Achievement Of Desire By Richard Rodriguez Summary

In the essay “Achievement of Desire”, author Richard Rodriguez, describes the story of our common experience such as growing up, leaving home, receiving an education, and joining the world. As a child, Rodriguez lived the life of an average teenager raised in the stereotypical student coming from a working class family. With the exception, Rodriguez was always top of his class, and he always spent time reading books or studying rather than spending time with his family or friends. This approach makes Rodriguez stand out as an exceptional student, but with time he becomes an outsider at home and in school. Rodriguez describes himself as a “scholarship boy” meaning that because of the scholarships and grants that he was receiving to attend school;

there was much more of an expectation for him to acquire the best grades and the highest scores. Rodriguez suggests that the common college student struggles the way he did because when a student begins college they forget “the life [they] enjoyed before becoming a student” (339). Many students leave for school with the mindset that they need to learn as much as they can, forgetting society and their other priorities. Students should have time for friends and family, if they do not the only life or education they have will be suppressed by a book and a professor.
Just as Rodriguez was a “scholarship boy” along with many other students attending college today.

The pressure of students hearing “Your parents must be proud” brings students to an expectation that they can not fail or those people will not see them the same. People do not tend to remember all the success that a student has achieved even if they only make one mistake. Students do not want people to see their flaws and imperfections but only the success because then this will be all people have to judge them by. A “scholarship boy” may have worked harder than other students still feeling that even though they were “always successful, [they can be] always unconfident” because they happen to be the prized student with so many expectations (339). Today many college students receive scholarships and grants offered to students making it so competitive for anyone to receive any type of financial aid for school; when a student does receive financial aid they feel as if the only way that they can keep the financial help would be to suppress their social life only fixating on school work. The competition for scholarships and grants will continue to become harder and harder to receive because not only will there be more and more people trying to get into schools each year but the expectation continues to rise for these financial aid options. This will continue the pressure and social suppression for “scholarship

boys”.
Just like all “scholarship boys” in college “The boy needs to spend more and more time studying, each night enclosing himself in silence” can relate to me (341).

The first semester of college I spent so much time in the library learning as much as I can that I as forgetting the life I had before going to school. All the memories I had of late night adventures with friends and the quality dinner time spent with my family soon became just a distant memory fearing if I spent a minute focusing on that, that was one minute that I could have gotten one more answer right on a test. Never had my family or friends work so hard in my life trying to become the best and most successful person that I can be. Although I may have been learning more than I had ever been before my personality and social life were being suppressed into a sheltered “scholarship boy”. I may not be going to school off scholarships but even worse I pay the complete out of state tuition to attend school. This makes me feel like I need to work harder than the people riding on scholarships so that I can prove the university that they should give me scholarships over the other students. Not only does it then showing the university that I deserve the scholarships, but it also gives myself the self-achievement that my money was being well spent. An education can be an investment in my future so the money that I spend to attend the university may better my odds of getting a better-paying job. The knowledge that the

university has made available to me in just the one short semester that I have spent here feels like more than I have retained in all the years of grade school combined. My family and friends back home view me as “the working-class child struggling for academic success” (350). Many that know me understand that I come from a family that has not had anyone attend a university all the way back through the family history. Let alone did any family member think that I would be the first to attend due to the fact that I come from a racing background everyone expected me to go that route in life.As I did in racing to become respected I have strived to do in school. Suppressing anything that will not guide me towards success. Just as Rodriguez and many other “scholarship boys” feel unconfident from their prized expectations, I feel unconfident others have judged saying that I will not make it through school. This expectation forces me to overcome their doubt but unfortunately has caused me to sacrifice a lot in the processes.
Schools will continue to force their “scholarship boys” into socially suppressed students more and more as time goes on because the schools will get more competitive as time goes on. There may not be much that the education system can do about it, but the students need to understand that the quest for knowledge will never truly end. Students need to “[turn] unafraid to desire the past, and thereby [achieve] what had eluded [them] for so long-- the end of education”(355). This meaning that students need to understand their goals for learning, end formal education at those goals and use life to teach them the rest. Until a “scholarship boy” realizes that their education has been a mimic of thoughts that someone else has instilled in their mind they will not truly be learning as a thinker or self-opinionated person. When they end their formal education only learning from life then they will begin to learn how to problem solve and what their opinions may be in particular situations.