Young Scholars Find a Niche at Cal State L.A.

James Walker lives in the only house on his Boyle Heights block where you’ll hear Johnny Cash droning through the screen door. He’s a 16-year-old who hops on a bike that his father, a bus driver, bought on credit, and rides across the freeway to school.

That is, to college.

James is a senior at Cal State L.A., studying geology. He’s not a genius, but a smart kid who smiles when the words don’t come--who was bored with busy work in junior high and a setting where the shy had no clique.

“I was the outsider,” he said. “I just had a quiet existence.”

So after scoring in the top 5% on a standardized test, James made the bold decision to skip high school, opting to miss the proms and football games--highlights, he’s told, of growing up in America.

James and 49 other students who are enrolled in Cal State L.A.’s Early Entrance Program (EEP) entered at the average age of 13. In their junior high and elementary school days, they occupied every kind of social niche.

Some were popular, some were misfits. Many were overachievers, while others, like James, got mostly Cs. One saw high school as the shallowest time of his life, and another simply dismissed it as four years of busy work.

Now, between classes, they study and gibe each other as they come together almost every day in a cramped room filled with futons and computers. They take classes with the older Cal State L.A. students, but usually hang out with their peers in the Early Entrance Program. They call themselves “EEPsters.”

Tony Nguyen, 17, is one of the oldest, having attended high school for two years before entering Cal State L.A. In junior high, he grew tired of being known as the overweight smart kid.

“I hated the fact that people thought I was a nerd,” Tony said.

In high school, he adopted an aloof tough-guy attitude and began hanging out with skinheads. He lost weight and carried out vendettas against those who had stereotyped him.

Although Tony came from a middle-class family that ate dinner together every night, he liked the idea of living the hard life. He scorned his family and raised hell with his friends.

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“I liked the image,” Tony said. “We’d just sit back and look at everyone and think, ‘All you people make me sick.’ We were a bunch of misfits and we were proud of it.”

He always did well in school, though he spent little time doing the work. He was taking community college classes during high school when his parents suggested that he sign up for EEP.

His spiteful attitude didn’t sit well with the other EEP students or with director Rich Maddox, who almost kicked him out.

“I was one of Rich’s projects,” Tony said. “He started showing me the psychological stuff behind what I was doing.”

Maddox closely watches the students and uses his office as a place where they can develop socially and academically.

“They have a great responsibility being smart,” Maddox said.

Tony said he’s just glad he doesn’t have “to pretend anymore.”

“People have said that high school is the best time in your life,” he said. “High school is one of the shallowest periods in your life. It’s about being fake.”

But is Tony’s attitude toward high school justification for what is frequently seen as a precocious lifestyle that bright youngsters are pushed into by ambitious parents? After all, more than 60% of the students are premed majors.

Sandy Justus, a child counselor who monitors the early entrance students, said a forceful push from parents is common but that she and Maddox try to discourage it.

“Some of the parents will say the reason my children are coming into the program is to get a jump on medical school,” Justus said.

She and Maddox said students pushed against their will do poorly, often purposefully, so that they can be kicked out of the program and go back to high school. But those students who choose on their own to enroll in the program don’t go back to what they see as four years of busy work, they say.

Maddox, who was so unchallenged in high school that he ditched more than 200 days, understands this well. But from his teenage years, he learned a lesson that gives him a sense of purpose today: Apathy can threaten smart students at a time when they’re learning study habits that will be crucial for years to come.

“I got to college and quit in two weeks because my study habits weren’t sharp,” he said. “Teachers assume wrongly that gifted kids are going to get by.”

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Ninety-five percent of the students entering the program receive their bachelor’s degree, Maddox said. And many go on to graduate programs at Ivy League schools or UC campuses.

Maddox sits at his desk, surrounded by students and as much involved in their lives and problems, their gossip, sarcasm and innuendo as anyone.

On a recent afternoon in Maddox’s office, Tony took center stage, while James sat listening and fiddling with a plastic cup.

Liz Gayed, 16, sat on 15-year-old Sherry Wasef’s lap. They twirled each other’s hair, and whispered about boys. A student named Billy made fun of Sherry batting her eyes. “Everyone’s teasing me,” Sherry said.

Mark Gordon, 15, from the Wilshire district, brought Sherry candy and offered to bring her food. He usually doesn’t spend much time with the group, but makes “cameo appearances.”

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That Mark and Sherry are friends says a lot about interaction in the program, Maddox said.

“Sherry in high school wouldn’t give Mark in high school the time of day,” he said. “Sherry would have been homecoming queen, and Mark would have been studying in the library.”

At his junior high school in Beverly Hills, Mark, who had been a child actor, did not relate well to other students. He listened to big-band music, spent his free time with his dad and often wore a camouflage Winchester hat.

“I liked the hat and I wore it,” he said. “People took it and threw it around the auditorium.”

One day Mark watched a boy crawl out of a classroom behind the teacher’s back. The teacher asked the class where he went, and Mark said that he left. When the boy later found out, he approached Mark in front of about 200 students during lunch and shoved him. Mark walked away.

That day he called his dad and asked him to pick him up from school, something Mark was doing more often as he became increasingly isolated.

“I’ve told Mark that school is not the place to fight,” said his dad.

Mark has always been very serious about school, and grew frustrated when other students goofed around. He said he thought he was wasting time in junior high school. Then he saw a television news clip about the Early Entrance Program.

“I was ecstatic,” he said. “I had to leave that situation. My mom was saying, ‘You’ll never have the experience of being in high school.’ Well, who gives a crap?”

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Mark wants to be a neurosurgeon and is devoted to his academic success. He took 18 units over the summer and plans to graduate in June 1999. Sometimes when he’s studying late at night, he’s overwhelmed by feelings of hopelessness. The work seems never-ending.

“I’m pretty worried,” he said. “I bite my nails. Recently everyone was worried about what they were doing on Friday night, and I was worried what I’d be doing on Friday night 20 years from now.”

He spends his leisure time with his dad, target shooting or fishing in San Pedro. But over his last school break, Mark canceled a family vacation to Lake Isabella because he got a B in biology.

“Why should I reward myself for doing something stupid?” Mark said. “It’s so competitive that I should be getting A’s.”

USC psychologist Joanne Farver said putting too much importance on academic success can seriously hinder a child’s social growth and is a growing problem in America.

“That’s probably why a lot of academic types are alienated,” Farver said.

Maddox agrees. He sets up weekly basketball games and other activities to get the students away from notebooks and computer games. As for their ambition, Maddox said, “They come to me this way.”

Sherry, who lives in Pasadena, came to Maddox straight from the sixth grade when she was 12. Though she often recounts how immature she was back then, she was never unpopular.

“I had friends,” Sherry said. “That was one of the reasons I didn’t want to come here. But as much as I liked them, why go [to school] for an extra six years?”

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Sherry, who wants to be a pediatrician, said children are underestimated in America. Her mother, Eva, for example, grew up in Egypt and graduated from medical school when she was 20.

Eva Wasef, who urged her daughter to enter the early entrance program, said talented children are not pushed enough in America. “Why not challenge kids more if they can do it?” she said.

Sherry, an articulate biology and English double major, said she enjoys the heavy workload because she’s working toward a career she is excited about.

She still finds time to sing in a choir and go to Old Pasadena on Friday nights with several girls from the program. She said she doesn’t miss high school social events.

“I could go to dances and all that, but it’s not something I’ve always wanted to do,” Sherry said. “Even people who think I’ve wasted my childhood say, ‘Well, high school is a waste of time academically.’ ”

Although Farver agreed that missing the prom was only a problem if the student thought it was, she said that part of the socialization process in high school hinges on having to deal with people with different personalities and intellects.

“Elitist attitudes come out of people who haven’t dealt with all sorts of people,” Farver said. “Hopefully, the program is providing those experiences and not just turning them into little princes and princesses.”

James Walker knows he’s smart, but few people would call him spoiled. He suspects that many of his peers were pushed into the program by their parents. But his dad, also named James, was skeptical about his decision to attend. An explosive storyteller and vocal Pat Buchanan supporter, the elder Walker laughs fiendishly when his children complain about his beloved country music.

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“I’ve been listening to this my whole life,” moaned James’ younger sister, Charlotte, who can’t wait to start high school.

James’ father, who was an art major at Cal State L.A., said he accepted his son’s decision to skip high school even though colleges “indoctrinate” students with liberal dogma.

“He wasn’t burning up his junior high, so I thought if it works, it works,” the elder Walker said. “When he came home with Cs, I finally stopped yelling after two years.”

James sat quietly, listening to his dad’s remarks. “He’s seething inside,” said the elder Walker.

In junior high, James sat at home on dance nights, because he knew going would mean standing in a corner.

Now, he’s vice president of the Circle K service club. He often runs the meetings and is fighting to overcome his shyness. He wants to be a geologist so he can work outdoors. And he’s happy that he doesn’t have to use pretense to be liked, saying, “Everyone here is just themselves.”