I recently had the opportunity to evaluate candidates for the Gates Scholarship. The scholarship targets “outstanding, minority, high school seniors from low-income households” and “is awarded to exceptional student leaders, with the intent of helping them realize their maximum potential.” The experience was both humbling and motivating.
One of the essays the applicants wrote required them to identify a major social problem and discuss how they planned to address it, including identifying the barriers they were likely to encounter. Another asked them what they would say if they had the opportunity to speak to all the United States Congress. There were four topics that showed up repeatedly in the essays I read: combating climate change; fighting discrimination against marginalized groups; addressing mental health issues; and counteracting gun violence.
I was struck by how dramatically avenues for change have expanded since I was a high school senior. The majority of the 25 applicants I reviewed referenced social media as a key means through which they could (and would) make a difference. While some have decried the inherent narcissism in social media, these essays demonstrated the positive side of that “narcissism.” It is easy to feel hopeless in the face of massive undertakings like addressing climate change or gun violence. Rather than feel blocked by legal avenues or discouraged by the limitations of more “traditional” routes, these applicants took for granted the power of social media platforms to enact real change. And, perhaps more importantly, they believed in their own abilities to use the tools available to them to accomplish their goals and reach a potentially unlimited audience to do so.
Rather than feel blocked by legal avenues or discouraged by the limitations of more “traditional” routes, these applicants took for granted the power of social media platforms to enact real change.
These are not students from privileged backgrounds, more accustomed to hearing “yes” as opposed to “no.” In their relatively short lives, these students have already faced and overcome significant barriers to success that many will never know, such as hunger, violence, and lack of health care. But despite these very real challenges what spoke loudest in their essays was a profound sense of individual self-efficacy: “it won’t be easy, but if I work hard, I know I can do it.” I remember feeling similarly at that age and this reviewing opportunity has left me thinking about how I can combine the wisdom of my life experiences with that unshakable sense that it is all still possible.