No one would strike up a conversation with freshman Sam Gray and call her out for being different. Like most Swatties, she speaks animatedly in long-winded stories about her life and her passions and is excited about her classes. However, there is something that makes Gray the outlier in the incoming freshman class–her age. At sixteen years old, Gray is the youngest member of the freshman class, a fact which she does not allow to define her.
In her sixteen years, Gray spent a significant amount of time island hopping on a boat in the Caribbean with her family. “There’s not an awful lot you can do to occupy one’s children, so my mother started me on one of those ‘teach your baby to read programs’ when I was two,” she said of life on a boat. “And it actually did work! I did learn to read.”
As a precocious child with a fair amount of time on her hands, Gray was enrolled in the first grade at the age of five in a distanced learning school. Unlike homeschooling, this meant that Gray was enrolled in a program based out of a central location. She would receive materials, do her work, and send it in to be graded. “It was just like a regular school,” Gray said. “I just didn’t go anywhere.” Gray feels like she didn’t miss much by accelerating in her education. “Honestly, I see no reason why most kids don’t start off earlier,” she explained.
Gray’s educational history may seem drastically different from the average college student. She spent time looking for coffee shops with wifi on various islands to work on assignments and didn’t attend school with a group of her peers.
Gray only spent approximately one semester in high school attending a physical school, on the island of St. Lucia. Up until that point, she had never had the opportunity to take advantage of the presence of her teachers, but while she enjoyed the rare opportunity to physically interact with her teachers, ask them questions and get homework help, Gray felt out of place in the classroom.
However, while the regiment of the high school classroom did not suit Gray’s preferences, she feels like she is transitioning well into Swarthmore life. She has gotten a fair amount of attention for her age. “People usually ask me if I’ve skipped a grade and I just explain to them that I started early,” she said. Gray also was able to advance a grade by continuing with school through summer break. Without the time constraints of a traditional institutional education, Gray was able to orient her life and schedule around her schooling.
Even within the concentrated age range of a college campus community where a sixteen year old may seem unwelcome, Gray does not think this is the case. “I’ve always felt like I’ve always gotten along better with people older than me,” she said. “I liked to socialize with the big kids and always wanted to sit at the adult table. I may be physically younger–though not by much–but I think I’m about as mature as everyone else.”
Gray is looking forward to her time at Swarthmore and feels like she is already adjusting well. “I felt like this was the right place for me because of the amount of flexibility Swarthmore offers its students,” Gray said. She really likes the lovely balance between classes, free study hours and emphasis on personal time. Gray is not used to the regimented life associated with high school, and while college life may be more structured than what she’s used to, Gray at least is happy that her schedule will have some variety. “I don’t mind structure,” she said, “but I can’t stand the regimented frame where one wakes up every morning to the same routine.”
Gray also hopes to thrive in the diverse Swarthmore community. “I will miss standing on the bow of our boat looking at all the others boats and seeing all the other national flags. No two people have the same backstory and that’s something I really enjoyed learning while island hopping,” she said. Gray hopes to have a similar experience immersed in Swarthmore’s diverse pool of students.
Meanwhile, Gray is currently gaining her footing as a young college student in a new environment. She hopes to study linguistics, a topic which has always fascinated her. Gray has always loved the way languages are constructed more than she’s loved speaking a language itself. She claims that becoming a linguist means you can give someone an overview of phenology, morphology, history of a language all without necessarily being able to say “hello” in that language. She’s looking forward to taking more linguistics classes and being able to expand her knowledge in this field.
Gray has not allowed other people’s views of her to change to way she carries herself. “I haven’t yet met anyone yet who is judging me for being younger,” Gray said of her time at Swarthmore. “If others have negative opinions of me because of something like that, then I really don’t care.”
