Thursday, April 18, 2013

The Four Pillars of College Success - Part One


Because I am heading off to college next year another TED talk title caught my eye. The talk was titled Freeman Hrabowski: 4 pillars of college success in science. Freeman Hraboski is the president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and made his talk about how to achieve success, and how to help students achieve success in their studies; especially in the fields of engineering and science. His focus has been helping the minority groups, African Americans and Hispanics, at his university and his program and the programs implemented at the University have actually worked.

He began with a childhood story, when he was a 9th grader in Birmingham, Alabama fifty years ago. He said that he was a very good and boisterous student, always wanting to learn.  When he was twelve years old, he went to a presentation given by Martin Luther King Jr. The question proposed was“How could we get more kids to love to learn?” Martin Luther King Jr. decided that if we can get the children to participate in the demonstration, we can show that children know the difference between right and wrong. This would show that they want to learn and serve as sort of a platform.

After going to this speech, Freeman desperately wanted to join and go to the demonstration, even though he knew that he would probably go to jail at 12 years old. He stated during his talk, “When people do something courageous, it doesn’t mean that they are courageous. It simply means that they believe that it is important to do it.” When Freeman was in jail, Martin Luther King Jr. came to visit and said “what you do this day will have an impact on those that are not born.” This had a large impact on him and he decided that children can be empowered and taught to be passionate.(314)

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