Interview With a Dropout

In the United States, over 1.2 million students drop out of high school every year. This happens for various reasons like drug abuse, teen pregnancy, or just simply failing too many classes. Often times, people will look at high school dropouts as failures. This opinion on high school dropouts may apply to some, but it doesn’t apply to all dropouts. Many dropouts were just in very unfortunate situations that led them to make this tough decision. Another common reason for students to dropout of high school is to support their families. This can be seen in more poverty-stricken areas around the world. However, this does happen and is an example of the student being forced  to stop going to school in order to survive.

Bronx Science is seen as seen one of the best public high schools in New York City. With a near perfect graduation rate of around 99%, it’s pretty difficult to find a student from this school who drops out. However, this does happen on occasion. Asif Rahman is an 18 year-old who attended the Bronx High School of Science before dropping out in early 2018 during his senior year. At first, Asif was a great student. With a 90+ average during his freshman year, it’s somewhat hard to see how he could possibly dropout. However, Asif would soon find himself involved with the drug culture of the school. Although he claims that his use of Marijuana had no correlation with his low performance during his sophomore year, many people in his life blame his drug use for his dropping out. Adamant that a lack of support from teachers was the major factor at play, Asif explains how he lost interest in school as time went on. A close friend of mine, I was able to interview him on his dropping out and what led up to it.

1. How was high school life like?

It was great. I had a lot of friends and in the beginning I really looked forward to class each day. But I remember starting school my sophomore year, I started to take school less seriously. I’ll admit that I was kinda lazy, but I think most of my problems came with the fact that most of my teachers were treating me unfairly. After that, I started to skip school a lot. It started off maybe one day a week, but then it escalated to full weeks in senior year.

1. What was the main reason for your dropping out and do you think you could have avoided it?

I had to drop out because I was failing most of my classes. I feel like I could have definitely done something to stay in school. Obviously I could have tried to bring my grade up, but at some point it just felt pointless. Everyone in the school knew about my situation so I felt like my teachers were judging me and treating me unfairly.

1. How much of a role did your drug use play in this situation?

I don’t think it played much of a role at all. When someone tells me that I dropped out because drugs ruined me, I tell them about all the kids I knew in that school who would be on something 24/7. People like to think that all those kids are saints and that none of them do any sort of hard drugs, but while I was smoking weed, others were tweaking on acid and overdosing on xanax in school. I realize now that I should’ve probably smoked less and taken school more seriously, but a lot of kids were doing what I was doing, so I really just think that it was because I didn’t care all that much about my classes.

1. How did your parents react to your decision to drop out?

They weren’t happy at all obviously. They were mad but they were more worried about what I would be doing after. We hadn’t been on good terms for a while, and this definitely didn’t help out. They wanted me to see a counselor because they thought that I was starting to get addicted to drugs and that I was on the road to becoming a failure. We ended up having a couple sessions with one, but they honestly didn’t help at all.

1. How do you plan on receiving a high school education?

I went to this school called PULSE (Providing Urban Learners Success in Education). It’s an alternative high school that let me finish high school in only a couple of months. The days were kinda long and I had to retake material that I had already learned, but it’s alright because I can actually apply to colleges now.

1. Do you plan on going to college? If so, what career are you looking into?

Yes. I dropped out of high school, but I still want to go into the field of science. I still want to go to college too. I’m looking into going to Queens College. They have a program there where you can go to school there for two years and then you can finish your bachelor’s at Columbia University. I’m very interested in science, specifically biomedical engineering. I want to become a biomedical engineer, and with this I can actually make that happen.

Dropping out of high school is very different from dropping out of college. However, just because you dropout of high school, it doesn’t mean that you’re out of options. My friend Asif looks back at his situation and sees it as nothing more than just an obstacle that he is overcoming. He still has dreams that he wants to see through, and is very confident that he is more than capable to achieve them. Having this opportunity to interview him on his experience with dropping out of high school gave me a lot of insight on why some people are forced to make such a drastic decision.