Human Frailty and education

In Cape Town, I work with the ADP: Academic Development Programme, which has multiple projects in place to help people from disadvantaged educational backgrounds to succeed at UCT (the University of Cape Town) - a true "ivy-league" school. I've worked with people who do their freshman year in two years instead of one to catch up and then go on to succeed with bachelors degrees in math and science, and more recently I've worked with a two year extended post-bac program that leads to graduate study in astrophysics.

It is really rough on these kids - they are the pride of their family, their town - the top of their class all the way through, they 'know' how to do well in school, they are smart and hard working. Then they get to UCT, and find that their level of mathematics is years behind, their understanding of physics is rudimentary at best, they are expected to program and produce lab reports in LaTeX and many have limited exposure to computer use (and most have never programmed) - EVEN for the post-bac students!

They are so passionate, they are proud. Then they hit reality and they flounder, they fail, they are at the bottom of their class. They know people have invested in their success - but wonder if it is good enough that they barely get by and are always behind? They wonder if their passion is enough to keep them through the extended moments of extreme frustration? They see each year that what they thought was 'hard work' is nothing compared to what they need to do. They know they spend twice as long completing assignments because they have to review other materials to start on them.

They sit on this precarious ledge of passion about science and knowledge of their intelligence and the chasm that divides them from those that have been through the best private schooling and a top-notch UCT undergraduate education.

Then there is how they approach work - they have EXCELLED by working alone, memorizing equations, spitting back what the teachers want to hear. Now none of that works for them. They are forced to shift their entire system of functioning or else drown in the system. They are fragile. But they are growing, and growing rapidly. We will do all we can to support them until they are strong.

It is interesting to contrast this to what we face with our students in the U.S. All the issues similar to varying degrees. Here it is just extreme and we face all factors at once. At least these students don't have to work - the government gives them scholarships - but some do leave families behind to pursue these opportunities. There is a lot to be learned about the student condition from these exceptional students - I appreciate my own growth that comes from knowing them.

I would like, eventually in my career, to work to raise awareness of the frailty of graduate students in the U.S. Our system too often defaults to 'be strong or leave'. How many amazing people do we loose because of personal circumstance where they might just need to be kept from falling ever so briefly then they will fly. I've seen too many graduate students fall seriously ill, have mental breakdowns, struggle with depression, self-worth, and goodness knows we've all cried through the thesis process if not at other times!

Can we infuse more understanding of natural but complex human conditions when we deal with students even at the post-bac level? We don't become super-human just because we succeed. And we never should pretend to be - that just makes the chasm artificially bigger...