Student story: College increases confidence
About this video
A student who moved from Lebanon in 2005 describes feeling not smart enough in high school because she lacked academic language and the cultural knowledge others had. In college she chose a major she loved, politics, history and international relations, and found that her language and cultural background became assets in class discussions.
You'll be able to
- explain why the student felt she was 'not smart enough' in high school.
- explain how choosing a major she cared about helped her thrive.
- describe how a different background can become an asset.
Key words
- Academic language
- The words and ways of writing used in school, such as for analysing documents or writing essays.
- Major
- The main subject a college student chooses to study in depth.
- Asset
- Something useful or valuable that helps you.
- International relations
- The study of how countries interact with each other.
- Perspective
- A particular way of seeing or thinking about something.
Transcript
- One thing I learned in college is the ability to believe in yourself and to actually see that happen. Because when I moved here from Lebanon in 2005, I really just felt like I was not... like I would never achieve, because I didn't have the academic language to really write in class or analyze documents, because we never had practiced those skills.
And so I always felt that I was a student that just wasn't smart enough, and that was never good enough for something, and I kind of lost the belief in myself that I would achieve, especially because I had things like my accent, or my... I didn't have the knowledge that other people had here, the cultural knowledge, the jokes, the references, this, that.
So those were all really hard experiences moving in right in high school. When I went to college, and I chose the major of what I really was interested in, which was politics and history and international relations, all of a sudden, I thrived in those classes, and all of my experiences ended up becoming assets, and my language and my cultural difference ended up becoming something that aided me more, because I was able to bring other perspectives into the classroom discussions.
And so all of a sudden I felt empowered to feel that I'm actually not a dumb student, and I know something.
Video © Khan Academy, used under CC BY-NC-SA. Watch on Khan Academy. Puzzicle is not affiliated with Khan Academy.