Affirmative action got me into MIT. The cycle that disadvantaged me continues.

Rodgerick L. Newhouse ’97, a Career Advisor at MIT, writes:

In 1992, I was valedictorian at a primarily black high school in Flint, Mich., and I went on to study aerospace engineering at MIT. I studied hard in high school, but when I got to college, I discovered that I didn’t speak the same language as my peers. Yes, we all spoke English, but they used words — such as “integral” and “differential” — that I had never even heard before.

Fortunately, there were programs available to help students like me catch up. But “catching up” at a place like MIT is like chasing a speeding bullet. You need to run much faster than everyone else just to finish even with them. I made it through — I even won some prestigious awards — but it was a hard, brutal road.

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