It’s fine to feel inadequate at Columbia

Interviewing Xan Faber – a recent Columbia grad from a public high school in Kansas who majored in Medicine, Literature and Society and now works in Taipei – was a great way to spend Monday morning.

A few minutes into the conversation, we acknowledged knowing each other from somewhere, but not knowing where.

Then we realized Xan was the friend of my first year RA at Columbia – the friend who had witnessed my first-week-of-first-year breakdown in the room of my RA who was the only person to whom I felt I could talk during that time.

During my first week of classes it seemed like I was frankly not the type of person who should be going to Columbia. Everyone gave testimony of some brand of excellence that readied them for the intense environment – their parents were professors, their dad had a PhD, they had gone to the best prep school in Connecticut, they had taken nine APs at a rigorous urban public school, their family was uber liberal and education-focused, they were from France and trilingual, they had been deemed genius in fifth grade-something. And I felt like I had nothing of the sort, and would fail because of it: just my exposed, untraveled, testimony-less, rural, small-public-school self.

“You know, with time you might find that those kids aren’t as smart as they think they are,” my Lit professor told me at office hours.

Who were “they?” Wasn’t “they” the same as “everyone?”

Meet Marchelle Lundquist, a rising Columbia sophomore from St. George, Utah, who, like many students (as I later found out), also felt unprepared and had a difficult transition to Columbia.

“It’s hard to be a beginner in everything when it seems like no one else is and your professors assume that you aren’t,” says Marchelle.

MarShechelle pursued online coding classes during high school, leading her to a somewhat comfortable position as a Computer Science Major at Columbia. Though her computer science transition went smoothly, not everything in STEM did.

“Math has easily been the hardest for me to adjust to at Columbia. Utah’s math curriculum is really different from the structure of most states’ math courses and, in my opinion, does not prepare students for college-level math. It’s hard to try to play catch-up on top of completing the normal coursework for my classes.”

As someone frustrated with playing “catch-up,” Marchelle finds her position as a student Ambassador, (someone who visits schools in their home region to provide students with information about Columbia), somewhat challenging. “In my experiences visiting high schools in my home town as an Ambassador for Columbia’s Admissions Office, students often ask if their high school experience is enough to prepare them for schools like Columbia. It’s easy to jump to a quick “yes!” because I want the students to feel that they have all these opportunities open to them, but sometimes I don’t know if I can honestly say that is true.”

And whereas some students express excitement at academic opportunities, that’s often not the case. One fruitful topic Xan brought up was school in un-academic environments. Like me, Xan always felt like she was going against the grain by making academic leaps of her own, something most people didn’t – and were discouraged to – do.

“Of 250 people in my graduating class, four went out of state for college,” she reports. “Striving was not admired in any way.”

After growing up in my hometown, I didn’t realize academia could be the “main” thing in other people’s lives before college, or that there were entire schools and communities where hiring SAT tutors, going to private schools, completing advanced rigorous AP/IB curriculum, etc, was the norm.

Schools should work to encourage students to become more vocal about their varied experiences; the number of students who feel unprepared is actually much higher than I initially thought, and some feel much more discomfort than I do. “Unprepared” students just tend to be less vocal, because students from more competitive backgrounds feel more comfortable talking about their experiences. And even for those who are prepared, imposter syndrome and feelings of unwelcomeness take many forms.

My main point here is that recruitment and affirmative action for rural and academically less-advantaged people has its benefits, but there needs to be more support for these students once they get to school.

Columbia definitely has resources, but sometimes it seems like they’re not made for students who’re truly unprepared both academically and culturally. “Many students (including myself) have a hard time taking advantage of the resources Columbia offers to aid students’ learning,” Marchelle remembers.

“When I was struggling in one of my courses, my academic advisor suggested that I get a tutor in the subject, so I petitioned to get one from Columbia’s tutoring service. It took well over a month to secure a tutor and I only had one session with him before I withdrew from the course. It doesn’t help that many students who need tutors also can’t afford to pay for an outside tutoring service like some other students can.”

Xan suggests Columbia alter its core to include “true” beginners’ exposure to some fields. “I think FroSci really needs to be reformed,” she argues. “It would be better if everyone were just taking GenChem or an intro CompSci class, all together.”

Finally, one of the hardest things to come to terms with is that some students’ place at Columbia feels like a natural educational progression. I’ve even heard students complain about getting the short end of the stick because someone at their high school who was “dumber” than them got into Harvard and they didn’t.

“Once in my CC class, the Prof asked who thought they deserved to be here,” Xan tells me. “Only one other girl and I didn’t raise our hands. As though everyone else deserved to be at Columbia over all the other brilliant people at their elite prep schools. The reason people get here has a lot to do with luck.”

Luck or not, it’s hard to believe that for some people, going to Columbia is a small deal.

The problem with elitism and inequality, Xan said at the close of our conversation, is not just an attitude problem – it’s the denial of intellectual resources to most of the American population.

“There are many reasons for Donald Trump’s rise to power,” she suggests, “But one of them is this stifling of intellectual access.”

That’s a pretty serious claim.

All things considered, it’s safe to say both these women wish American education and intellectual discourse were more egalitarian and accessible. I think they’re right, and as people who go to an elite university and do well there, maybe we should start thinking of some solutions.