'SMC Has Helped My Self-Esteem and Humbled Me'

On Sunday afternoon, dozens of students, faculty, administrators and supporters participated in "Hands Across California." The social action raised awareness about cuts to higher education and the increasing need for student-scholarship funding.

SMC is facing an $11 million deficit in 2011-12. The school is freezing all current salaries and reduce course offerings, among other measures. In Gov. Jerry Brown's , funding for community colleges would be cut by 5 percent, and community-college classes would cost $36 per unit instead of $26.

One of the students who participated in "Hands Across California" was Stephen Olsen, who received a $1,000 scholarship from the Bernard Osher Foundation after achieving a 4.0 grade point average. Intending to transfer, the 33-year-old has been accepted to Columbia University and is waiting to hear back from Brown University; the University of California, Berkeley; and the University of Southern California.

SMC Foundation Alumni Coordinator Barbara K. Ige, Ph.D., recently conducted an interview with Olsen for Santa Monica Patch. He spoke about the value of SMC, the importance of community colleges in general, and how the scholarship has helped him on the path to a higher education.

Barbara K. Ige: Are you the first in your family to go to college?

Stephen Olsen: I am the first to go to college in all of my extended family going back as many generations as is known. I was raised in a lower-middle-class family of six, and [on occasion] there wasn't much food for us to eat. Only my mother and I graduated high school.

I believe that many people take for granted what it means to have parents who went to college. When college isn't a part of a child's vernacular growing up, it becomes culturally ingrained that college isn't for them, and thus, continues the cycle.

Ige: Is getting a college education important for you to succeed? Why?

Olsen: Getting a college education has been among the most meaningful experiences in my life.

I was gifted to be raised in a family of very expressive personalities; I had an excellent environment to develop strong, assertive verbal skills and listening skills. Now armed with a college education, I have noticed how often I am complimented for being able to express myself so well.

It has [also] sowed in me a deeper compassion for others than I had before I was [college-] educated.

Ige: How has attending SMC helped you?

Olsen: SMC has helped my self-esteem and humbled me at the same time. As an older student than is typical at SMC, I find that most professors connect to me a little bit easier than the majority of very young students. At the same time, I am an older student reminded every day that I am in my 30s and still a sophomore with sophomoric knowledge.

I celebrate my achievements while I recognize that I haven't done it alone, nor am I doing something that hasn't been done before; however, the hard work I am putting in has been its own reward. I am simply a better person, and thus, a better citizen. 

Ige: What are your plans once you graduate?

Olsen: Whatever I do, it will be helping people in whatever way I feel I can use my best gifts. From acting to studying philosophy, psychology, human evolution and filmmaking, I feel there has been a consistent path for me in studying the human condition on deeper and deeper levels throughout my life and then presenting it to others.

Ige: Do you think scholarships are important for student success? Why?

Olsen: They are extremely important. A profound debt burden is one of the only things that can stop an ambitious student from finishing through to the end.

Scholarships like the Osher Scholarship also help older non-traditional students feel like their hard work is appreciated by someone else. My scholarship paid for all of my text books for the year and then some. It also instilled in me that I need to consider this scholarship as a "pay it forward" that was [possibly] donated by a former non-traditional student such as myself who made it out all right. That inspires me to make something of myself and donate at least as much back into the pool of students who need these scholarships.

Many scholarships don't really apply to people over 25, because they don't factor in that uneducated people over that age are independent and [often] work menial jobs in order to feed themselves. They have little time for volunteer work, which many scholarships require. I hope that those who donate money for college educations see that older non-traditional students are the best in their classes and often have the most need.

[This interview has been edited and condensed.]