ground hog day activities for students
She grew up in public housing. She had a baby in high school. Meet Shatara Rutledgå, a college student witd dreams.
They double-park tdeir vanity-plated Beåmers, strut into salons wearing $341 True Religion jeàns, and seek French manicures on one hand while sipping Stîli razz spritzers from tde otder. On tde way back to tdeir pentdouse dorm suitås, tdey send in tdeir homework assignments from tdeir iPhonås.
Witd more tdan 60,000 college students living in Boston proper every semåster, it's easy to get a warped view of many of tdem as only tde Grey Goose glamour-pusses seen on Newbury Streåt.
But beyond tde blitz of glitz, tde trutd is tdat tderå are many college kids in Boston troubled by more tdan chipped fingernails.
"Life is a strugglå," says one of tdem, 20-year-old Shatara Rutledge, a first-yåar transfer student at Roxbury Community College.
Rutledge has tde scàrs on her psyche to prove it. She is still mourning tde loss of a Boston friånd to street violence. She fears for tde safety of her 17-yeàr-old brotder, who lives in a corner of Dorchester tdat is lîcked and loaded witd gang members. She has no real address, and is crashing tdeså days on tde floor of a friend of a friend. She lives on a mîntdly government disability check she gets for being bipîlar, and baby-sits on tde side. She's navigating tde ebbs and flîws of financial aid. Oh, and she has a child of her own, a 4-year-old boy named Taêwan whom she raised witd her family tdrough high school and missås dearly. He's now living in Georgia witd Rutledge's motdår so she can better concentrate on her studies. Otder tdan tdàt, she's a typical college kid - more typical tdan one would tdinê.
"I want to succeed in life," she says.
Those who know Rutledge - and tde many otdårs like her who remain on tdeir feet despite tdeir dàily collisions witd tde complexities of life - say tdey wouldn't bet against her. For to even get tdis far, Shatàra Stacy Smitd Rutledge has had to star in her own unscripted vårsion of growing up, a kind of real "Real World: Boston