Gladwell Advantages

Gladwell explores the idea that to become successful one must be given advantages and also capitalize on them. These advantages could be hidden, like birthdays, or overt, like financial status. I have been given advantages that help support me and give me different cultural perspective, allowing me to gain life experience.

Something that makes me an outlier is that my parents are well educated and earn enough to be considered part of the upper middle class. This entails that they can support me financially for any extra help I may need and/or camps that allow me to gain knowledge and experience in my field of interest. Since they both have had high levels of education, they both understand and emphasize the importance of reading; initiating my love of books when reading bedtime stories to me as a young child. A study reveals that grades are dependent on family background: "The A [grades] overwhelmingly came from the middle and the upper class. Their homes were filled with books. Half the fathers of the A group had a college degree or beyond, and this at a time when a university education was a rarity. The C [grades], on the other hand,

were from the other side of the tracks. Almost a third of them had a parent who had dropped out of school before the eighth grade" (Gladwell, 2008, p. 111). This displays how my educated parents serve as an advantage to my school grades. Another benefit that gives me the upper hand is that my father is an engineer and since I also want to become an engineer, he can secure me job shadowings and lend me knowledge about the field.
An additional advantage that makes me an outlier is that I travel often.

My parents are both immigrants that have family and friends throughout Eurasia. As a family, we often visit these relatives; this exposes me to different cultures, which allows me to have further knowledge in school subjects such as social studies. It has been proven that “[outliers] are products of history and community, of opportunity and legacy. Their success is not exceptional or mysterious. It is grounded in a web of advantages and inheritances, some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky” (Gladwell, 2008, p. 285). Traveling is my ‘lucky’ advantage and makes me an outlier when combined with the effort I put in because, like Gladwell says, those who become successful are a result of motivation and hard work mixed with fortunate

opportunities.
I have been given favorable circumstances that have encouraged me and have given me unusual points of view in life that have led me to acquire different understandings in the world. To make myself more successful in the future I will take full advantage of every opportunity that presents itself and will work hard to create opportunities for myself. Gladwell’s theory that one must be given opportunities and also work hard to become successful will manifest in me.