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October 26, 2009 10:20 AM Myth vs. Reality

By Jesse Singal

The Boston Globe has up an interesting interview with Rebecca Cox, an assistant professor of education at Seton Hall University who just wrote a book in which “she describes a wide gulf between professors, who cling tightly to an idealized image of college and its students, and anxious students, who may harbor deep doubts that they’re college material to begin with. The result is, for many students, a paralyzing fear in this unfamiliar and intimidating new setting, and misunderstandings that often lead to failure.”

These insecurities, of course, hit first-generation college students the hardest.

Jesse Singal is a former opinion writer for The Boston Globe and former web editor of the Washington Monthly. He is currently a master's student at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Policy. Follow him on Twitter at @jessesingal.