From homeless to Harvard class of 2014

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
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<p>"Around here, Khadijah is known as "Harvard girl," the "smart girl" and the girl with the contagious smile who landed at Jefferson High School only 18 months ago.</p>

<p>What students don't know is that she is also a homeless girl.</p>

<p>As long as she can remember, Khadijah has floated from shelters to motels to armories along the West Coast with her mother. She has attended 12 schools in 12 years; lived out of garbage bags among pimps, prostitutes and drug dealers. Every morning, she upheld her dignity, making sure she didn't smell or look disheveled.</p>

<p>On the streets, she learned how to hunt for their next meal, plot the next bus route and help choose a secure place to sleep -- survival skills she applied with passion to her education.</p>

<p>Only a few mentors and Harvard officials know her background. She never wanted other students to know her secret -- not until her plane left for the East Coast hours after her Friday evening graduation.</p>

<p>"I was so proud of being smart I never wanted people to say, 'You got the easy way out because you're homeless,' " she said. "I never saw it as an excuse."...</p>

<p>At school, she was the outsider. At the shelter, she was often bullied. "You ain't college-bound," the pimps barked. "You live in skid row!"</p>

<p>In 10th grade, Khadijah realized that if she wanted to succeed, she couldn't do it alone. She began to reach out to organizations and mentors: the Upward Bound Program, Higher Edge L.A., Experience Berkeley and South Central Scholars; teachers, counselors and college alumni networks. They helped her enroll in summer community college classes, gave her access to computers and scholarship applications and taught her about networking.</p>

<p>When she enrolled in the fall of her junior year at Jefferson High School, she was determined to stay put, regardless of where her mother moved. Graduation was not far off and she needed strong college letters of recommendation from teachers who were familiar with her work.</p>

<p>This soon meant commuting by bus from an Orange County armory. She awoke at 4 a.m. and returned at 11 p.m., and kept her grade-point average at just below a 4.0 while participating in the Academic Decathlon, the debate team and leading the school's track and field team....."</p>

<p>She</a> finally has a home: Harvard - Los Angeles Times</p>

<p>--</p>

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<p>Inspiring a story.
This made my day.
=)</p>

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<p>That’s such an inspirational story. I’m in awe of such a beautiful, passionate young girl. Reminds us to count our blessings. Just like lebron, it made my day as well. :)</p>

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<p>^I couldn’t find any picture of her.
I will take your statement figuratively.
Or, is there one?</p>

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<p>^There was a movie based on her that you can watch in full on youtube.</p>

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<p>^Ummm, no. This is a different homeless girl. The one with the movie about her was Liz Murray.</p>

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<p>^You’re right, I didn’t realize that :p. I guess I should learn to read :o.</p>

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<p>Khadijah is class of 2013, she is a rising sophomore.</p>

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<p>Don’t neglect the nuance of how much this young woman must give up to attend Harvard. She has barely seen her mother and sister for months, and could easily never see them again. She has almost completely cut herself off from any community she knows. She may have a “home” at Harvard, but outside of the quads there she is more homeless than ever.</p>

<p>One of my freshman roommates in college had a very similar profile, except that when he was in 8th grade the A Better Chance program shipped him off to St. Grottlesex (where he became a sports captain and house proctor, among other things). His sense of weariness and dislocation kept mounting (along with a drug problem), and ultimately he was unable to continue college and dropped out in his second year there.</p>

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<p>There have been previous stories about homeless students at Harvard, and a book and tv movie about a paraplegic student as well, whose mother left two other kids to live in the dorm with her daughter. (The family could have stayed together if the girl had gone to the state U. but Harvard was considered sufficient reason to make these sacrifices).</p>

<p>This kind of “tv movie” plot is appealing and inspiring for everyone, and great p.r. for the college.</p>

<p>However, I would like to see the decisions of admissions offices, who love stories of “overcoming obstacles”, followed up with support services at the college that make the transition bearable, help with adjustment, and enable kids with these “differences” to succeed academically, socially and emotionally.</p>

<p>Having to hide who one really is, is not healthy, nor is disconnecting from family and community in order to enter this new world - as someone else pointed out. (I worked with the homeless for many years, in a major city, and also somewhat object to the sensationalist manner in which that scene is depicted, in the article. And her mother must have done something right.)</p>

<p>I hope that this new student, whose background is so difficult, but whose hard work is so inspiring, can access help in adjusting to the Harvard environment.</p>

<p>Life doesn’t end with a ride into the sunset once someone is admitted to Harvard, and in some cases, it just gets a whole lot harder.</p>

<p>Kids in colleges have all kinds of things in their backgrounds, including substance abuse, death of parents, illness or disability, and other potential sources of alienation. People of this age can often find common ground and help each other.</p>

<p>I just hate the p.r. machine on these stories!</p>

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<p>“However, I would like to see the decisions of admissions offices, who love stories of “overcoming obstacles”, followed up with support services at the college that make the transition bearable, help with adjustment, and enable kids with these “differences” to succeed academically, socially and emotionally.”</p>

<p>I’ve seen no evidence that such students don’t succeed at places like Harvard, which have the highest graduation rates in the country. After surmounting almost unimaginable odds to get the stats to get into a place like Harvard why shouldn’t such students succeed? They already have overcome far worse things.</p>

<p>My boyfriend at Harvard had been raised by a single mom after his abusive dad abandoned the family. My boyfriend’s family used to receive food baskets from their church. He graduated from Havard on time and then got a doctorate from Harvard. From what I can tell, he’s living a productive, happy , successful life.</p>

<p>Another person I know who went to Harvard was first gen college is family. His late father was a taxi driver who had been shot to death. His mother was a domestic. I met him his senior year and recruited him for an internship at the company where I worked.</p>

<p>The type of students that Harvard picks who have overcome challenges have an awesome amount of resilience and ability to adapt to new environments including finding mentors and friends. They don’t need to have their hands held. I never saw any indication that such students needed special programs, etc.</p>

<p>I’m in connect with a current Stanford student who is first gen college, came from a low income home, has an incarcerated parent. He, too, is doing extremely well in college.</p>

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<p>Oh, as for the “pr machine”, I notice that kadijah Williams has her own web page that includes information about how to get her for speaking engagements, etc. Seems she’s doing a lot of PR for herself, Good for her!</p>

<p>I highly doubt if Harvard’s PR office reached out to the LA Times to get the paper to write about her.</p>

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<p>Khadijah Williams is not a member of the Class of 2014.
And just from my limited correspondence with her, it seems that she is doing very well and has adjusted quite smoothly. She was the first person to contact me via Facebook after I was accepted; I’ve yet to meet someone as friendly as she is.</p>

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<p>Watch the Oprah episode. She’s pretty.</p>

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<p>Now, this isn’t true. Harvard students, from what I’ve seen in my interactions with them both in person and online, don’t beat around the bush when it comes to discussing who they are.</p>

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<p>Just clarifying that in no way did I say or imply that Harvard itself was doing p.r. on this.</p>

<p>Here is Ms. Williams’ website:<a href=“http://www.khadijahwilliams.com/KW/About.html[/url]”>http://www.khadijahwilliams.com/KW/About.html&lt;/a&gt;. The intent of the website may be to screen people and protect Ms. Williams, which is laudable, but otherwise it is a little disturbing.</p>

<p>I am assuming that she is on full financial aid, so not sure why donations are solicited on the site.</p>

<p>Her connection to her mother and sister remain strong, apparently, which is really good to see; one of her goals is to buy them a house.</p>

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<p>There are always expenses beyond “full financial aid.” I mean sure, in theory 100% of your caloric intake, 24 hours a day 7 days a week can be from Annenberg, but in practice it’s nice to have some cash in your pocket. With that said, however, usually a low time commitment campus job can take care of that. I too am a recipient of “full financial aid” but I work on weekends to take care of my extra cash needs. I’m not homeless, though, so I’m sure she has uncovered expenses that I can’t even imagine.</p>

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<p>lebron, I was speaking figuratively, I’ve never actually seen a picture of her, lol. But none the less, she is in any way, apparently, ksarmand, she was on Oprah?</p>

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<p>^Well, that is what Google revealed.</p>

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<p>This is from her website:</p>

<p>Contact/Contribute</p>

<p>If you would like to make a donation for Khadijah’s education, please send an email here.</p>

<p>To contact Khadijah for public appearances, interviews, speaking engagements, film inquiries, etc., please contact her here. Please note that in order to keep focused on her studies, Khadijah strictly limits her personal appearances, interviews and speeches during the school year.</p>

<p>If you wish to leave a personal message for Khadijah, please do so via her Facebook Page. </p>

<p>Like I said, the function of this site seems to be partly to protect her. It would seem she has a handler/manager of some sort, who both protects and books/publicizes her.</p>

<p>Maintaining an identity based on this whole story, and being “amazing” could ultimately be destructive I would think, but then again, I don’t know her. I am basing my opinion on the experiences of other people I know.</p>

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<p>As someone who knows both Khadijah and financial aid, I’d like to point out that college budgets really do not account for all of the costs of attending college, the assumption being that either parents, savings/loans or work will make up the difference. Clearly, Khadijah does not have those resources. For example, every college student needs a decent computer, but that is hardly built into the budget. And all of the social activities that help make the Harvard experience “the Harvard experience” are not included in that budget. Add in costs for tutoring, eyeglasses and other items, and you’ll see that a full scholarship (which BTW includes a healthy does of loans and work-study) doesn’t cover the costs of Harvard.</p>

<p>In addition, when Khadijah’s story first came out in the LA Times, many readers offered assistance. The website was a response to that.</p>