I Just Wanna Be Average By Mike Rose

External forces and the environment play a very big role in the success of students. The environment that a student is placed in and the people that surround them will put them into a certain state of mind that can either impact them in a good way or a bad way. In the short story “I Just Wanna Be Average” by Mike Rose he addresses how greatly external forces and the environment impact a student’s efforts in school and their want to succeed. In the reading “The Accordion Family: Boomerang Kids, Anxious Parents, and the Private Toll of Global Competition”, Katherine S. Newman showcases the impact of the upcoming world-wide acceptance of living at home during college and how that environment can either make or break an individual’s future. Newman

As a senior in high school I tutored kids in a vocational program. All through school you would always hear people, teachers included, making fun of and talking badly about the kids that were in this program. After spending quality time with each kid and realizing that every single one of them had amazing potential, it made me extremely mad that people spoke about them in such ways. After reading Rose’s story about accidentally being placed in a vocational program and how he also saw it affect not only himself but the people around him, it made me think about the vocational program at my high school. One thing that Rose said that stood out to me was “Students will float to the mark you set. I and the others in the vocational classes were bobbing in pretty shallow water” (Rose 154). I couldn’t agree more with that statement. The kids that I tutored only did what was required of them. They would simply do the

Getting through high school is a difficult thing to do and once you graduate you have a lot of important choices to make that are influenced by the environment that you are in and the people around you (your family). You have to decide if you’re going to go to college or not, if you’re going to live at home or move out, and many other things. Some people go from high school graduation straight into the work force and don’t even think about college due to the environment they grew up in and the expectations of their parents. My dad graduated high school and went straight into the work force because his family was extremely poor and to them college wasn’t even an option. My mom on the other hand had no choice but to attend college. Many people that I know do go to college but whether they are living at home and going to college or living away from home while going to college varies. When Newman talks about people in older generations and their view on staying at home while attending college, it is seen in a very negative light. They see these kids as “parasite singles” (Newman 84) — kids who mooch off their parents and refuse to accept the strictures of adulthood — and while it may be true in some cases it is most definitely not true in all. If you are in a structured household, a good environment, then your parents would make rules that will put you on the road to success and that allow you to live at