Does My Neighborhood Want Me to Drop Out of College?

A Student in Watts Asks Why She’s Spent a Decade Choosing Between Survival and Her Degree

Zócalo celebrated its 20th birthday recently! As part of the festivities, we’re publishing reflections and responses that revisit and reimagine some of our most impactful stories and public programs. Watts resident and student Shanice Joseph revisits her own essay “Does My Neighborhood Want Me to Get Pregnant?” and pens an update on her journey—and struggle—to get her college degree.

Over a decade has passed since I published my first-ever viral essay.

I was struggling to make ends meet while pursuing my journalism degree at Long Beach …

by Shanice Joseph | September 9, 2024

Anything ChatGPT Can Do, My Students Can Do Better

Why a Media History Professor Is Welcoming AI Into Her Classroom

by Elizabeth Blakey | August 31, 2023

Zócalo is celebrating its 20th birthday this year! As part of the festivities, we’re publishing reflections and responses that revisit and reimagine some of …

Is San Diego America’s Finest College Town?

SDSU and UCSD Are on the Rise, and They’re Bringing Their City up With Them

by Joe Mathews | April 11, 2023

Who needs ivy-covered walls, Palo Alto farms, or Telegraph Hill when you could study in America’s Finest College Town?

That’s the thinking of more California kids in the 21st century. Led …

Workcred Director of Research Isabel Cardenas-Navia | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Workcred Senior Director of Research Isabel Cardenas-Navia

I Am Very Fast on My Calculator

October 21, 2021

Isabel Cardenas-Navia is the senior director of research at Workcred, an affiliate of the American National Standards Institute whose mission is to strengthen workforce quality by improving the credentialing system. …

A Micro-Loan at a Time, an Atlanta University Is Bridging the Racial Achievement Gap

How Georgia State Challenged a Broken Educational Model and Skyrocketed Its Graduation Rates

by Andrew Gumbel | August 26, 2020

Students like Tyler Mulvenna drop out of college all the time, for all the wrong reasons.

Mulvenna was bright and resourceful and full of promise when he enrolled at Georgia State …

I Got an Education Cleaning Airplanes in the Middle of the Night

Working at LAX Taught Me Lessons School Could Not—Including How Much I Wanted the Degree I Missed Out On

by Shanice Joseph | August 10, 2020

The airlines provide barf bags, but the dirty secret is that people often don’t use them. They throw up on the floor and the seats. This is not a society …

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