Privilege

Growing up in the heart of Silicon Valley in San Jose with parents who were both computer engineers, I didn't realize how privileged I was until I went to college. I lived in a little bubble up until then because all my friends came from the same privileged background. I never once had to worry about having a safe, warm, clean place to live. I never had to worry about having money to buy school supplies, extra reading books, games, and electronics. I don't take anything that I've gotten for granted now and I can only imagine the hardships my parents had to go through so that they could provide my sister and I this type of life.

Earlier today I read a comic on privilege (link here) and completely agree with it. Growing up, I had so much handed to me on a plate and never had to think twice about a lot of things. That's not to say that I didn't work hard because I worked my butt off to get to where I am now but I am completely aware that my environment facilitated and contributed to that growth.

Tonight, someone rang our doorbell and because I thought it was my mom coming back home, I ran to open it without looking through the peephole. I was greeted by a young, black high school senior. Trying to be polite, I listened as he talked about how he was going to San Jose State this fall, majoring in computer engineering. He was fundraising for books and supplies for the upcoming semester and he needed 15 people to subscribe to newspapers before he got $500. I couldn't help but think this was something I never needed to do to get through college. Oh, this chemistry textbook costs $100? No problem, credit card was swiped. Oh, I need to buy 4 books for this English class? $50 swipe. Yea I thought it was expensive but did it matter? Not really. I still swiped that credit card (paid for by my parents) and easily bought all my books.

Would I be able to do what he was doing at age 17? Go door to door for who knows how long, asking unknown people to buy a subscription to a newspaper so that the program could fund him $500 for school supplies? I doubt it. It fully reminded me again of privilege and all the privilege I had growing up.

As I signed his subscription, filled out a form, and wrote him a check, I asked him why he wanted to do computer engineering. He said his dad taught him about computers from a very young age so he grew up wanting to go into a field that dealt with computers. Interestingly enough, I also grew up around computers every day but thought computer engineering was so hard that I didn't even want to try. My very best wishes goes out to this kid as he embarks on his college career. I hope he becomes a computer engineer and loves what he does in the future.