Introduction to Article Response

This article was very interesting to me as it talked about how people in the upper middle class can have an advantage over other upper middle class people. The example that the author gives is a great example with Taylor and Emma. Both come from very affluent families in the upper middle class. But, Taylor’s family had more “connections” so to speak. Therefore she finished with a higher GPA than Emma and was able to get into medical school to become a dentist where Emma had to settle as being a dental assistant getting forced into a marriage early.

Taylor had more help from her family while she was in medical school than Emma had ever gotten from her parents. Due to Taylor’s social status she had a lot more help through college where she was able to have a lot of options when she got out. Emma had to move into a military base and marry her boyfriend to get all the benefits from him. This shows how two different people can be just as successful through high school, end up at the same college and even have the same major. Then end up taking two completely different paths due to how high up each one of them was in society. Both came from well off families, one was just more affluent. This article also states that parental resources have a huge way of helping out students that are affluent and come from affluent families.

The author mentions three different paths that students take during college. They are professional, mobility, and party. The one that parties, is not very successful in college and will typically not do very well in life after college. The professional, tends to focus very well on what he needs to get done and gets his work done, but he does not know how to relax whereas the mobility one knows how to do both work hard and be able to relax and have fun at times. An achiever, is someone that goes out there and gets everything done and does very well with very hard work. A striver, is someone that is striving to be something and complete something. It does not mean he actually does it, he is just striving to do it. A socialite is someone that is not achieving or striving to do anything, he is just kind of there taking up space and having fun at the same time.

If you are in the upper middle class or higher class in society, you can expect to get a lot of financial help from your parents and not have to worry about your money. You can also expect to get into better schools as being in higher up more affluent families makes you more likely to have parents that are willing to make sacrifice that will put you in a better school than most can. If you are in a lower class family, you might have to work to get financial aid, a job and worry more about money where other people in the upper middle class do not have to worry about it as much. This could cause you to have less than stellar grades and ones that you are not very proud of due to this.