be the most powerful experience in your life.

His epitaph reads, “Love wins.” Ultimately, it did.

I have always attributed the additional 16 months I had with him to a sense of hope and love brought about by my community. Distantly familiar faces came out of the woodwork to offer emotional support, to help cook his meals, to sit with him to make sure he didn’t fall, to help him shower, and even to pay for his funeral when my mom realized we couldn’t afford it. But I also owe those 16 months to Medicaid, which covered chemotherapy early in his illness and a home nurse when he was too weak to walk. I owe them to Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), which helped pay for our biweekly trips to Kerrville, Texas, for clinical trials of Ipilimumab. I owe them to Supplemental Security Income (SSI), which helped my mother—who was working day in and day out to support her ex-husband and their three children—put food on the table. Even after he died, Social Security helped my family stay afloat with modest survivors benefits that my dad paid into over the course of his career.

Medicaid, SSDI, and SSI were as much a part of the community that gave my dad a chance to die with dignity as the Starbuck employees who closed down the shop to go to his funeral. You have all paid into them during your lives, so that when my family needed them, they were there. Thank you for that.

I can never explain how much this support meant to me. But I can say I hope that it’s there for you when you need it. Because it is not wasteful spending. I was not wasteful spending. My dad was not wasteful spending. And you are not wasteful spending.

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The Coastal Elite Is Real. I’m Part of It.

There’s a thing that happens in any social movement where the people who are negatively impacted by something attempt to articulate the unquantifiable, and people with privilege pretend there’s no problem at all. That’s what privilege is: The state of being comfortable enough to not notice.

We are running into this problem with the word “elitism.” Editors who normally love my pitches won’t publish an article about it. If I use the word online, I will immediately be deluged with people arguing that there  is no such thing at all , or that it’s a  figment of the GOP’s imagination . Elitism is hard to prove, because it’s not an event. It’s a mood and a tone. It is an undercurrent, oft-mentioned and never examined. It is a thing that I  know because I am myself elite these days, though I never was before.

Most people become elites after going to universities and putting in time in the trenches of D.C. or some media outlet; their status takes years to build. I hacked the system; I was a second-shift cook who wrote a  cri de coeur that garnered worldwide attention, and just like that I was a critically-acclaimed author who is invited to lecture all over the world. It’s possible that many elites don’t understand just how set apart they are because they have never seen the juxtaposition. They might not understand what things look like to those who aren’t so lucky.

To be an elite is to be listened to and respected, to have autonomy, to think that your life and your work might be remembered by history. For me, it was obvious when I tipped over that line: I count national politicians in three countries amongst my friends, and if I am curious about something I can simply dial up an expert and know that my call will be taken.

That’s what power looks like now. Power is social capital that I trade on to build the networks that I need to get more social capital that I can trade for more power. That is the nature of the game, and you need an invitation to play.

Progressive circles are still not equipped to wrestle with imbalances of political power. If you ask someone on the left to explain racism or sexism or homophobia, they will be able to expound at length about how we must listen to the people who are impacted, and how those with the upper hand in any given situation must try to identify and mitigate systemic imbalances. Ask about elitism—about inequality in access and cultural power—and people have a harder time articulating it.

Consider it through the lens of the disruption that I had in my life. There are my old friends, the ones I swapped shifts with: low-income, disabled, unemployed, high-school graduates struggling to make ends meet. Then there are my new friends, the ones I made when I was elevated: politicians, household-name pundits and writers, deans of upscale schools, Hollywood stars. For me, the question of social capital is really that stark. There is Before, and After.

When I talk to my old friends about the problems of the nation, it is always personal and immediate. Will needed services like heating assistance or low-income health insurance be cut? Will I be able to keep my job if I don’t have a child care credit? Will we still have the home health nurse that takes care of my mom when I can’t be there? With my new friends, these problems are real but also somehow theoretical. Millions of people  are at risk of losing  these things, which everyone agrees is awful. We talk about who we might call to lobby, or what organizations are good soldiers in the fight.

It boggles the mind that people cannot see a difference in those two kinds of conversations, even as they bemoan the terrifying increases in inequality in America. I still feel an ancient rage building in my chest when I see someone on TV telling the viewing audience—most of whom will never be invited to be a pundit—that any cultural divide is the sole fault of nefarious right-wing populists.

I’m calling bullshit. I hear the jokes and the asides and I am here to tell you, there absolutely is such a thing as toxic elitism. It’s in the comments about how people need to be told how to vote in their own best interest, without questioning why so many people don’t have the information to judge for themselves. It’s in the constant draining refrain of “why don’t people get more involved in the process?” as though we’ve designed a process and system that would allow for that.

My complaint isn’t that elitism exists. It’s that we’re pretending it doesn’t, and defending the instances that we can’t ignore as meritocratic. People tell me that I am an embodiment of the American Dream, having been discovered one day and elevated to success beyond my imagining. But a world in which an average bright young person has to wait for a book deal to access social capital or a promising career is more like a nightmare, and our democracy can’t afford it much longer.

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5 Essays About Poverty Everyone Should Know

Poverty is one of the driving forces of inequality in the world. Between 1990-2015, much progress was made. The number of people living on less than $1.90 went from 36% to 10%. However, according to the World Bank , the COVID-19 pandemic represents a serious problem that disproportionately impacts the poor. Research released in February of 2020 shows that by 2030, up to ⅔ of the “global extreme poor” will be living in conflict-affected and fragile economies. Poverty will remain a major human rights issue for decades to come. Here are five essays about the issue that everyone should know:

“We need an economic bill of rights” –  Martin Luther King Jr.

The Guardian published an abridged version of this essay in 2018, which was originally released in Look magazine just after Dr. King was killed. In this piece, Dr. King explains why an economic bill of rights is necessary. He points out that while mass unemployment within the black community is a “social problem,” it’s a “depression” in the white community. An economic bill of rights would give a job to everyone who wants one and who can work. It would also give an income to those who can’t work. Dr. King affirms his commitment to non-violence. He’s fully aware that tensions are high. He quotes a spiritual, writing “timing is winding up.” Even while the nation progresses, poverty is getting worse.

This essay was reprinted and abridged in The Guardian in an arrangement with The Heirs to the Estate of Martin Luther King. Jr. The most visible representative of the Civil Rights Movement beginning in 1955, Dr. King was assassinated in 1968. His essays and speeches remain timely.

“How Poverty Can Follow Children Into Adulthood” – Priyanka Boghani

This article is from 2017, but it’s more relevant than ever because it was written when 2012 was the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. That’s no longer the case. In 2012, around ¼ American children were in poverty. Five years later, children were still more likely than adults to be poor. This is especially true for children of colour. Consequences of poverty include anxiety, hunger, and homelessness. This essay also looks at the long-term consequences that come from growing up in poverty. A child can develop health problems that affect them in adulthood. Poverty can also harm a child’s brain development. Being aware of how poverty affects children and follows them into adulthood is essential as the world deals with the economic fallout from the pandemic.

Priyanka Boghani is a journalist at PBS Frontline. She focuses on U.S. foreign policy, humanitarian crises, and conflicts in the Middle East. She also assists in managing Frontline’s social accounts.

“5 Reasons COVID-19 Will Impact the Fight to End Extreme Poverty” – Leah Rodriguez

For decades, the UN has attempted to end extreme poverty. In the face of the novel coronavirus outbreak, new challenges threaten the fight against poverty. In this essay, Dr. Natalie Linos, a Harvard social epidemiologist, urges the world to have a “social conversation” about how the disease impacts poverty and inequality. If nothing is done, it’s unlikely that the UN will meet its Global Goals by 2030. Poverty and COVID-19 intersect in five key ways. For one, low-income people are more vulnerable to disease. They also don’t have equal access to healthcare or job stability. This piece provides a clear, concise summary of why this outbreak is especially concerning for the global poor.

Leah Rodriguez’s writing at Global Citizen focuses on women, girls, water, and sanitation. She’s also worked as a web producer and homepage editor for New York Magazine’s The Cut.

“Climate apartheid”: World’s poor to suffer most from disasters” – Al Jazeera and news Agencies

The consequences of climate change are well-known to experts like Philip Alston, the special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. In 2019, he submitted a report to the UN Human Rights Council sounding the alarm on how climate change will devastate the poor. While the wealthy will be able to pay their way out of devastation, the poor will not. This will end up creating a “climate apartheid.” Alston states that if climate change isn’t addressed, it will undo the last five decades of progress in poverty education, as well as global health and development .

“Nickel and Dimed: On (not) getting by in America” – Barbara Ehrenreich

In this excerpt from her book Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich describes her experience choosing to live undercover as an “unskilled worker” in the US. She wanted to investigate the impact the 1996 welfare reform act had on the working poor. Released in 2001, the events take place between the spring of 1998 and the summer of 2000. Ehrenreich decided to live in a town close to her “real life” and finds a place to live and a job. She has her eyes opened to the challenges and “special costs” of being poor. In 2019, The Guardian ranked the book 13th on their list of 100 best books of the 21st century.

Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of 21 books and an activist. She’s worked as an award-winning columnist and essayist.

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About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

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Childhood and Growing up Essay: Titles & Examples

What are the challenges of growing up? This question is thought-provoking and exciting to answer. Each person has their unique experience, and for many the process of growing up is not easy. Some live in poverty, others have complex family relationships. A childhood and growing up essay allows you to discover your new sides and see how well you know yourself.

This article is a writing guide for an essay about growing up. It contains creative essay titles on the topic, together with writing prompts and short essay examples. Get inspired to write your growing up essay with us!

• 📝 Growing up Writing Prompts
• 📚 Growing up Essay Topics
• 📜 Essay Sample #1
• 📜 Essay Sample #2

📝 What Are the Challenges of Growing Up? Essay Prompts 

Every child is unique, so that everyone can tell a different childhood story.

What is typical for everyone – the process of growing up is a challenge. Although there’re lots of challenges, it’s also an exciting experience.

Growing up essays usually describe hobbies, relationships with siblings, difficulties with parents, etc. Check our essay ideas below.

What Does It Mean to Grow up?

This is not only about aging or changing your looks. Growing up is a physical and a deep psychological process at the same time. Your picture of the world changes, people come and go, and you change too.

Creating a mind map of your childhood can help you understand what exactly growing up was to you.

A reflective childhood & growing up essay can involve such matters:

• Taking on new responsibilities.
• Learning from mistakes.
• Changes in attitude towards people.
• Childhood dreams and ambitions.
• Childhood beliefs and values.
• Independence, confidence, and self-acceptance.
• Life lessons that shaped one’s personality.
• People who affected the growing up process.

Growing up in a Small Town Essay

Describe the details of being a child in a small town. You can also describe the pluses and minuses of living in a small town. It can be a general overview, but better try to connect it to your life and experience.

In this kind of a growing up essay, you might write about:

• Knowing everyone around.
• Local school.
• The first summer job.
• The places that have always been special.

A comparative essay is a good choice in this case. Discuss why life in small towns is different from life in big cities.

Growing up without a Father Essay

How many children in the United States grow up in single-parent families?

Growing up with a single parent is certainly not the only thing that shapes a kid’s personality. However, it is one of the essential factors, for sure.

• Check the statistics to see how many children grow up with one parent.
• Tell about the mother’s efforts to raise children alone while working.
• Include stories about relatives that were of immense help: siblings, aunts, uncles, and grandparents.
• Describe a person who substitutes father and his role.

Growing up without a Mother Essay

This topic might seem similar to the previous one, but there are several differences.

• Write about the general psychological effects of growing up without a mother.
• Compare the scientific facts with personal experience and conclude.
• Describe how it affects adult life and childhood.
• Write about the typical leisure time with father.

While describing a relationship with a father, describe daily responsibilities and how they influence a child’s life. What challenges do children growing up with a single parent experience?

Growing up Asian in America Essay

Even though the US is multicultural, there are still issues that people of color face. Including children.

Explain how the childhood of an Asian is different from the experience of white Americans. Describe it if you were a part of an Asian community such as a neighborhood or school you attended. Write about your national traditions that you maintained or abandoned.

In your essay on growing up, describe the challenges you overcame. These might include:

• The time you faced racism.
• The stereotypes and misconceptions you faced.
• The choice between your identity and the one imposed by society.
• How has the social position of Asians in the United States changed?

Growing up in Poverty Essay

How many young Americans live in families with incomes below the poverty threshold? There are several risks which growing up in poverty possesses.

You can discuss them in your growing-up-poor essay:

• Malnutrition. Starting from low birth weight, ending with health problems.
• Psychological damage. Being in need as a child might cause emotional and behavioral issues.
• Academic failures. Some poor children have to work and attend school at the same time. This interferes with the proper learning process.

Use growing up in poverty topic for a problem-solution essay. Here you can discuss how to deal with poverty and provide equal opportunities for all children.

Growing up in Two Cultures Essay

Adapting to a new culture is a complicated process. It is a massive challenge for children as they can’t identify themselves.

Here is what you can discuss in your essay on growing up:

• Traditions of your family. They might include cuisine, holidays, religious practices.
• Transcultural adaptation. Describe the change of behavioral patterns, language, or looks.
• Your relationships with peers. Tell about the situations you remember: bad experiences such as bullying or good ones such as interest in your culture.

Write a narrative essay about your vision of what it’s like to be a person who belongs to two cultures.

📚 Essay Titles about Growing Up

And here is your selection of essay topics that you can also use as ideas for a speech or discussion.

You can pick your essay title from this list:

• What country is the best for children to grow up in?
• Should kids and teenagers work during the summer holidays?
• Explain how growing up among American children influences children of migrants.
• What is the most important lesson you learned from your parents?
• Were you more like your father or mother as a child?
• What do you think you needed the most as a child?
• What are the common problems between parents and adolescents?
• Have you ever been a victim or took part in school bullying?
• What are the consequences of growing up too fast?
• Describe a life-changing experience from your childhood.
• How to motivate children to study based on their early childhood performance?
• Does having a pet teach children responsibility?
• Did you have any secrets that you kept from your parents?
• What is it like growing up in a small town with big ambitions?
• What tips could you give your parents if you went back in time?
• What advice would you give yourself if you went back in time?
• How did your race and ethnicity affect your childhood?
• Describe your childhood hobby and the achievements in it.
• How do childhood problems might affect adult life?
• Is it more challenging to grow up as a girl or a boy?
• Who was your role model as you were a child?
• What challenges did you face while growing up, which you think others didn’t?
• What was the biggest mistake you made in your childhood?
• What are the psychological effects of family issues on children?
• How well do you remember your childhood?
• What are the main reasons for suicide among teenagers?
• Describe your best childhood friend and your relationship.
• How does growing up in a low-income family affect one’s attitude to money?
• Why do children lie to their parents?
• What is your brightest childhood memory?
• Why do teenagers tend to be rebellious and sometimes violent?
• What would you change in your childhood if you had a chance?
• Describe the moment when you felt you had grown up.
• How has your music taste changed since you were a kid?
• How to instill tolerance in children from an early age?
• Growing up without a father made me a stronger person.
• What was your dream profession when you were a child?
• What is the most unforgettable present you received as a kid?
• Were you popular in middle and high school?
• What is your earliest childhood memory, and why do you think it’s this one ?
• What is the best advice you have received as a child?
• How successful were you academically as a child?
• How to avoid and prevent bullying at school?
• What experience in your family affected you the most and why?
• Did your parents support your dreams and ambitions?
• How can you describe your relationships with your siblings?
• What were the common traits of teenagers of your generation ?
• What is the most valuable object that reminds you of childhood?
• Describe your first love and what you felt about it?
• How did your family affect your current values?
• Videogame Addiction and Its Impact on Children.
• Can a single parent provide enough attention and care to their children?
• Who was the closest to you in your family?
• What are the things your parents have done you are grateful for?
• What opportunities do you wish you could have as a kid?
• What were your phobias in childhood or as a teenager ?
• What were your strong and weak sides when you were a child?
• What do you want your future family to be like?
• How to detect and prevent child abuse at early stages?
• Why do teenagers try smoking , drugs, or alcohol?

📜 Growing Up Essay Example #1

To make it easier for you, our experts prepared a couple of childhood and growing up essays. Check them below!

Everyone defines growing up in their way. It is more than just physical changes that you notice in the mirror. As for me, growing up means accepting responsibilities, being able to take care of somebody, and becoming independent. I remember the first time my parents asked me to babysit my little sister. Rachel was a silent kid, but I was nervous anyway. I wanted my parents to come home as early as possible because I was afraid of the responsibility. I felt as if they entrusted her life and safety to me, just a teenager. Some weeks later, I discovered that it was not terrifying me anymore. We had fun together; I taught her how to play games and enjoyed our time together. Rachel was also the first person I learned to take care of. I helped my sister with her homework, picked her from school, and gave her advice when she asked for it. The feeling that I do it without waiting for something in return taught me a lot. I changed my attitude towards people, learned how to be kind and generous. Now I am sure that I will be able to nurture my kids in the future. Moving to a college dormitory made me independent. I thought I was an adult fully responsible for myself at high school, but I was wrong. Living alone and being in charge of my life motivated me to change a lot. I learned how to spend time alone, value it and take care of my health. I also started managing my time rationally. Independence doesn’t mean you don’t need other people in your life. It means you can rely on yourself in any case. I can’t say that I am a one hundred percent adult at this stage of my life. I am sure that I grew up helping my parents, my sister, and myself. I changed a lot. But many challenges are waiting for me in the future. Taking up more responsibilities and facing difficulties will help me on my way.

📜 Growing Up Essay Example #2

Growing up asian in america.

Asian-American children are a vulnerable group that needs protection. My experience is an excellent example of the difficulties that Asian-Americans might face in their childhood. As an Asian, I faced bullying at school, low expectations regarding my future career, and troubles with self-identification. High school was a hard time for me. 21.7% of Asians report being bullied at school . The rate is the highest among all the ethnic groups. I didn’t report my own experience as I didn’t want to seem weak. I was bullied because I studied harder than many other students and cared about my grades too much. I am sure that I would have been bullied less if I were a white child. There is nothing wrong with being ambitious regardless of your ethnicity. My family and friends didn’t support my aspiration to become a doctor. They said that no one from my family went to college and that it was too hard to be admitted. It was challenging to keep my motivation without support. Even when they knew I had all the chances to receive financial aid, they just didn’t believe it. It was always hard for me to identify myself. I don’t know if I am like children from China as I have never been there. I was born and raised in the United States. But my motherland does not feel like home too. I don’t look like many of my peers, and my family has a different lifestyle and traditions. I don’t think that I belong to any of the communities. In conclusion, my experience shows how a childhood of an Asian-American kid might look like. I feel that further generations will confront similar challenges facing society and themselves. That is why I want to raise attention to the mentioned problems and change people’s attitudes.

We hope that our article clarified what a growing up essay should look like.

We will be glad to learn about your experience of writing such an essay! Share your thoughts below in the comment section.

This is it for today. Good luck and happy writing!

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, 177 college essay examples for 11 schools + expert analysis.

College Admissions , College Essays

The personal statement might just be the hardest part of your college application. Mostly this is because it has the least guidance and is the most open-ended. One way to understand what colleges are looking for when they ask you to write an essay is to check out the essays of students who already got in—college essays that actually worked. After all, they must be among the most successful of this weird literary genre.

In this article, I'll go through general guidelines for what makes great college essays great. I've also compiled an enormous list of 100+ actual sample college essays from 11 different schools. Finally, I'll break down two of these published college essay examples and explain why and how they work. With links to 177 full essays and essay excerpts , this article is a great resource for learning how to craft your own personal college admissions essay!

What Excellent College Essays Have in Common

Even though in many ways these sample college essays are very different from one other, they do share some traits you should try to emulate as you write your own essay.

Visible Signs of Planning

Building out from a narrow, concrete focus. You'll see a similar structure in many of the essays. The author starts with a very detailed story of an event or description of a person or place. After this sense-heavy imagery, the essay expands out to make a broader point about the author, and connects this very memorable experience to the author's present situation, state of mind, newfound understanding, or maturity level.

Knowing how to tell a story. Some of the experiences in these essays are one-of-a-kind. But most deal with the stuff of everyday life. What sets them apart is the way the author approaches the topic: analyzing it for drama and humor, for its moving qualities, for what it says about the author's world, and for how it connects to the author's emotional life.

Stellar Execution

A killer first sentence. You've heard it before, and you'll hear it again: you have to suck the reader in, and the best place to do that is the first sentence. Great first sentences are punchy. They are like cliffhangers, setting up an exciting scene or an unusual situation with an unclear conclusion, in order to make the reader want to know more. Don't take my word for it—check out these 22 first sentences from Stanford applicants and tell me you don't want to read the rest of those essays to find out what happens!

A lively, individual voice. Writing is for readers. In this case, your reader is an admissions officer who has read thousands of essays before yours and will read thousands after. Your goal? Don't bore your reader. Use interesting descriptions, stay away from clichés, include your own offbeat observations—anything that makes this essay sounds like you and not like anyone else.

Technical correctness. No spelling mistakes, no grammar weirdness, no syntax issues, no punctuation snafus—each of these sample college essays has been formatted and proofread perfectly. If this kind of exactness is not your strong suit, you're in luck! All colleges advise applicants to have their essays looked over several times by parents, teachers, mentors, and anyone else who can spot a comma splice. Your essay must be your own work, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with getting help polishing it.

And if you need more guidance, connect with PrepScholar's expert admissions consultants . These expert writers know exactly what college admissions committees look for in an admissions essay and chan help you craft an essay that boosts your chances of getting into your dream school.

Check out PrepScholar's Essay Editing and Coaching progra m for more details!

Links to Full College Essay Examples

Some colleges publish a selection of their favorite accepted college essays that worked, and I've put together a selection of over 100 of these.

Common App Essay Samples

Please note that some of these college essay examples may be responding to prompts that are no longer in use. The current Common App prompts are as follows:

1. Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story. 2. The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience? 3. Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome? 4. Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you? 5. Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others. 6. Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

7. Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

Now, let's get to the good stuff: the list of 177 college essay examples responding to current and past Common App essay prompts. 

Connecticut college.

• 12 Common Application essays from the classes of 2022-2025

Hamilton College

• 7 Common Application essays from the class of 2026
• 7 Common Application essays from the class of 2022
• 7 Common Application essays from the class of 2018
• 8 Common Application essays from the class of 2012
• 8 Common Application essays from the class of 2007

Johns Hopkins

These essays are answers to past prompts from either the Common Application or the Coalition Application (which Johns Hopkins used to accept).

• 1 Common Application or Coalition Application essay from the class of 2026
• 6 Common Application or Coalition Application essays from the class of 2025
• 6 Common Application or Universal Application essays from the class of 2024
• 6 Common Application or Universal Application essays from the class of 2023
• 7 Common Application of Universal Application essays from the class of 2022
• 5 Common Application or Universal Application essays from the class of 2021
• 7 Common Application or Universal Application essays from the class of 2020

Essay Examples Published by Other Websites

• 2 Common Application essays ( 1st essay , 2nd essay ) from applicants admitted to Columbia

Other Sample College Essays

Here is a collection of essays that are college-specific.

Babson College

• 4 essays (and 1 video response) on "Why Babson" from the class of 2020

Emory University

• 5 essay examples ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ) from the class of 2020 along with analysis from Emory admissions staff on why the essays were exceptional
• 5 more recent essay examples ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ) along with analysis from Emory admissions staff on what made these essays stand out

University of Georgia

• 1 “strong essay” sample from 2019
• 1 “strong essay” sample from 2018
• 10 Harvard essays from 2023
• 10 Harvard essays from 2022
• 10 Harvard essays from 2021
• 10 Harvard essays from 2020
• 10 Harvard essays from 2019
• 10 Harvard essays from 2018
• 6 essays from admitted MIT students

Smith College

• 6 "best gift" essays from the class of 2018

Books of College Essays

If you're looking for even more sample college essays, consider purchasing a college essay book. The best of these include dozens of essays that worked and feedback from real admissions officers.

College Essays That Made a Difference —This detailed guide from Princeton Review includes not only successful essays, but also interviews with admissions officers and full student profiles.

50 Successful Harvard Application Essays by the Staff of the Harvard Crimson—A must for anyone aspiring to Harvard .

50 Successful Ivy League Application Essays and 50 Successful Stanford Application Essays by Gen and Kelly Tanabe—For essays from other top schools, check out this venerated series, which is regularly updated with new essays.

Heavenly Essays by Janine W. Robinson—This collection from the popular blogger behind Essay Hell includes a wider range of schools, as well as helpful tips on honing your own essay.

Analyzing Great Common App Essays That Worked

I've picked two essays from the examples collected above to examine in more depth so that you can see exactly what makes a successful college essay work. Full credit for these essays goes to the original authors and the schools that published them.

Example 1: "Breaking Into Cars," by Stephen, Johns Hopkins Class of '19 (Common App Essay, 636 words long)

I had never broken into a car before.

We were in Laredo, having just finished our first day at a Habitat for Humanity work site. The Hotchkiss volunteers had already left, off to enjoy some Texas BBQ, leaving me behind with the college kids to clean up. Not until we were stranded did we realize we were locked out of the van.

Someone picked a coat hanger out of the dumpster, handed it to me, and took a few steps back.

"Can you do that thing with a coat hanger to unlock it?"

"Why me?" I thought.

More out of amusement than optimism, I gave it a try. I slid the hanger into the window's seal like I'd seen on crime shows, and spent a few minutes jiggling the apparatus around the inside of the frame. Suddenly, two things simultaneously clicked. One was the lock on the door. (I actually succeeded in springing it.) The other was the realization that I'd been in this type of situation before. In fact, I'd been born into this type of situation.

My upbringing has numbed me to unpredictability and chaos. With a family of seven, my home was loud, messy, and spottily supervised. My siblings arguing, the dog barking, the phone ringing—all meant my house was functioning normally. My Dad, a retired Navy pilot, was away half the time. When he was home, he had a parenting style something like a drill sergeant. At the age of nine, I learned how to clear burning oil from the surface of water. My Dad considered this a critical life skill—you know, in case my aircraft carrier should ever get torpedoed. "The water's on fire! Clear a hole!" he shouted, tossing me in the lake without warning. While I'm still unconvinced about that particular lesson's practicality, my Dad's overarching message is unequivocally true: much of life is unexpected, and you have to deal with the twists and turns.

Living in my family, days rarely unfolded as planned. A bit overlooked, a little pushed around, I learned to roll with reality, negotiate a quick deal, and give the improbable a try. I don't sweat the small stuff, and I definitely don't expect perfect fairness. So what if our dining room table only has six chairs for seven people? Someone learns the importance of punctuality every night.

But more than punctuality and a special affinity for musical chairs, my family life has taught me to thrive in situations over which I have no power. Growing up, I never controlled my older siblings, but I learned how to thwart their attempts to control me. I forged alliances, and realigned them as necessary. Sometimes, I was the poor, defenseless little brother; sometimes I was the omniscient elder. Different things to different people, as the situation demanded. I learned to adapt.

Back then, these techniques were merely reactions undertaken to ensure my survival. But one day this fall, Dr. Hicks, our Head of School, asked me a question that he hoped all seniors would reflect on throughout the year: "How can I participate in a thing I do not govern, in the company of people I did not choose?"

The question caught me off guard, much like the question posed to me in Laredo. Then, I realized I knew the answer. I knew why the coat hanger had been handed to me.

Growing up as the middle child in my family, I was a vital participant in a thing I did not govern, in the company of people I did not choose. It's family. It's society. And often, it's chaos. You participate by letting go of the small stuff, not expecting order and perfection, and facing the unexpected with confidence, optimism, and preparedness. My family experience taught me to face a serendipitous world with confidence.

What Makes This Essay Tick?

It's very helpful to take writing apart in order to see just how it accomplishes its objectives. Stephen's essay is very effective. Let's find out why!

An Opening Line That Draws You In

In just eight words, we get: scene-setting (he is standing next to a car about to break in), the idea of crossing a boundary (he is maybe about to do an illegal thing for the first time), and a cliffhanger (we are thinking: is he going to get caught? Is he headed for a life of crime? Is he about to be scared straight?).

Great, Detailed Opening Story

More out of amusement than optimism, I gave it a try. I slid the hanger into the window's seal like I'd seen on crime shows, and spent a few minutes jiggling the apparatus around the inside of the frame.

It's the details that really make this small experience come alive. Notice how whenever he can, Stephen uses a more specific, descriptive word in place of a more generic one. The volunteers aren't going to get food or dinner; they're going for "Texas BBQ." The coat hanger comes from "a dumpster." Stephen doesn't just move the coat hanger—he "jiggles" it.

Details also help us visualize the emotions of the people in the scene. The person who hands Stephen the coat hanger isn't just uncomfortable or nervous; he "takes a few steps back"—a description of movement that conveys feelings. Finally, the detail of actual speech makes the scene pop. Instead of writing that the other guy asked him to unlock the van, Stephen has the guy actually say his own words in a way that sounds like a teenager talking.

Turning a Specific Incident Into a Deeper Insight

Suddenly, two things simultaneously clicked. One was the lock on the door. (I actually succeeded in springing it.) The other was the realization that I'd been in this type of situation before. In fact, I'd been born into this type of situation.

Stephen makes the locked car experience a meaningful illustration of how he has learned to be resourceful and ready for anything, and he also makes this turn from the specific to the broad through an elegant play on the two meanings of the word "click."

Using Concrete Examples When Making Abstract Claims

My upbringing has numbed me to unpredictability and chaos. With a family of seven, my home was loud, messy, and spottily supervised. My siblings arguing, the dog barking, the phone ringing—all meant my house was functioning normally.

"Unpredictability and chaos" are very abstract, not easily visualized concepts. They could also mean any number of things—violence, abandonment, poverty, mental instability. By instantly following up with highly finite and unambiguous illustrations like "family of seven" and "siblings arguing, the dog barking, the phone ringing," Stephen grounds the abstraction in something that is easy to picture: a large, noisy family.

Using Small Bits of Humor and Casual Word Choice

My Dad, a retired Navy pilot, was away half the time. When he was home, he had a parenting style something like a drill sergeant. At the age of nine, I learned how to clear burning oil from the surface of water. My Dad considered this a critical life skill—you know, in case my aircraft carrier should ever get torpedoed.

Obviously, knowing how to clean burning oil is not high on the list of things every 9-year-old needs to know. To emphasize this, Stephen uses sarcasm by bringing up a situation that is clearly over-the-top: "in case my aircraft carrier should ever get torpedoed."

The humor also feels relaxed. Part of this is because he introduces it with the colloquial phrase "you know," so it sounds like he is talking to us in person. This approach also diffuses the potential discomfort of the reader with his father's strictness—since he is making jokes about it, clearly he is OK. Notice, though, that this doesn't occur very much in the essay. This helps keep the tone meaningful and serious rather than flippant.

An Ending That Stretches the Insight Into the Future

But one day this fall, Dr. Hicks, our Head of School, asked me a question that he hoped all seniors would reflect on throughout the year: "How can I participate in a thing I do not govern, in the company of people I did not choose?"

The ending of the essay reveals that Stephen's life has been one long preparation for the future. He has emerged from chaos and his dad's approach to parenting as a person who can thrive in a world that he can't control.

This connection of past experience to current maturity and self-knowledge is a key element in all successful personal essays. Colleges are very much looking for mature, self-aware applicants. These are the qualities of successful college students, who will be able to navigate the independence college classes require and the responsibility and quasi-adulthood of college life.

What Could This Essay Do Even Better?

Even the best essays aren't perfect, and even the world's greatest writers will tell you that writing is never "finished"—just "due." So what would we tweak in this essay if we could?

Replace some of the clichéd language. Stephen uses handy phrases like "twists and turns" and "don't sweat the small stuff" as a kind of shorthand for explaining his relationship to chaos and unpredictability. But using too many of these ready-made expressions runs the risk of clouding out your own voice and replacing it with something expected and boring.

Use another example from recent life. Stephen's first example (breaking into the van in Laredo) is a great illustration of being resourceful in an unexpected situation. But his essay also emphasizes that he "learned to adapt" by being "different things to different people." It would be great to see how this plays out outside his family, either in the situation in Laredo or another context.

Example 2: By Renner Kwittken, Tufts Class of '23 (Common App Essay, 645 words long)

My first dream job was to be a pickle truck driver. I saw it in my favorite book, Richard Scarry's "Cars and Trucks and Things That Go," and for some reason, I was absolutely obsessed with the idea of driving a giant pickle. Much to the discontent of my younger sister, I insisted that my parents read us that book as many nights as possible so we could find goldbug, a small little golden bug, on every page. I would imagine the wonderful life I would have: being a pig driving a giant pickle truck across the country, chasing and finding goldbug. I then moved on to wanting to be a Lego Master. Then an architect. Then a surgeon.

Then I discovered a real goldbug: gold nanoparticles that can reprogram macrophages to assist in killing tumors, produce clear images of them without sacrificing the subject, and heat them to obliteration.

Suddenly the destination of my pickle was clear.

I quickly became enveloped by the world of nanomedicine; I scoured articles about liposomes, polymeric micelles, dendrimers, targeting ligands, and self-assembling nanoparticles, all conquering cancer in some exotic way. Completely absorbed, I set out to find a mentor to dive even deeper into these topics. After several rejections, I was immensely grateful to receive an invitation to work alongside Dr. Sangeeta Ray at Johns Hopkins.

In the lab, Dr. Ray encouraged a great amount of autonomy to design and implement my own procedures. I chose to attack a problem that affects the entire field of nanomedicine: nanoparticles consistently fail to translate from animal studies into clinical trials. Jumping off recent literature, I set out to see if a pre-dose of a common chemotherapeutic could enhance nanoparticle delivery in aggressive prostate cancer, creating three novel constructs based on three different linear polymers, each using fluorescent dye (although no gold, sorry goldbug!). Though using radioactive isotopes like Gallium and Yttrium would have been incredible, as a 17-year-old, I unfortunately wasn't allowed in the same room as these radioactive materials (even though I took a Geiger counter to a pair of shoes and found them to be slightly dangerous).

I hadn't expected my hypothesis to work, as the research project would have ideally been led across two full years. Yet while there are still many optimizations and revisions to be done, I was thrilled to find -- with completely new nanoparticles that may one day mean future trials will use particles with the initials "RK-1" -- thatcyclophosphamide did indeed increase nanoparticle delivery to the tumor in a statistically significant way.

A secondary, unexpected research project was living alone in Baltimore, a new city to me, surrounded by people much older than I. Even with moving frequently between hotels, AirBnB's, and students' apartments, I strangely reveled in the freedom I had to enjoy my surroundings and form new friendships with graduate school students from the lab. We explored The Inner Harbor at night, attended a concert together one weekend, and even got to watch the Orioles lose (to nobody's surprise). Ironically, it's through these new friendships I discovered something unexpected: what I truly love is sharing research. Whether in a presentation or in a casual conversation, making others interested in science is perhaps more exciting to me than the research itself. This solidified a new pursuit to angle my love for writing towards illuminating science in ways people can understand, adding value to a society that can certainly benefit from more scientific literacy.

It seems fitting that my goals are still transforming: in Scarry's book, there is not just one goldbug, there is one on every page. With each new experience, I'm learning that it isn't the goldbug itself, but rather the act of searching for the goldbugs that will encourage, shape, and refine my ever-evolving passions. Regardless of the goldbug I seek -- I know my pickle truck has just begun its journey.

Renner takes a somewhat different approach than Stephen, but their essay is just as detailed and engaging. Let's go through some of the strengths of this essay.

One Clear Governing Metaphor

This essay is ultimately about two things: Renner’s dreams and future career goals, and Renner’s philosophy on goal-setting and achieving one’s dreams.

But instead of listing off all the amazing things they’ve done to pursue their dream of working in nanomedicine, Renner tells a powerful, unique story instead. To set up the narrative, Renner opens the essay by connecting their experiences with goal-setting and dream-chasing all the way back to a memorable childhood experience:

This lighthearted–but relevant!--story about the moment when Renner first developed a passion for a specific career (“finding the goldbug”) provides an anchor point for the rest of the essay. As Renner pivots to describing their current dreams and goals–working in nanomedicine–the metaphor of “finding the goldbug” is reflected in Renner’s experiments, rejections, and new discoveries.

Though Renner tells multiple stories about their quest to “find the goldbug,” or, in other words, pursue their passion, each story is connected by a unifying theme; namely, that as we search and grow over time, our goals will transform…and that’s okay! By the end of the essay, Renner uses the metaphor of “finding the goldbug” to reiterate the relevance of the opening story:

While the earlier parts of the essay convey Renner’s core message by showing, the final, concluding paragraph sums up Renner’s insights by telling. By briefly and clearly stating the relevance of the goldbug metaphor to their own philosophy on goals and dreams, Renner demonstrates their creativity, insight, and eagerness to grow and evolve as the journey continues into college.

An Engaging, Individual Voice

This essay uses many techniques that make Renner sound genuine and make the reader feel like we already know them.

Technique #1: humor. Notice Renner's gentle and relaxed humor that lightly mocks their younger self's grand ambitions (this is different from the more sarcastic kind of humor used by Stephen in the first essay—you could never mistake one writer for the other).

My first dream job was to be a pickle truck driver.

I would imagine the wonderful life I would have: being a pig driving a giant pickle truck across the country, chasing and finding goldbug. I then moved on to wanting to be a Lego Master. Then an architect. Then a surgeon.

Renner gives a great example of how to use humor to your advantage in college essays. You don’t want to come off as too self-deprecating or sarcastic, but telling a lightheartedly humorous story about your younger self that also showcases how you’ve grown and changed over time can set the right tone for your entire essay.

Technique #2: intentional, eye-catching structure. The second technique is the way Renner uses a unique structure to bolster the tone and themes of their essay . The structure of your essay can have a major impact on how your ideas come across…so it’s important to give it just as much thought as the content of your essay!

For instance, Renner does a great job of using one-line paragraphs to create dramatic emphasis and to make clear transitions from one phase of the story to the next:

Suddenly the destination of my pickle car was clear.

Not only does the one-liner above signal that Renner is moving into a new phase of the narrative (their nanoparticle research experiences), it also tells the reader that this is a big moment in Renner’s story. It’s clear that Renner made a major discovery that changed the course of their goal pursuit and dream-chasing. Through structure, Renner conveys excitement and entices the reader to keep pushing forward to the next part of the story.

Technique #3: playing with syntax. The third technique is to use sentences of varying length, syntax, and structure. Most of the essay's written in standard English and uses grammatically correct sentences. However, at key moments, Renner emphasizes that the reader needs to sit up and pay attention by switching to short, colloquial, differently punctuated, and sometimes fragmented sentences.

Even with moving frequently between hotels, AirBnB's, and students' apartments, I strangely reveled in the freedom I had to enjoy my surroundings and form new friendships with graduate school students from the lab. We explored The Inner Harbor at night, attended a concert together one weekend, and even got to watch the Orioles lose (to nobody's surprise). Ironically, it's through these new friendships I discovered something unexpected: what I truly love is sharing research.

In the examples above, Renner switches adeptly between long, flowing sentences and quippy, telegraphic ones. At the same time, Renner uses these different sentence lengths intentionally. As they describe their experiences in new places, they use longer sentences to immerse the reader in the sights, smells, and sounds of those experiences. And when it’s time to get a big, key idea across, Renner switches to a short, punchy sentence to stop the reader in their tracks.

The varying syntax and sentence lengths pull the reader into the narrative and set up crucial “aha” moments when it’s most important…which is a surefire way to make any college essay stand out.

Renner's essay is very strong, but there are still a few little things that could be improved.

Connecting the research experiences to the theme of “finding the goldbug.”  The essay begins and ends with Renner’s connection to the idea of “finding the goldbug.” And while this metaphor is deftly tied into the essay’s intro and conclusion, it isn’t entirely clear what Renner’s big findings were during the research experiences that are described in the middle of the essay. It would be great to add a sentence or two stating what Renner’s big takeaways (or “goldbugs”) were from these experiences, which add more cohesion to the essay as a whole.

Give more details about discovering the world of nanomedicine. It makes sense that Renner wants to get into the details of their big research experiences as quickly as possible. After all, these are the details that show Renner’s dedication to nanomedicine! But a smoother transition from the opening pickle car/goldbug story to Renner’s “real goldbug” of nanoparticles would help the reader understand why nanoparticles became Renner’s goldbug. Finding out why Renner is so motivated to study nanomedicine–and perhaps what put them on to this field of study–would help readers fully understand why Renner chose this path in the first place.

4 Essential Tips for Writing Your Own Essay

How can you use this discussion to better your own college essay? Here are some suggestions for ways to use this resource effectively.

#1: Get Help From the Experts

Getting your college applications together takes a lot of work and can be pretty intimidatin g. Essays are even more important than ever now that admissions processes are changing and schools are going test-optional and removing diversity standards thanks to new Supreme Court rulings .  If you want certified expert help that really makes a difference, get started with  PrepScholar’s Essay Editing and Coaching program. Our program can help you put together an incredible essay from idea to completion so that your application stands out from the crowd. We've helped students get into the best colleges in the United States, including Harvard, Stanford, and Yale.  If you're ready to take the next step and boost your odds of getting into your dream school, connect with our experts today .

#2: Read Other Essays to Get Ideas for Your Own

As you go through the essays we've compiled for you above, ask yourself the following questions:

• Can you explain to yourself (or someone else!) why the opening sentence works well?
• Look for the essay's detailed personal anecdote. What senses is the author describing? Can you easily picture the scene in your mind's eye?
• Find the place where this anecdote bridges into a larger insight about the author. How does the essay connect the two? How does the anecdote work as an example of the author's characteristic, trait, or skill?
• Check out the essay's tone. If it's funny, can you find the places where the humor comes from? If it's sad and moving, can you find the imagery and description of feelings that make you moved? If it's serious, can you see how word choice adds to this tone?

Make a note whenever you find an essay or part of an essay that you think was particularly well-written, and think about what you like about it . Is it funny? Does it help you really get to know the writer? Does it show what makes the writer unique? Once you have your list, keep it next to you while writing your essay to remind yourself to try and use those same techniques in your own essay.

#3: Find Your "A-Ha!" Moment

All of these essays rely on connecting with the reader through a heartfelt, highly descriptive scene from the author's life. It can either be very dramatic (did you survive a plane crash?) or it can be completely mundane (did you finally beat your dad at Scrabble?). Either way, it should be personal and revealing about you, your personality, and the way you are now that you are entering the adult world.

Check out essays by authors like John Jeremiah Sullivan , Leslie Jamison , Hanif Abdurraqib , and Esmé Weijun Wang to get more examples of how to craft a compelling personal narrative.

#4: Start Early, Revise Often

Let me level with you: the best writing isn't writing at all. It's rewriting. And in order to have time to rewrite, you have to start way before the application deadline. My advice is to write your first draft at least two months before your applications are due.

Let it sit for a few days untouched. Then come back to it with fresh eyes and think critically about what you've written. What's extra? What's missing? What is in the wrong place? What doesn't make sense? Don't be afraid to take it apart and rearrange sections. Do this several times over, and your essay will be much better for it!

For more editing tips, check out a style guide like Dreyer's English or Eats, Shoots & Leaves .

What's Next?

Still not sure which colleges you want to apply to? Our experts will show you how to make a college list that will help you choose a college that's right for you.

Interested in learning more about college essays? Check out our detailed breakdown of exactly how personal statements work in an application , some suggestions on what to avoid when writing your essay , and our guide to writing about your extracurricular activities .

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Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education.

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The Best College Admissions Essays I Have Ever Read

• By Susanna de Chenonceau
• July 20, 2012

• art , ben and jerry's , best , college , college essay , essays , japan , reading , This American Life , tokyo , writing

6 Responses

Ah the way you described the essays made me really want to read them! Is there a way i can do that?

Hello! I’m sure you can easily google some, and we have some right on this website. Best, Susanna

After I originally commented I seem to have clicked on the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and now every time a comment is added I receive four emails with the exact same comment. Is there an easy method you are able to remove me from that service? Kudos!

Hi Marsha! I contacted the web team and asked and will let you know! Susanna

Hi! I’ve been looking everywhere for that essay about reading in the shower, but have been unable to find is. Is there any way you could send me a link to it or tell me where you saw it?

Hi Lulu! That essay was actually from one of my students so I actually don’t have it posted. 🙂 But it was a great essay about being determined to learn even against all odds. I’m sure your essay will be great! Yay, college! Susanna

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College Essay: My Parents’ Sacrifice Makes Me Strong

After living in Texas briefly, my mom moved in with my aunt in Minnesota, where she helped raise my cousins while my aunt and uncle worked. My mom still glances to the building where she first lived. I think it’s amazing how she first moved here, she lived in a small apartment and now owns a house. 

My dad’s family was poor. He dropped out of elementary school to work. My dad was the only son my grandpa had. My dad thought he was responsible to help his family out, so he decided to leave for Minnesota   because  of  many  work opportunities .   

My parents met working in cleaning at the IDS  C enter during night shifts. I am their only child, and their main priority was not leaving me alone while they worked. My mom left her cleaning job to work mornings at a warehouse. My dad continued his job in cleaning at night.   

My dad would get me ready for school and walked me to the bus stop while waiting in the cold. When I arrived home from school, my dad had dinner prepared and the house cleaned. I would eat with him at the table while watching TV, but he left after to pick up my mom from work.   

My mom would get home in the afternoon. Most memories of my mom are watching her lying down on the couch watching her  n ovelas  –  S panish soap operas  – a nd falling asleep in the living room. I knew her job was physically tiring, so I didn’t bother her.  

Seeing my parents work hard and challenge Mexican customs influence my values today as a person. As a child, my dad cooked and cleaned, to help out my mom, which is rare in Mexican culture. Conservative Mexicans believe men are superior to women; women are seen as housewives who cook, clean and obey their husbands. My parents constantly tell me I should get an education to never depend on a man. My family challenged  machismo , Mexican sexism, by creating their own values and future.  

My parents encouraged me to, “ ponte  las  pilas ” in school, which translates to “put on your batteries” in English. It means that I should put in effort and work into achieving my goal. I was taught that school is the key object in life. I stay up late to complete all my homework assignments, because of this I miss a good amount of sleep, but I’m willing to put in effort to have good grades that will benefit me. I have softball practice right after school, so I try to do nearly all of my homework ahead of time, so I won’t end up behind.  

My parents taught me to set high standards for myself. My school operates on a 4.0-scale. During lunch, my friends talked joyfully about earning a 3.25 on a test. When I earn less than a 4.25, I feel disappointed. My friends reacted with, “You should be happy. You’re extra . ” Hearing that phrase flashbacks to my parents seeing my grades. My mom would pressure me to do better when I don’t earn all 4.0s  

Every once in  awhile , I struggled with following their value of education. It can be difficult to balance school, sports and life. My parents think I’m too young to complain about life. They don’t think I’m tired, because I don’t physically work, but don’t understand that I’m mentally tired and stressed out. It’s hard for them to understand this because they didn’t have the experience of going to school.   

The way I could thank my parents for their sacrifice is accomplishing their American dream by going to college and graduating to have a professional career. I visualize the day I graduate college with my degree, so my  family  celebrates by having a carne  asada (BBQ) in the yard. All my friends, relatives, and family friends would be there to congratulate me on my accomplishments.  

As teenagers, my parents worked hard manual labor jobs to be able to provide for themselves and their family. Both of them woke up early in the morning to head to work. Staying up late to earn extra cash. As teenagers, my parents tried going to school here in the U.S .  but weren’t able to, so they continued to work. Early in the morning now, my dad arrives home from work at 2:30 a.m .,  wakes up to drop me off at school around 7:30 a.m . , so I can focus on studying hard to earn good grades. My parents want me to stay in school and not prefer work to  head on their  same path as them. Their struggle influences me to have a good work ethic in school and go against the odds.  

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Growing Up Essay: Guide & Examples [2024]

What does it mean to grow up? Essays on this topic might be entertaining yet challenging to write. Growing up is usually associated with something new and exciting. It’s a period of everything new and unknown.

Our specialists will write a custom essay specially for you!

Now, you’ve been assigned to write a growing up essay. You’re not a kid anymore, but not quite the adult. It would be interesting for your teacher to learn about your childhood memories or read what you think about the experience of growing up.

That’s why:

In this article, we will provide a guide on how to write an essay on growing up. Our team listed some topics to make your writing process more manageable.

• 📍 How to Write It

🏡 About Your Childhood

🧒 about someone else.

• 👧 Growing Up

🔗 References

📍 how to write a growing up essay.

Writing an essay about growing up can seem complicated, but it’s always easier to handle when you have a plan. In this section, we will talk more about how to write an essay on the topic.

• Reflective essays focus on the author’s attitude towards individual experiences. This type is often required during the college admissions process. For instance, one may write about growing up in poverty and how it shaped his character.
• Narrative essays focus on a specific event or sequence of events. For example, you might write about the most memorable trip from your childhood.
• Choose the topic on the familiar subject. It will be easier to reflect on the issue when you have a lot of relevant experience.
• Choose the topic of interest. Write about something that provokes a strong emotional reaction from you.
• Show a unique vision on the topic. Try to approach writing college essays about growing up from a different perspective. When writing a narrative essay, you need to remember that your work should tell a story. Your essay topic about growing up needs to agree with the paper’s length and follow the essay structure. Focus on a specific point in your writing.
• Think about the event in your life that provokes a strong emotional response;
• Write what you have learned from the experience;
• Consider writing about experiences with your friends or relatives. What those events taught you?
• Introduction : Your growing up essay introduction is an opening paragraph of the work. It grabs a reader’s attention and contains a thesis statement.
• Body Paragraphs : The childhood and growing up essay can contain three body paragraphs. In each one, provide an example of an event or situation that supports the general topic.
• Conclusion : In your growing up essay, the conclusion is the final paragraph. It summarizes the main points and brings the paper to an end.
• Revise your draft a couple of days after writing it. That way, you will be able to notice mistakes or typos you missed.
• Try to avoid passive voice . Rewrite the sentences in an active one, if possible.
• Read your essay out loud. If it doesn’t meet the set criteria, keep revising it.

👩‍👦‍👦 Growing Up Essay Topics

You may not know what your essay on growing up should be devoted to. If it’s the case, look at this section. Earlier, we talked about how to write, but here we will tell you what to write about.

Just in 1 hour! We will write you a plagiarism-free paper in hardly more than 1 hour

See the topics that can navigate an essay about your childhood experience:

• Your family values and how they have been shaping your personality. Engage in reflective writing to show how certain factors of growing up influenced your character . What do you think were the effects of your growing-up period?
• What various roles have you had in your family? How and why did they change? As children grow, the family adjusts accordingly. Remember your roles as a child, adolescent, and young adult . How did they change?
• Your personal changes over the course of growing up . Write an essay describing your personal development . What caused those changes?
• Sudden adulthood . Write a “growing up too fast” essay. Reflect on your feelings and emotions about growing up so suddenly.
• Growing up with siblings . Write an essay about your childhood experience in a house where you weren’t the only child. Remember what it was like growing up with blood brothers and sisters? Or, maybe you have step-siblings? How did it influence you?
• A short memoir . You don’t need to have a dramatic adolescence or an out-of-ordinary story to write about yourself. Share your most exciting stories from childhood.
• A significant event from my childhood.
• Personal experience of parenting styles .
• Describe the events that helped you to learn about life .
• Tell about the time you tried to challenge gender norms .
• Analyze your experience of growing up in another culture and the influence it had on your adult life.
• Most memorable Christmas of my childhood.
• Discuss how the relationships with your parents influenced your growing up and character formation.
• Describe the experience of self-disclosure in your childhood and the consequences it had.
• How I used to cope with stress at high school .
• Write about your family trips and the effect they had on the relationships within your family.
• Analyze how the relationships with your peers impacted your growing up and adult life.
• How I learned to ride a bicycle .
• Examine how different teaching styles you’ve experienced in childhood influenced your growing up.

In other words, try to focus on something that made your growing up experience memorable and tell about it.

What if you do not feel like talking about your own experience in the essay on growing up? Do not worry. There are many other ways to complete your paper.

What follows next are additional ideas for you:

• Write essays on growing up based on a work of literature or songs . Choose your favorite piece of literature or a song that talks about growing up. Write several paragraphs about the portrayal of the growing up period in music or literature.
• Write essays on growing up with a single parent . Write an essay about growing up without a father or mother . What is it like? What impact can it make on a person’s character?
• Write about growing up without parents . A childhood spent in an orphanage or with distant relatives can have lasting consequences . Think about the effects it can have on a person’s character.
• Write an essay about growing up in a small town. Think about the advantages and disadvantages of living in a small town . Why do you think it’s good or bad to live in a small town?
• Write about youth growing up fast. Children become adults quite quickly. Discuss the possible reasons for children to grow up faster.
• What happens to the mentally challenged children when they grow up?
• Examine how Nhuong depicted childhood in the book Water Buffalo Days: Growing Up in Vietnam .
• Discuss the changes digital technology brought into a growing-up process.
• Childhood’s effect on adulthood: the story of John Wayne Gacy .
• Explain how the environment influences the growing up and physical development of a child.
• Describe the relation between difficult childhood and personal development .
• Description of lost childhood in Night by E. Wiesel.
• Analyze the consequences being bullied or being a bully in childhood may have in adult life.
• Frank Conroy’s childhood in his book Stop-Time.
• Explore how childhood development and growing up shown in Born to Learn video .
• Examine the stories about coming of age and infantilism in literature.
• Discuss the peculiarities of growing up in multiracial family .
• Analyze the authors experience in Country Pride: What I Learned Growing Up in Rural America by Sarah Smarsh .
• Describe the problem of childhood obesity and the ways it influences children’s life.

👧 Growing Up Topics for College Essays

Writing a college essay about growing up essay is a great opportunity to reflect on the challenges and triumphs that made you who you are. Here are some compelling essay prompts and topics that will help you share your unique coming-of-age experience.

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• Essay on how growing up has shaped my life. Describe the pivotal moments from your upbringing that have had an impact on your personality and aspirations. You may also reflect on the lessons learned from your family, friends, community, and cultural surroundings. How did these experiences shape your values and worldview?
• What are the effects of growing up in poverty? Essays on this topic can explain how growing up in financially disadvantaged circumstances shapes people’s lives. If it’s something that resonates with you, you can write about it in your college essay. For example, describe the challenges you’ve faced and the experiences that have fostered your resilience. You can also analyze how these circumstances have impacted your values, such as a passion for social justice.
• What are the challenges of growing up? Consider the impact of family dynamics and cultural influences on your personal development. You can also discuss how overcoming these challenges has influenced you as a person and how it made you stronger.
• Is taking risks a necessary part of growing up? An essay on this topic can discuss the potential benefits and drawbacks of taking risks at a young age. Is taking risks an essential part of maturing and gaining independence, or are there other ways to learn? Remember to provide examples to illustrate your point.
• Fear of growing up. For this essay, consider how young people grapple with the challenges of transitioning to adulthood. What anxieties are associated with leaving behind the safety of childhood? Discuss the potential consequences of the fear of embracing adult responsibilities and provide real-life examples.
• Explain how peer influence shapes a person’s identity.
• The challenges of being the oldest sibling.
• How does one’s cultural background determine one’s childhood milestones?
• Social media and the coming-of-age experience.
• How education shapes a person’s future opportunities.
• The impact of childhood experiences on adult development.
• Explore the influence of gender identity on your journey to adulthood.
• The connection between your childhood hobby and adult career choice.
• The importance of self-discovery in the process of growing up.
• Write about the challenges and joys of adolescence.

📝 College Essay about Growing Up: Example

For your inspiration, we came up with a growing-up college essay example. It will provide insights into the content and structure and help you write an outstanding paper.

I have always been captivated by the world of art. Throughout my childhood and adolescence, I have been experimenting with different forms of self-expression, such as painting and sketching.

As a child, I was fortunate to have a supportive family that nurtured my love for art. My mother enrolled me in an art class and was always ready to provide me with supplies. All this helped foster my creativity to the point where I decided to pursue an art education in college.

During my teenage years, I was surrounded by a diverse group of friends who shared my interests. We went to galleries, attended art events, and collaborated on projects. These friendships enriched my artistic perspective even further. They also taught me about the diversity of creativity and expression.

In addition to art, I have various hobbies that help me become better at what I do. In particular, I enjoy reading non-fiction about renowned artists. Aside from traditional art forms, I also experiment with photography and digital design.

My family and friends played a major role in my decision to pursue a career as a creative. Their support and my belief in the power of self-expression will help me contribute to our school and the whole community.

Thank you for reading this article! Hopefully, you found the information written here useful. If so, don’t forget to comment and share this article with your friends.

This might be interesting for you:

• School Days Essay: How to Describe a Memorable Event
• Childhood Memories Essay: Brilliant Writing Ideas
• Writing Essay about Someone Who Has Made an Impact on Your Life
• Excellent Remembering a Person Essay: Free Writing Guidelines
• Life Experience Essay: How to Write a Brilliant Paper
• Essays that Worked: Hamilton College
• Essay Growing Up: Bartleby
• Narrative Writing: Brigham Young University
• Reflection Essay: Kent State University
• My Childhood Memories Essay: Cram
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I’m so happy to find your site. I like your posts on writing various papers! Now I’m working on my essay on growing up, and your post on this topic is very helpful for me!

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A rising share of undergraduates are from poor families, especially at less selective colleges.

The economic background of students is based on the family income-to-poverty ratio, a common measure that has the advantage of accounting for family size. For a given income, larger families are less well-off.

The economic situation of dependent students is based on their parents’ financial resources. For independent students, only the students’ own income (as well as any spousal income) is considered. In most instances the student’s income is derived from the student’s financial aid application and not from the student’s self-report. The nation’s undergraduates are about evenly divided between dependent and independent students, a proportion that has not changed much.

Students fall into one of five income categories ranging from “in poverty” at the low end to “higher income” at the top. As an illustration, based on recent poverty levels a student from a family of four is in poverty if the family income is below $25,696, and if the income is $192,720 or higher (an income-to-poverty ratio of at least 750) then the student is “higher income.”

The rising proportion of undergraduates in poverty does not mirror wider trends in society. The official poverty rate for adults age 18 to 64 (12%) was similar in 1996 and 2016, suggesting that access to college for students from lower-income backgrounds has increased since 1996.

The share of students in poverty differs considerably between dependent students – those who are younger than 24 and assumed to be receiving financial support from their family – and independent students, which includes those ages 24 and older as well as younger students assumed to be receiving little or no financial support from their parents. In 2016, 20% of dependent students were in poverty, up from 12% in 1996. Among independent students, fully 42% were in poverty in 2016, compared with 29% 20 years earlier.

The increase in the share of dependent students who are in poverty has been most pronounced at private for-profit colleges, public two-year institutions, and minimally selective and open admission four-year colleges and universities. At more selective institutions, a growing share of dependent undergraduates are from higher-income families (incomes at least 7.5 times the poverty line). For poor independent students, the increase has been substantial across different types of postsecondary institutions.

The share of undergraduates who are racial or ethnic minorities has increased in all types of postsecondary institutions, reflecting at least in part the country’s changing demographics . But the change has been most pronounced in public two-year and minimally selective four-year colleges.

The increase in the minority share of undergraduates comes amid a relatively large increase in Hispanic enrollment. Hispanic undergraduates have more than doubled their share of enrollment at four-year colleges and universities since 1996 (from 6% to 16% in 2016). Hispanics are now the largest minority group among students at minimally selective four-year institutions (eclipsing the black share of enrollment) and are even with the black share of enrollment at moderately selective four-year institutions.

The analysis also finds that undergraduates today are more likely to borrow to pay for college expenses, with the greatest increase among middle- and higher-income students. In 2016, 39% of middle-income students took out a loan, similar to the borrowing rate of students in poverty (38%). The likelihood of borrowing is now mostly unrelated to income, marking a significant change from the past. Undergraduates are also significantly less likely to be employed while enrolled than in 1996.

Larger shares now attend four-year and private for-profit institutions, with fewer at community colleges

While the share of undergraduates at four-year colleges and universities has increased overall, the share of four-year undergraduates educated by very selective institutions has fallen since 1996. The share enrolled at minimally selective and open admission institutions has increased over that time.

The type of institution a student attends is important because more-selective institutions are associated with better student outcomes. For example, about four-in-ten undergraduates beginning at public two-year colleges (39%) have finished an undergraduate credential (either a certificate, associate’s degree or bachelor’s degree) within six years. The corresponding completion rate for undergraduates beginning at a four-year institution is significantly higher (67%).

More-selective institutions devote more resources to a student’s education in terms of instructional spending and faculty qualifications. In addition, students graduate at higher rates at more selective institutions, and earnings after college may be higher for students from selective institutions.

Undergraduates increasingly likely to be from families in poverty

In 2016, 20% of dependent undergraduates were from families in poverty, a sharp rise from 1996 (12%). Since poverty in the wider 18- to 64-year-old population remained flat at about 12% during these same periods, it suggests that more poor students are participating in postsecondary education than 20 years earlier.

The share of dependent undergraduates who are from higher-income families has remained at roughly one-in-ten students from 1996 to 2016.

As the ranks of poor and near-poor students have grown and the share of higher-income students has held steady, the share of dependent undergraduates from lower-middle-income and middle-income families has decreased from 1996 (63%) to 2016 (52%).

Independent undergraduates are about twice as likely as dependent students to be in poverty (42% vs. 20%). As is the case among dependent students, the share of independent students in poverty has risen considerably since 1996, while the share who are lower-middle and middle income has fallen and the share who are higher income has remained stable at 3%.

Share of undergraduates in poverty has grown most at less selective institutions

The shares of dependent students from higher-income families have remained relatively stable at public two-year and four-year colleges and at private for-profit institutions since 1996. But a larger share of dependent students at private nonprofit four-year schools now comes from higher-income families (17% in 2016 vs. 11% in 1996).

A different pattern appears in the changing income background of independent undergraduates. Among independent undergraduates, the changes are not aligned with selectivity. For example, the shares of independent students with higher incomes are small and unchanged among all types of institutions. Meanwhile, rising shares of independent students are in poverty, and the largest increase occurred at very selective four-year institutions: 52% of these students were in poverty in 2016, up from 32% in 1996 (see figures in Appendix ).

Share of nonwhite undergraduates has increased at all types of postsecondary institutions

The growth in the minority share of undergraduates has been greater in the less selective tiers of postsecondary education. The share of nonwhite undergraduates at community colleges and public four-year colleges and universities each increased by 19 percentage points from 1996 to 2016, but only 10 points at private nonprofit four-year institutions (from 27% to 37%).

Among undergraduates enrolled at public and private nonprofit four-year institutions, the presence of minority students has increased most at minimally selective and open admission institutions (21 percentage points). The minority share of enrollees has grown less at very selective and moderately selective four-year institutions (by 16 and 15 points, respectively).

Hispanic undergraduate growth has been greatest at less selective tiers. The Hispanic share of public two-year enrollees has increased from 11% in 1996 to 24% in 2016 – a 12 percentage point increase. 5 Their presence at private non-profit four-year institutions increased a more modest 6 points (from 5% in 1996 to 12% in 2016).

Among four-year enrollees, Hispanics increased their share at minimally selective and open admission four-year institutions by 15 percentage points (from 6% in 1996 to 22% in 2016). At moderately selective and very selective four-year colleges and universities, Hispanics increased their enrollment share by 8 percentage points. But Hispanic growth among moderately selective four-year institutions has been enough that they now equal the black share of enrollment at these institutions.

Students in poverty are no more likely to take out a student loan than other undergraduates

The pattern of borrowing by students has radically shifted since 1996. In 1996, students that were in poverty were the most likely to borrow (33%) and higher-income students were the least likely to do so (8%). In 2016, there was no longer a clear relationship between the likelihood of borrowing and student income: 38% of students in poverty took out loans, as did 30% of higher-income students. Middle-income undergraduates were just as likely to borrow (39%) as those who were in poverty (38%).

Students attending four-year colleges and universities are more likely to borrow than community college students. But, with the exception of students in the private for-profits, the share of students borrowing has increased by about 10 percentage points at both two-year and four-year institutions.

The analysis also finds that undergraduates increasingly are not working while enrolled. In 2016, 36% of undergraduates were not employed, compared with 20% in 2000 (comparable work information is not available for 1996). The share working full time dropped significantly, from 38% in 2000 to 25% in 2016.

An undergraduate refers to a student enrolled in a postsecondary institution (private for-profit as well as public and private nonprofit institutions) and includes those pursuing a certificate or associate’s degree as well as those pursuing a bachelor’s degree.

“Dependent students” refers to undergraduates ages 23 and younger who are not married and do not have dependent children. Independent students include those who are older than 23 as well as those ages 23 and younger who are married or have dependent children.

Public two-year institutions are also known as community colleges. Private for-profit institutions refer to the roughly 3,400 colleges and universities that operate as businesses. Their program offerings often emphasize career preparation and have few or no general education requirements.

Public and private nonprofit four-year colleges and universities are classified as very selective, moderately selective, and minimally selective and open admission using the National Center for Education Statistics classification. This is based in part on ACT and/or SAT scores and how many students were accepted among those who applied.

In 2016, references to whites, blacks and Asians include only those who are non-Hispanic and identify as only one race. In 1996, Asians included Pacific Islanders and the Hispanic portion of this group. Hispanics are of any race. Nonwhites include blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Pacific Islanders, other races and people who identify as more than one race.

• These figures are based on 12-month enrollment and are higher than those based on fall enrollment (for example, the popular National Center for Education Statistics IPEDS) since the former include students only enrolled in the spring, summer or winter terms. ↩
• In this report references to 2016 and 1996 refer to academic years 2015-16 and 1995-96, respectively. ↩
• Some of the decline in enrollment at public two-year institutions may reflect that some formerly two-year colleges began offering four-year programs and awarding bachelor’s degrees, and thus were reclassified as four-year institutions. Based on IPEDS data, about 500,000 undergraduates in 2016 were enrolled in four-year institutions that were classified as two-year institutions in 2010. ↩
• The National Center for Education Statistics classifies four-year institutions by admissions selectivity on the basis of whether the institution is open admission, the percent of applicants admitted, and the distribution of ACT and/or SAT scores. See Methodology for further detail. ↩
• All percentage point changes are calculated prior to rounding. ↩
• These are the one year borrowing rates. In 2011-12, 69% of those receiving bachelor’s degrees had borrowed over the course of their undergraduate education. ↩

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Table of contents, 10 facts about today’s college graduates, households headed by less-educated adults have seen significant income gains during u.s. recovery, today’s young workers are more likely than ever to have a bachelor’s degree, u.s. still has a ways to go in meeting obama’s goal of producing more college grads, most popular.

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I made $1.4 million in profit last year as an Airbnb Superhost working just 2 hours a week. Here's how I set up and grew my business.

• Syed Lateef left finance to start an Airbnb business that he's grown to over 300 rental units.
• Lateef's business model includes both buying his own properties and utilizing rental arbitrage.
• Since 2017, he's grossed $35 million in revenue and he made $1.4 million in profit last year.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Syed Lateef , a 36-year-old Airbnb Superhost in Chicago. It's been edited for length and clarity.

I'm the CEO of SyedBnb, a short-term rental company with over 300 units and 100 employees.

After dropping out of college for one year before returning to get my degree, I started working in finance , but I didn't aspire to have the lifestyle of the company's VPs. I wanted wealth, exotic cars, luxury vacations, time, and freedom, so I pivoted to real estate .

I started my business in 2017, and in 2023, we made $11.5 million in revenue and $1.4 million in net profit.

Real estate was the key to the life I wanted

After being let go from my first role as a financial analyst, I landed a job at Allstate. I was promoted three times within five years, but the salary increases weren't meeting my expectations.

I realized that the people I knew in my community who were wealthy and had nice homes or cars were involved in real estate, which made me believe that was one of the main drivers of wealth.

I started listening to the "BiggerPockets" podcast and read "Rich Dad, Poor Dad," which motivated me to pursue financial freedom . I expected it to take me 15 years to replace my salaried income through real estate, but I was determined.

In 2016, I purchased my first multifamily building in Chicago using savings from my finance job and a loan on my 401(k). I put one of the units on Airbnb with a goal to make double the rent in one month that I could expect from a long-term tenant.

I hired cleaners and virtual assistants to do the admin work and implemented pricing software from the outset (I use PriceLabs).

Within four months, I made three times the expected market rent for a long-term tenant. I realized what an incredible opportunity this was and converted all the units in my building into Airbnbs. I was addicted and wanted more.

Related stories

Three to four months into my side business, even though my family and friends encouraged me to keep my salaried role, I gave my notice to leave. I was now a full-time entrepreneur .

Since its launch, I've scaled the business to over $35 million in revenue

I became an Airbnb Superhost in 2018, which means my average reviews are above 4.8 out of 5.

In the second year, I expanded into rental arbitrage (renting units from landlords and subleasing them on Airbnb) after realizing it was an easier way to grow my business. After furnishing my units, I lacked the cash to buy more rentals. I now own 13 apartments and arbitrage 320.

My revenue hit $2.8 million in 2019. 2020 was a down year due to COVID-19. By 2022, I had my first eight-figure year, reaching $10.5 million in revenue.

I only work a few hours a week

With the help of my employees and the implementation of author Gino Wickman 's guiding principles of the EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System), my workweek hovers around two hours.

EOS is a set of concepts and tools for entrepreneurs to have people in the right seats, track scorecards, document processes, identify issues, and get traction on their business. Weekly leadership meetings using the EOS system help me achieve a two-hour workweek, but those two hours are intense meetings.

I also handle my landlord relationships and business growth, but that's periodic, as well as the occasional proverbial fires.

The biggest mistake I made was growing too quickly

The biggest mistake I made was being too optimistic about growth in the winter before the pandemic. I started scaling and ran out of cash, but I didn't expect COVID-19 to hit me with a knock-out punch. My revenue went to zero. Airbnb refunded all my future guests. I didn't have the money to pay the landlord's rent.

I negotiated with all my landlords to allow me to stay in business. I purchased assets from bankrupt companies and was able to scale significantly. For example, I bought furniture for $250 per apartment from a bankrupt company.

Here's my Airbnb advice

My best advice to other aspiring Airbnb Superhosts is to learn from other hosts' experiences. Get in the Airbnb Facebook forums and connect with others. Attend networking events. Hire a coach or purchase a course to help you start the business.

Then, take action. If you can't afford a property, consider rental arbitrage. So many people get stuck in the learning and planning process. Inevitably, you'll learn while being in the actual business.

When I got started, I asked my sister, who's into interior design, to help me furnish my first Airbnbs. For guests' needs, we modeled hotels to see what items created a good stay. I learned everything myself through experience.

Axel Springer, Insider Inc.'s parent company, is an investor in Airbnb.

Watch: Ecolab is exploring #CleanTok and Pinterest for its B2C targeting

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The War at Stanford

I didn’t know that college would be a factory of unreason.

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ne of the section leaders for my computer-science class, Hamza El Boudali, believes that President Joe Biden should be killed. “I’m not calling for a civilian to do it, but I think a military should,” the 23-year-old Stanford University student told a small group of protesters last month. “I’d be happy if Biden was dead.” He thinks that Stanford is complicit in what he calls the genocide of Palestinians, and that Biden is not only complicit but responsible for it. “I’m not calling for a vigilante to do it,” he later clarified, “but I’m saying he is guilty of mass murder and should be treated in the same way that a terrorist with darker skin would be (and we all know terrorists with dark skin are typically bombed and drone striked by American planes).” El Boudali has also said that he believes that Hamas’s October 7 attack was a justifiable act of resistance, and that he would actually prefer Hamas rule America in place of its current government (though he clarified later that he “doesn’t mean Hamas is perfect”). When you ask him what his cause is, he answers: “Peace.”

I switched to a different computer-science section.

Israel is 7,500 miles away from Stanford’s campus, where I am a sophomore. But the Hamas invasion and the Israeli counterinvasion have fractured my university, a place typically less focused on geopolitics than on venture-capital funding for the latest dorm-based tech start-up. Few students would call for Biden’s head—I think—but many of the same young people who say they want peace in Gaza don’t seem to realize that they are in fact advocating for violence. Extremism has swept through classrooms and dorms, and it is becoming normal for students to be harassed and intimidated for their faith, heritage, or appearance—they have been called perpetrators of genocide for wearing kippahs, and accused of supporting terrorism for wearing keffiyehs. The extremism and anti-Semitism at Ivy League universities on the East Coast have attracted so much media and congressional attention that two Ivy presidents have lost their jobs. But few people seem to have noticed the culture war that has taken over our California campus.

For four months, two rival groups of protesters, separated by a narrow bike path, faced off on Stanford’s palm-covered grounds. The “Sit-In to Stop Genocide” encampment was erected by students in mid-October, even before Israeli troops had crossed into Gaza, to demand that the university divest from Israel and condemn its behavior. Posters were hung equating Hamas with Ukraine and Nelson Mandela. Across from the sit-in, a rival group of pro-Israel students eventually set up the “Blue and White Tent” to provide, as one activist put it, a “safe space” to “be a proud Jew on campus.” Soon it became the center of its own cluster of tents, with photos of Hamas’s victims sitting opposite the rubble-ridden images of Gaza and a long (and incomplete) list of the names of slain Palestinians displayed by the students at the sit-in.

Some days the dueling encampments would host only a few people each, but on a sunny weekday afternoon, there could be dozens. Most of the time, the groups tolerated each other. But not always. Students on both sides were reportedly spit on and yelled at, and had their belongings destroyed. (The perpetrators in many cases seemed to be adults who weren’t affiliated with Stanford, a security guard told me.) The university put in place round-the-clock security, but when something actually happened, no one quite knew what to do.

Conor Friedersdorf: How October 7 changed America’s free speech culture

Stanford has a policy barring overnight camping, but for months didn’t enforce it, “out of a desire to support the peaceful expression of free speech in the ways that students choose to exercise that expression”—and, the administration told alumni, because the university feared that confronting the students would only make the conflict worse. When the school finally said the tents had to go last month, enormous protests against the university administration, and against Israel, followed.

“We don’t want no two states! We want all of ’48!” students chanted, a slogan advocating that Israel be dismantled and replaced by a single Arab nation. Palestinian flags flew alongside bright “Welcome!” banners left over from new-student orientation. A young woman gave a speech that seemed to capture the sense of urgency and power that so many students here feel. “We are Stanford University!” she shouted. “We control things!”

“W e’ve had protests in the past,” Richard Saller, the university’s interim president, told me in November—about the environment, and apartheid, and Vietnam. But they didn’t pit “students against each other” the way that this conflict has.

I’ve spoken with Saller, a scholar of Roman history, a few times over the past six months in my capacity as a student journalist. We first met in September, a few weeks into his tenure. His predecessor, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, had resigned as president after my reporting for The Stanford Daily exposed misconduct in his academic research. (Tessier-Lavigne had failed to retract papers with faked data over the course of 20 years. In his resignation statement , he denied allegations of fraud and misconduct; a Stanford investigation determined that he had not personally manipulated data or ordered any manipulation but that he had repeatedly “failed to decisively and forthrightly correct mistakes” from his lab.)

In that first conversation, Saller told me that everyone was “eager to move on” from the Tessier-Lavigne scandal. He was cheerful and upbeat. He knew he wasn’t staying in the job long; he hadn’t even bothered to move into the recently vacated presidential manor. In any case, campus, at that time, was serene. Then, a week later, came October 7.

The attack was as clear a litmus test as one could imagine for the Middle East conflict. Hamas insurgents raided homes and a music festival with the goal of slaughtering as many civilians as possible. Some victims were raped and mutilated, several independent investigations found. Hundreds of hostages were taken into Gaza and many have been tortured.

This, of course, was bad. Saying this was bad does not negate or marginalize the abuses and suffering Palestinians have experienced in Gaza and elsewhere. Everyone, of every ideology, should be able to say that this was bad. But much of this campus failed that simple test.

Two days after the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, Stanford released milquetoast statements marking the “moment of intense emotion” and declaring “deep concern” over “the crisis in Israel and Palestine.” The official statements did not use the words Hamas or violence .

The absence of a clear institutional response led some teachers to take matters into their own hands. During a mandatory freshman seminar on October 10, a lecturer named Ameer Loggins tossed out his lesson plan to tell students that the actions of the Palestinian “military force” had been justified, that Israelis were colonizers, and that the Holocaust had been overemphasized, according to interviews I conducted with students in the class. Loggins then asked the Jewish students to identify themselves. He instructed one of them to “stand up, face the window, and he kind of kicked away his chair,” a witness told me. Loggins described this as an effort to demonstrate Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. (Loggins did not reply to a request for comment; a spokesperson for Stanford said that there were “different recollections of the details regarding what happened” in the class.)

“We’re only in our third week of college, and we’re afraid to be here,” three students in the class wrote in an email that night to administrators. “This isn’t what Stanford was supposed to be.” The class Loggins taught is called COLLEGE, short for “Civic, Liberal, and Global Education,” and it is billed as an effort to develop “the skills that empower and enable us to live together.”

Loggins was suspended from teaching duties and an investigation was opened; this angered pro-Palestine activists, who organized a petition that garnered more than 1,700 signatures contesting the suspension. A pamphlet from the petitioners argued that Loggins’s behavior had not been out of bounds.

The day after the class, Stanford put out a statement written by Saller and Jenny Martinez, the university provost, more forcefully condemning the Hamas attack. Immediately, this new statement generated backlash.

Pro-Palestine activists complained about it during an event held the same day, the first of several “teach-ins” about the conflict. Students gathered in one of Stanford’s dorms to “bear witness to the struggles of decolonization.” The grievances and pain shared by Palestinian students were real. They told of discrimination and violence, of frightened family members subjected to harsh conditions. But the most raucous reaction from the crowd was in response to a young woman who said, “You ask us, do we condemn Hamas? Fuck you!” She added that she was “so proud of my resistance.”

David Palumbo-Liu, a professor of comparative literature with a focus on postcolonial studies, also spoke at the teach-in, explaining to the crowd that “European settlers” had come to “replace” Palestine’s “native population.”

Palumbo-Liu is known as an intelligent and supportive professor, and is popular among students, who call him by his initials, DPL. I wanted to ask him about his involvement in the teach-in, so we met one day in a café a few hundred feet away from the tents. I asked if he could elaborate on what he’d said at the event about Palestine’s native population. He was happy to expand: This was “one of those discussions that could go on forever. Like, who is actually native? At what point does nativism lapse, right? Well, you haven’t been native for X number of years, so …” In the end, he said, “you have two people who both feel they have a claim to the land,” and “they have to live together. Both sides have to cede something.”

The struggle at Stanford, he told me, “is to find a way in which open discussions can be had that allow people to disagree.” It’s true that Stanford has utterly failed in its efforts to encourage productive dialogue. But I still found it hard to reconcile DPL’s words with his public statements on Israel, which he’d recently said on Facebook should be “the most hated nation in the world.” He also wrote: “When Zionists say they don’t feel ‘safe’ on campus, I’ve come to see that as they no longer feel immune to criticism of Israel.” He continued: “Well as the saying goes, get used to it.”

Z ionists, and indeed Jewish students of all political beliefs, have been given good reason to fear for their safety. They’ve been followed, harassed, and called derogatory racial epithets. At least one was told he was a “dirty Jew.” At least twice, mezuzahs have been ripped from students’ doors, and swastikas have been drawn in dorms. Arab and Muslim students also face alarming threats. The computer-science section leader, El Boudali, a pro-Palestine activist, told me he felt “safe personally,” but knew others who did not: “Some people have reported feeling like they’re followed, especially women who wear the hijab.”

In a remarkably short period of time, aggression and abuse have become commonplace, an accepted part of campus activism. In January, Jewish students organized an event dedicated to ameliorating anti-Semitism. It marked one of Saller’s first public appearances in the new year. Its topic seemed uncontroversial, and I thought it would generate little backlash.

Protests began before the panel discussion even started, with activists lining the stairs leading to the auditorium. During the event they drowned out the panelists, one of whom was Israel’s special envoy for combatting anti-Semitism, by demanding a cease-fire. After participants began cycling out into the dark, things got ugly.

Activists, their faces covered by keffiyehs or medical masks, confronted attendees. “Go back to Brooklyn!” a young woman shouted at Jewish students. One protester, who emerged as the leader of the group, said that she and her compatriots would “take all of your places and ensure Israel falls.” She told attendees to get “off our fucking campus” and launched into conspiracy theories about Jews being involved in “child trafficking.” As a rabbi tried to leave the event, protesters pursued him, chanting, “There is only one solution! Intifada revolution!”

At one point, some members of the group turned on a few Stanford employees, including another rabbi, an imam, and a chaplain, telling them, “We know your names and we know where you work.” The ringleader added: “And we’ll soon find out where you live.” The religious leaders formed a protective barrier in front of the Jewish students. The rabbi and the imam appeared to be crying.

S aller avoided the protest by leaving through another door. Early that morning, his private residence had been vandalized. Protesters frequently tell him he “can’t hide” and shout him down. “We charge you with genocide!” they chant, demanding that Stanford divest from Israel. (When asked whether Stanford actually invested in Israel, a spokesperson replied that, beyond small exposures from passive funds that track indexes such as the S&P 500, the university’s endowment “has no direct holdings in Israeli companies, or direct holdings in defense contractors.”)

When the university finally said the protest tents had to be removed, students responded by accusing Saller of suppressing their right to free speech. This is probably the last charge he expected to face. Saller once served as provost at the University of Chicago, which is known for holding itself to a position of strict institutional neutrality so that its students can freely explore ideas for themselves. Saller has a lifelong belief in First Amendment rights. But that conviction in impartial college governance does not align with Stanford’s behavior in recent years. Despite the fact that many students seemed largely uninterested in the headlines before this year, Stanford’s administrative leadership has often taken positions on political issues and events, such as the Paris climate conference and the murder of George Floyd. After Russia invaded Ukraine, Stanford’s Hoover Tower was lit up in blue and yellow, and the school released a statement in solidarity.

Thomas Chatterton Williams: Let the activists have their loathsome rallies

When we first met, a week before October 7, I asked Saller about this. Did Stanford have a moral duty to denounce the war in Ukraine, for example, or the ethnic cleansing of Uyghur Muslims in China? “On international political issues, no,” he said. “That’s not a responsibility for the university as a whole, as an institution.”

But when Saller tried to apply his convictions on neutrality for the first time as president, dozens of faculty members condemned the response, many pro-Israel alumni were outraged, donors had private discussions about pulling funding, and an Israeli university sent an open letter to Saller and Martinez saying, “Stanford’s administration has failed us.” The initial statement had tried to make clear that the school’s policy was not Israel-specific: It noted that the university would not take a position on the turmoil in Nagorno-Karabakh (where Armenians are undergoing ethnic cleansing) either. But the message didn’t get through.

Saller had to beat an awkward retreat or risk the exact sort of public humiliation that he, as caretaker president, had presumably been hired to avoid. He came up with a compromise that landed somewhere in the middle: an unequivocal condemnation of Hamas’s “intolerable atrocities” paired with a statement making clear that Stanford would commit to institutional neutrality going forward.

“The events in Israel and Gaza this week have affected and engaged large numbers of students on our campus in ways that many other events have not,” the statement read. “This is why we feel compelled to both address the impact of these events on our campus and to explain why our general policy of not issuing statements about news events not directly connected to campus has limited the breadth of our comments thus far, and why you should not expect frequent commentary from us in the future.”

I asked Saller why he had changed tack on Israel and not on Nagorno-Karabakh. “We don’t feel as if we should be making statements on every war crime and atrocity,” he told me. This felt like a statement in and of itself.

In making such decisions, Saller works closely with Martinez, Stanford’s provost. I happened to interview her, too, a few days before October 7, not long after she’d been appointed. When I asked about her hopes for the job, she said that a “priority is ensuring an environment in which free speech and academic freedom are preserved.”

We talked about the so-called Leonard Law—a provision unique to California that requires private universities to be governed by the same First Amendment protections as public ones. This restricts what Stanford can do in terms of penalizing speech, putting it in a stricter bind than Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, or any of the other elite private institutions that have more latitude to set the standards for their campus (whether or not they have done so).

So I was surprised when, in December, the university announced that abstract calls for genocide “clearly violate Stanford’s Fundamental Standard, the code of conduct for all students at the university.” The statement was a response to the outrage following the congressional testimony of three university presidents—outrage that eventually led to the resignation of two of them, Harvard’s Claudine Gay and Penn’s Liz Magill. Gay and Magill, who had both previously held positions at Stanford, did not commit to punishing calls for the genocide of Jews.

Experts told me that Stanford’s policy is impossible to enforce—and Saller himself acknowledged as much in our March interview.

“Liz Magill is a good friend,” Saller told me, adding, “Having watched what happened at Harvard and Penn, it seemed prudent” to publicly state that Stanford rejected calls for genocide. But saying that those calls violate the code of conduct “is not the same thing as to say that we could actually punish it.”

Stanford’s leaders seem to be trying their best while adapting to the situation in real time. But the muddled messaging has created a policy of neutrality that does not feel neutral at all.

When we met back in November, I tried to get Saller to open up about his experience running an institution in turmoil. What’s it like to know that so many students seem to believe that he—a mild-mannered 71-year-old classicist who swing-dances with his anthropologist wife—is a warmonger? Saller was more candid than I expected—perhaps more candid than any prominent university president has been yet. We sat in the same conference room as we had in September. The weather hadn’t really changed. Yet I felt like I was sitting in front of a different person. He was hunched over and looked exhausted, and his voice broke when he talked about the loss of life in Gaza and Israel and “the fact that we’re caught up in it.” A capable administrator with decades of experience, Saller seemed almost at a loss. “It’s been a kind of roller coaster, to be honest.”

He said he hadn’t anticipated the deluge of the emails “blaming me for lack of moral courage.” Anything the university says seems bound to be wrong: “If I say that our position is that we grieve over the loss of innocent lives, that in itself will draw some hostile reactions.”

“I find that really difficult to navigate,” he said with a sigh.

By March, it seemed that his views had solidified. He said he knew he was “a target,” but he was not going to be pushed into issuing any more statements. The continuing crisis seems to have granted him new insight. “I am certain that whatever I say will not have any material effect on the war in Gaza.” It’s hard to argue with that.

P eople tend to blame the campus wars on two villains: dithering administrators and radical student activists. But colleges have always had dithering administrators and radical student activists. To my mind, it’s the average students who have changed.

Elite universities attract a certain kind of student: the overachieving striver who has won all the right accolades for all the right activities. Is it such a surprise that the kids who are trained in the constant pursuit of perfect scores think they have to look at the world like a series of multiple-choice questions, with clearly right or wrong answers? Or that they think they can gamify a political cause in the same way they ace a standardized test?

Everyone knows that the only reliable way to get into a school like Stanford is to be really good at looking really good. Now that they’re here, students know that one easy way to keep looking good is to side with the majority of protesters, and condemn Israel.

It’s not that there isn’t real anger and anxiety over what is happening in Gaza—there is, and justifiably so. I know that among the protesters are many people who are deeply connected to this issue. But they are not the majority. What really activates the crowds now seems less a principled devotion to Palestine or to pacifism than a desire for collective action, to fit in by embracing the fashionable cause of the moment—as if a centuries-old conflict in which both sides have stolen and killed could ever be a simple matter of right and wrong. In their haste to exhibit moral righteousness, many of the least informed protesters end up being the loudest and most uncompromising.

Today’s students grew up in the Trump era, in which violent rhetoric has become a normal part of political discourse and activism is as easy as reposting an infographic. Many young people have come to feel that being angry is enough to foment change. Furious at the world’s injustices and desperate for a simple way to express that fury, they don’t seem interested in any form of engagement more nuanced than backing a pure protagonist and denouncing an evil enemy. They don’t, always, seem that concerned with the truth.

At the protest last month to prevent the removal of the sit-in, an activist in a pink Women’s March “pussy hat” shouted that no rape was committed by Hamas on October 7. “There hasn’t been proof of these rape accusations,” a student told me in a separate conversation, criticizing the Blue and White Tent for spreading what he considered to be misinformation about sexual violence. (In March, a United Nations report found “reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence,” including “rape and gang rape,” occurred in multiple locations on October 7, as well as “clear and convincing information” on the “rape and sexualized torture” of hostages.) “The level of propaganda” surrounding Hamas, he told me, “is just unbelievable.”

The real story at Stanford is not about the malicious actors who endorse sexual assault and murder as forms of resistance, but about those who passively enable them because they believe their side can do no wrong. You don’t have to understand what you’re arguing for in order to argue for it. You don’t have to be able to name the river or the sea under discussion to chant “From the river to the sea.” This kind of obliviousness explains how one of my friends, a gay activist, can justify Hamas’s actions, even though it would have the two of us—an outspoken queer person and a Jewish reporter—killed in a heartbeat. A similar mentality can exist on the other side: I have heard students insist on the absolute righteousness of Israel yet seem uninterested in learning anything about what life is like in Gaza.

I’m familiar with the pull of achievement culture—after all, I’m a product of the same system. I fell in love with Stanford as a 7-year-old, lying on the floor of an East Coast library and picturing all the cool technology those West Coast geniuses were dreaming up. I cried when I was accepted; I spent the next few months scrolling through the course catalog, giddy with anticipation. I wanted to learn everything.

I learned more than I expected. Within my first week here, someone asked me: “Why are all Jews so rich?” In 2016, when Stanford’s undergraduate senate had debated a resolution against anti-Semitism, one of its members argued that the idea of “Jews controlling the media, economy, government, and other societal institutions” represented “a very valid discussion.” (He apologized, and the resolution passed.) In my dorm last year, a student discussed being Jewish and awoke the next day to swastikas and a portrait of Hitler affixed to his door.

David Frum: There is no right to bully and harass

I grew up secularly, with no strong affiliation to Jewish culture. When I found out as a teenager that some of my ancestors had hidden their identity from their children and that dozens of my relatives had died in the Holocaust (something no living member of my family had known), I felt the barest tremor of identity. After I saw so many people I know cheering after October 7, I felt something stronger stir. I know others have experienced something similar. Even a professor texted me to say that she felt Jewish in a way she never had before.

But my frustration with the conflict on campus has little to do with my own identity. Across the many conversations and hours of formal interviews I conducted for this article, I’ve encountered a persistent anti-intellectual streak. I’ve watched many of my classmates treat death so cavalierly that they can protest as a pregame to a party. Indeed, two parties at Stanford were reported to the university this fall for allegedly making people say “Fuck Israel” or “Free Palestine” to get in the door. A spokesperson for the university said it was “unable to confirm the facts of what occurred,” but that it had “met with students involved in both parties to make clear that Stanford’s nondiscrimination policy applies to parties.” As a friend emailed me not long ago: “A place that was supposed to be a sanctuary from such unreason has become a factory for it.”

Readers may be tempted to discount the conduct displayed at Stanford. After all, the thinking goes, these are privileged kids doing what they always do: embracing faux-radicalism in college before taking jobs in fintech or consulting. These students, some might say, aren’t representative of America.

And yet they are representative of something: of the conduct many of the most accomplished students in my generation have accepted as tolerable, and what that means for the future of our country. I admire activism. We need people willing to protest what they see as wrong and take on entrenched systems of repression. But we also need to read, learn, discuss, accept the existence of nuance, embrace diversity of thought, and hold our own allies to high standards. More than ever, we need universities to teach young people how to do all of this.

F or so long , Stanford’s physical standoff seemed intractable. Then, in early February, a storm swept in, and the natural world dictated its own conclusion.

Heavy rains flooded campus. For hours, the students battled to save their tents. The sit-in activists used sandbags and anything else they could find to hold back the water—at one point, David Palumbo-Liu, the professor, told me he stood in the lashing downpour to anchor one of the sit-in’s tents with his own body. When the storm hit, many of the Jewish activists had been attending a discussion on anti-Semitism. They raced back and struggled to salvage the Blue and White Tent, but it was too late—the wind had ripped it out of the ground.

The next day, the weary Jewish protesters returned to discover that their space had been taken.

A new collection of tents had been set up by El Boudali, the pro-Palestine activist, and a dozen friends. He said they were there to protest Islamophobia and to teach about Islam and jihad, and that they were a separate entity from the Sit-In to Stop Genocide, though I observed students cycling between the tents. Palestinian flags now flew from the bookstore to the quad.

Administrators told me they’d quickly informed El Boudali and his allies that the space had been reserved by the Jewish advocates, and offered to help move them to a different location. But the protesters told me they had no intention of going. (El Boudali later said that they did not take over the entire space, and would have been “happy to exist side by side, but they wanted to kick us off entirely from that lawn.”)

When it was clear that the area where they’d set up their tents would not be ceded back to the pro-Israel group willingly, Stanford changed course and decided to clear everyone out in one fell swoop. On February 8, school officials ordered all students to vacate the plaza overnight. The university was finally going to enforce its rule prohibiting people from sleeping outside on campus and requiring the removal of belongings from the plaza between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. The order cited the danger posed by the storm as a justification for changing course and, probably hoping to avoid allegations of bias, described the decision as “viewpoint-neutral.”

That didn’t work.

About a week of protests, led by the sit-in organizers, followed. Chants were chanted. More demands for a “river to the sea” solution to the Israel problem were made. A friend boasted to me about her willingness to be arrested. Stanford sent a handful of staff members, who stood near balloons left over from an event earlier in the day. They were there, one of them told me, to “make students feel supported and safe.”

In the end, Saller and Martinez agreed to talk with the leaders of the sit-in about their demands to divest the university and condemn Israel, under the proviso that the activists comply with Stanford’s anti-camping guidelines “regardless of the outcome of discussions.” Eight days after they were first instructed to leave, 120 days after setting up camp, the sit-in protesters slept in their own beds. In defiance of the university’s instructions, they left behind their tents. But sometime in the very early hours of the morning, law-enforcement officers confiscated the structures. The area was cordoned off without any violence and the plaza filled once more with electric skateboards and farmers’ markets.

The conflict continues in its own way. Saller was just shouted down by protesters chanting “No peace on stolen land” at a Family Weekend event, and protesters later displayed an effigy of him covered in blood. Students still feel tense; Saller still seems worried. He told me that the university is planning to change all manner of things—residential-assistant training, new-student orientation, even the acceptance letters that students receive—in hopes of fostering a culture of greater tolerance. But no campus edict or panel discussion can address a problem that is so much bigger than our university.

At one rally last fall, a speaker expressed disillusionment about the power of “peaceful resistance” on college campuses. “What is there left to do but to take up arms?” The crowd cheered as he said Israel must be destroyed. But what would happen to its citizens? I’d prefer to believe that most protesters chanting “Palestine is Arab” and shouting that we must “smash the Zionist settler state” don’t actually think Jews should be killed en masse. But can one truly be so ignorant as to advocate widespread violence in the name of peace?

When the world is rendered in black-and-white—portrayed as a simple fight between colonizer and colonized—the answer is yes. Solutions, by this logic, are absolute: Israel or Palestine, nothing in between. Either you support liberation of the oppressed or you support genocide. Either Stanford is all good or all bad; all in favor of free speech or all authoritarian; all anti-Semitic or all Islamophobic.

At January’s anti-anti-Semitism event, I watched an exchange between a Jewish attendee and a protester from a few feet away. “Are you pro-Palestine?” the protester asked.

“Yes,” the attendee responded, and he went on to describe his disgust with the human-rights abuses Palestinians have faced for years.

“But are you a Zionist?”

“Then we are enemies.”

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Guarding Royal Families for $1,000 a Day: Inside Executive Protection Jobs

How three women trained to work in jobs protecting prominent families and ultra-high-net-worth individuals.

Monica Duperon Rodriguez worked in law enforcement for 15 years before becoming an executive protection specialist. Credit... Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times

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By Paulette Perhach

• Published April 7, 2024 Updated April 8, 2024

Monica Duperon Rodriguez welled up with feelings of awe when she stepped off a charter flight onto the Serengeti in Africa for a job assignment.

“The thought that came to my mind was: ‘This poor girl from this police department is standing in the Serengeti,’” she said. “I would have never in my entire life imagined myself being there.”

A layperson might mistake the job that swept her across the ocean as “bodyguard.” Professionals trained to her level of diplomacy, communication and planning earn the title of “executive protection specialist,” or E.P. agent.

Ms. Rodriguez said her training had started early. As the oldest child growing up in a one-bedroom apartment supported by a single mother, she felt a need to protect her three siblings from the drugs and drive-by shootings in her Chicago-area neighborhood.

She spent three years in college while working a full-time job and caring for her two small children. After taking some time off, she was sponsored by her local police department to attend the police academy because it needed female officers, especially ones who spoke Spanish. She chose the academy instead of finishing her college degree.

Ms. Rodriguez worked in law enforcement for 15 years, much of it in Florida, first as a narcotics detective and a hostage negotiator on the SWAT team, and then as a corporal detective in the burglary division.

Through work on a human-trafficking task force, protecting and interpreting for American missionaries in Guatemala, she made contacts with people who connected her to an opportunity to work for an ultra-high-net-worth individual. She was flown in for a daylong interview and was told the person’s identity only when she landed. Once she got the job, she began flying on private jets with someone from a globally known family.

Occupation: Executive Protection Specialist

Salary: Varies by assignment, but some E.P.s can earn hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Something to Know: The job can be exciting and let you travel the world and work with prominent families and A-listers. But be prepared to spend long periods away from friends and family.

Ms. Rodriguez can’t say who, as one of the primary commandments of the job is discretion, which felt like second nature to her after her experience working undercover.

For several years, starting during her time in law enforcement, Ms. Rodriguez studied martial arts, practicing for four hours a day, three times a week. She took jujitsu classes that cost about $100 a month, and trained in martial arts twice a week for $30 a session. This training, as well as her negotiation skills learned as a police officer, transferred to her job in protection.

In law enforcement, she was making around $42,000 annually; in executive protection, she has made as much as $200,000 a year.

“For me, education is extremely important,” Ms. Rodriguez said. “How you get it — that’s an entirely different thing. College is not always the answer, but education is paramount to personal growth and to really being able to identify potential opportunities.”

Ms. Rodriguez, who worked as the head of executive protection and global event security at LinkedIn and now runs her own business , says future E.P. agents may currently be working in the military or as E.M.T.s, with experience performing under stress. But the best people for executive protection work, she said, know how to switch off the high-intensity part of themselves to take on the etiquette, culture and expectations of clients who are usually accustomed to the world of luxury.

“We have to learn how to be somewhat of a chameleon,” Ms. Rodriguez said. E.P.s, she said, should be able to use physical skills when necessary, but also know how to ease tensions without causing a scene.

Amber Haddock also came from a law enforcement background when, just a few days after a 14-day executive protection training program, she flew to what was supposed to be a three-month assignment: guarding, without a gun or badge, a 17-year-old Middle Eastern princess living in Washington, D.C., under the guise that she was the young royal’s American host mom.

After the trial, the princess’s family decided to keep her on as a contractor for two years. Ms. Haddock drove the princess and her friends to her college classes and social events. On trips abroad, she flew with the young client on her private jet.

Female operatives can often disappear into roles, portraying the executive assistant, the aunt or the nanny.

“We don’t exist, and then, when we do exist, stuff has already hit the fan and we are evacuating the client,” Ms. Haddock said.

Much of the job involves planning. Executive protection specialists prepare contingency plans, routes and backup routes. They find the nearest hospitals and “hard points” — their term for safe locations.

“What if you were in Hawaii and the fire started with your client?” Ms. Haddock said, referring to the Maui fire. “Do you know where you would take them?”

Ms. Haddock, who lives in Texas and is the managing partner of the Texas branch of the Private Protection Agency, had been in junior college for two years when Sept. 11 happened, and she felt called to service. She learned that the Dallas County Police would pay for part of her degree after she graduated from the police academy. She worked nights as an officer and went to college during the day, getting a bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies and multiculturalism studies.

For the bulk of her career, Ms. Haddock has worked for Middle Eastern royal families.

When she started 15 years ago, “that was the only job back then, for female agents,” she said. Women were required, at times, because of family religious boundaries.

With the advancement of women in the work force and more women at top jobs, she said, more female chief executives are requesting female agents, creating demand.

When looking for a job in executive protection, individuals can find full-time positions at companies, or work independently, taking on details (what they call contract jobs) on teams or for clients as they arise, from dignitaries, celebrities or corporate leaders. The salary varies widely depending on location, client needs, threat level and other factors, but a full-time E.P. job can often pay in the six figures. A recent security posting from OpenAI listed the salary as $225,000. At her level, Ms. Haddock said, “I don’t get out of bed for less than $1,000 a day.”

Miranda Coppoolse, a security behavioral analyst at MC Global Security Consulting , came to work in protection from a place of resilience, having survived kidnapping, trafficking and abuse from a criminal gang.

“I didn’t want other people to go through what I went through,” said Ms. Coppoolse, who lives outside Amsterdam and has an associate degree in security management, as well as training in criminal psychology, human trafficking prevention and counterterrorism. “I thought with all the experience that I had from my past, I might be able to help other people. And so I started to work out and train.”

She practices martial arts because it’s a means of self-defense that’s not as obvious as carrying a gun, and she doesn’t have to deal with different firearm laws when traveling.

“Close protection is not so much about weapons,” Ms. Coppoolse said. “I think E.P. is really about giving the sense of safety, most of all, to that client. And you can only do that when you’re confident.”

She has worked around the world, walking through mansions and A-list celebrity parties in Los Angeles.

“It’s an exciting life,” Ms. Coppoolse said. “It’s also an exhausting life, because you have to be always alert.”

Because E.P.s need to be physically present for jobs, they can go long periods without seeing their friends and family.

Ms. Haddock never had the goal of having a family of her own, “so this job allowed me to move about the world, and help other families in their lives,” she said. But she added that plenty of women who worked in E.P. had successful careers and had their own families.

Contracts can be for multiple months, or much longer with a schedule that can look like three weeks on with two weeks off. Corporate contracts can have more standardized hours. Most clients use a trial period to make sure it’s a fit for both the E.P. agent and the client.

The job also provides ways to serve communities. Ms. Coppoolse runs an organization that works with victims of human trafficking. Ms. Haddock teaches self-defense through her social media accounts. Ms. Rodriguez escorts women who have to go to court to face their domestic abusers.

“When you are a natural born protector,” said Ms. Rodriguez, “that’s what you do.”

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Meet India’s Generation Z

The people who will shape the country’s next decades came of age during the modi era..

This article appears in the Spring 2024 print issue of FP. Read more from the issue.

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India changes more in five years than many countries would in a quarter century. This is partly because it is still relatively young: The country gained independence just 76 years ago, and nearly half of its population is under the age of 25. As one would expect, then, much has happened in the five years since 2019, when Indian voters issued an overwhelming mandate to keep the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in power.

Shortly after reelection, the Modi government revoked Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, which granted Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir its special autonomous status, fulfilling a long-held promise to its Hindu base. The next year, COVID-19 arrived, and the country became one of the most tragic sites of the pandemic. In 2021, the government barely intervened as thousands of people died waiting for hospital beds and oxygen tanks.

Last year, India hosted the annual G-20 summit with the pomp of a country that had much to teach the righteous leaders of the Western democratic world. With the next general election approaching, the BJP has doubled down on its key priorities. In January, Modi appeared in the northern Indian city of Ayodhya to inaugurate a grand temple to the Hindu warrior-god Ram at the same site where Hindu nationalists demolished a 16th-century mosque in 1992. He called the current era a “ new dawn .”

Something else took place in the last five years: India overtook China to become the world’s most populous country, with 1.4 billion people. A key driver of this population boom is the country’s youth. They face the hopes as well as the harsh realities of India as it stands today—and they will determine which way it goes from here. How have they viewed the events shaping India and the world since 2019, and who will have their vote?

Join FP Live for a discussion about the magazine’s India issue on Tuesday, April 16, at 11 a.m. EDT. Subscriber questions are encouraged. Register here .

Between 2019 and today, I have interviewed more than 100 young adults across India through my reporting and research. My first book, Dreamers: How Young Indians Are Changing the World , was published in 2018, and I wondered how much had changed. I began reporting Dreamers one month after Modi first became prime minister in 2014—a time of hope for India’s youth, many of whom believed that the new leader would break down barriers between them and their dreams.

Just before COVID-19 hit in 2020, I embarked on a collaboration with the photographer Prarthna Singh to depict India’s young generation through portraits and conversations with people ages 18 to 25. In the years between the 2019 and 2024 national elections, the project, titled “2024: Notes From a Generation,” took us to the small towns where we grew up and the big cities we now call home. No two conversations were alike: The people we met represented diverse backgrounds, cultural values, and political leanings.

Themes began to emerge. Most of the individuals we interviewed were dealing with challenges rooted in the political, social, and economic contexts of today’s India. These conversations comprised a historical record of a particularly fraught moment in the country’s journey. How young Indians confront the hurdles they are up against—whether finding jobs, forming identities, or exercising freedoms—will shape their own lives and India’s trajectory.

The “2024: Notes from a Generation” project began in Jaipur, Singh’s hometown, in a tent we set up on the roof of her parents’ house. Two conversations there came to represent opposite viewpoints on today’s India and young people’s place in it. Saba Naz, who was 21 years old in 2020, arrived on a cold morning wearing a denim jacket and a hijab. She was enrolled in a medical college to pursue dentistry and focused keenly on her studies.

However, things were heating up at Naz’s college in Jaipur. One day, a teacher asked the students about their views on the 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which grants a pathway to citizenship for religious minorities from neighboring countries but excludes Muslims. (The CAA was implemented this March.) When a classmate said the law was necessary, Naz, who is Muslim, couldn’t keep quiet. “I got up and confronted him,” she said. “I asked, ‘What is the need for this when the Indian Constitution already has a dedicated law dealing with asylum-seekers?’” The teacher shut her down.

In 2019, India’s Supreme Court also issued a judgment allowing for the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya—a decision that was controversial because the temple was to be built on the site of a mosque torn down by a Hindu mob. Naz was increasingly disillusioned with the situation in India. She started to closely follow the women-led protests against the CAA in Shaheen Bagh, Delhi. When a demonstration was organized in Jaipur, Naz went along with her sister to see what it was about. She returned the next day and the day after.

ABOUT THE PROJECT: “2024: Notes From a Generation,” featuring portraits and a soundscape, will be on display at Mumbai’s TARQ gallery from March 9 to May 11.

When I met her in January 2020, Naz had just entered the world of political protest, but she knew she was in it for the long haul. I have since met many young Muslim women who were inspired by the Shaheen Bagh protests. In an increasingly polarized country, Naz felt that she couldn’t afford to be indifferent. She now had responsibilities beyond her plan to graduate college and open her own clinic. “As young people, we have to ask questions and demand change,” she said.

A few hours after meeting Naz, I interviewed Lokendra Singh Raythaliya, then 23, who was on a mission to mobilize local youth to back the government on the CAA. Raythaliya had just filed his nomination for student union president in an upcoming election at the University of Rajasthan. The students would vote for him, he said, because they knew he stood up for causes related to the BJP’s nation-building.

Raythaliya joined the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, a student party affiliated with the BJP. He was inspired by Modi’s own journey into politics—like himself, the prime minister came from nowhere, he said: “I grew up in a village near Jaipur. My father drives a truck, earning 10,000 rupees [around $125] a month. I am the first person in my family to go to college.” Raythaliya argued that Modi’s success challenged the system in which only people with wealth or connections could advance in politics.

Raythaliya also admired the prime minister for keeping his word, whether on removing Article 370 or building the Ram temple in Ayodhya: “Whatever he says he will do, he does.” The student leader believed that India’s biggest problems were poverty, unemployment, and economic inequality, but the fact that Modi hadn’t tackled them yet didn’t make him think any less of the prime minister’s capability. He gave me several reasons why he continues to have faith. I would hear them again and again: “He is working day and night,” “He is changing India’s image in the world,” “He is taking India into the 21st century.”

Naz and Raythaliya were alike in many ways: ambitious and opinionated, each driven by their responsibility as young people to change things for the better. Naz would like to see her country adhere to the secular ideals enshrined in its constitution, while Raythaliya envisions an India where individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds have equal opportunities as those born into privilege.

However, Raythaliya was working toward the BJP’s vision of India, which seems to be no place for a young Muslim woman with big dreams. He was focused on his own prospects, blending business and politics. “We have to do something by ourselves,” Raythaliya said. “I have to support my family. It can’t run on my father’s salary as a driver.”

India’s youth face significant obstacles to social and economic mobility. The country’s job market is shrinking, and education and skills hardly help people gain entry. As of 2021, 1 in 5 college graduates in India was unemployed , according to the Mumbai-based Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). In rural areas, working-age individuals are increasingly lining up for manual labor provided by the government’s wage-guarantee scheme. Based on the latest government data , those with full-time employment are not seeing their salaries increase.

Despite India’s economy growing by about 7 percent annually, many young people feel it has nothing to offer them. The CMIE notes a troubling trend of people withdrawing from the job market, with the labor participation rate falling from 46 percent in 2017 to 40 percent in 2022. The frustration among job seekers is palpable, and discontent has led to riots, such as those in 2022 in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

Most job seekers resign themselves to low-paid casual work or self-employment. Across India, I have run into young people who keep two jobs at a time: a chef who sells insurance policies, a carpenter who makes deliveries for a food start-up, a call center employee who draws additional income as a web designer. Some were also preparing for examinations for government jobs, but few genuinely entertained the chance of landing one.

Last year in New Delhi, I met Mithun Kumar, a 19-year-old who had recently migrated from provincial Bihar, near the border with Nepal, to join a fast-growing workforce of underpaid gig workers. Between 10 million and 15 million people work as freelancers for Indian start-ups serving the needs of the country’s urban elite: commuting, delivering food, and online shopping. Kumar delivered packages for an e-commerce company that assigned him work through a mobile app. Some months, he made as much as 15,000 rupees (around $187) and could send some home to his family.

Kumar liked the freedom to work when he wanted to, but three months into the gig, he was feeling restless about his work status. He could earn money, but he didn’t have a job. His employers owed him nothing, and each day was unpredictable. He heard the company was going to change the app so that the delivery workers could no longer refuse a job during their designated hours. Kumar loved exploring the big city, but he wouldn’t stay long. An uncle running a motor repair shop in Nepal had asked him to join him, working without pay for a few years but learning a real skill. He thought it was time to move on.

Few of the young men I interviewed connected their poor job prospects to the BJP’s performance, instead viewing their bleak futures as a personal failure. Ramesh Kumar, who toiled in factories and construction sites, reasoned that a society can only function if the rich remained rich and the poor remained poor. The ire of those who did blame the country’s leaders fizzled when confronted with their electoral choices. India, many of them told me, needed a strong leader, after all.

By comparison, the young women I spoke with were angrier: at their families, for not allowing them even small freedoms; at society, for judging them; and at the political system, for keeping India from becoming a place that values women’s ambitions. In Jaipur, 23-year-old Chanchal Rajawat told me that her biggest wish was that the men in her family would respect the views of their female relatives. As a child, she believed that if women earned an independent income, men would listen to what they had to say.

Gradually, Rajawat realized that wouldn’t be enough. Neither her sister-in-law, who has a postgraduate degree, nor her sister, who draws a higher salary than her husband, can make their own decisions or spend their own money, she said. “It was clear to me that I would have to become an IAS officer,” she added, referring to the Indian Administrative Service, the government’s premier civil service. Her father said only then would she be allowed to choose where she lives and works. Since then, Rajawat’s single mission has been to ace the IAS entrance exam, a test so difficult that less than 1 percent of candidates succeed.

She is confident she will pass, and after she does, she intends to give herself the liberty to have fun for the first time in her life. “I will go out at night, go to a pub, have a few drinks, roam the streets,” Rajawat said.

Across different cities, I met young women who were using education and employment to forge new paths for themselves. In New Delhi, I spoke to a woman who had run away from her home in Bihar to enroll at a university, demanding that her father pay her college fees or else she would file a domestic abuse complaint. Last year, in Mumbai’s Bandra suburb, 18-year-old Saniya MQ told me that she taught herself to rap so she could “become someone” instead of dropping out of school to get married, like most other girls she knew. She already had a busy performance schedule and an album to her name.

Having only one job is not enough to support one’s family. In 2021 in Ranchi, Jharkhand, I met Supriya Kumari, who started her day at a soccer field coaching young players and finished in a car showroom handling phone calls from customers. In the same city, Arti Kumari worked full time as a gym trainer while also giving private karate classes. For the young women I met, a job was much more than a source of income. It gave them agency and confidence to engage with the outside world.

In 2019, 3 out of 5 respondents in a survey of first-time female voters said they would vote without the interference of their families. Traditionally, their votes favored the opposition Indian National Congress party, but that changed with Modi’s rising popularity. By 2018, according to pre-election polls, the BJP seemed to have plugged the women’s vote gap. From his early days as prime minister, Modi addressed women directly, envisioned welfare schemes targeted at their specific needs, and projected masculine authority. Many female voters I spoke to ahead of the 2019 election said they would opt for the BJP in gratitude. Post-2019 poll surveys showed the party’s vote share was only marginally higher among men than women.

This year, women are expected to turn out in equal numbers to men. Yet Modi and his party might have to try harder in 2024. With every major political party seeking to court female voters, their electoral choices could carry more weight. In polling areas where welfare schemes are not the key factor influencing voters’ behavior, a new generation of women may prioritize different issues.

No clear alternative has presented itself f or young people who have made up their minds against Modi. In some regions, voters make different party choices for state and national polls. In the eastern state of Jharkhand, those I interviewed from Indigenous backgrounds stressed the need to protect their ways of life and uphold their land and property rights. In the western state of Maharashtra, Yogesh Padmukh, a 19-year-old building supervisor, was leaning toward a political alliance centered on the interests of Muslims and Dalits.

But at the national level, few people expressed a strong preference when it came to non-BJP contenders. Even former Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi, who journeyed across the country on a march to “unite India” in 2022 and 2023, seemed to have limited appeal to those who oppose India’s current trajectory. The only place I saw palpable support for Gandhi was Kerala, where he won a parliamentary seat in 2019. In Kozhikode, Kerala, last December, student protesters blocked the entry of the state governor, whose appointment they saw as the BJP’s effort to gain a foothold in a state where calls for Hindu supremacy have little electoral currency.

That holds for a large part of southern India, a divergence that the BJP is trying to undo. It is succeeding in small pockets. In Tamil Nadu, Balaji Selavan, a 24-year-old who works in cybersecurity, admitted that many among his influential community of Tamil Brahmins were increasingly drawn to Modi’s leadership style. They applauded the stock market’s performance under what appears to be a stable government and celebrated India’s successful mission to land a spacecraft on the moon. But Selavan said he still did not quite grasp what was so great about Modi. “He is all show and no substance,” he said.

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