Movie Response #1

I think there are many different factors that could influence students’ academic works. Lack of technology for education in modern society is a major one, but in the film, we saw that New Tech High School was the pioneer of the country to provide computers and internet, so for those students, other factors are at play for their different outcomes.

In the film we see that Luisa’s problem is that she doesn’t have money for the education she wants. Her low income status is the barrier for her to succeed. For Travis, he is under a lot of peer pressure that his friends keep telling him he’s a geek and make fun of him. Although he seems to understand his own goals, but then he is on his own. With his low income status, he also couldn’t afford college which he wants. For Kep, he has a background as a minority in the U.S.. He overcame many things like learning English and culture shocks to be where he is now. It was much harder for him to succeed compared to American-born children. All of their problems would seem impossible to solve if we say technology was the answer. It is far more complex.

I was a bit surprised to know the outcomes of those students. I saw them work hard in their academic career, and I saw them breaking obstacles for their own goals. But in the end, for most of them, due to the problems apart from lack of technology they still couldn’t get what they wanted and deserved. Life is just not fair to them.