Conclusion

Summary

Most anyone can become a productive scholar. What were the odds that children raised in poverty, in tenements or on poultry farms, by parents who were drug store clerks, cigar makers, or cobblers, and who faced racial segregation would have gone on to become productive scholars? But they did. How about a college dropout and a college flunkout? Productive scholars too. You get the idea. There is really no barrier too high that you can’t get over, around, or through. You can do what these productive scholars have done. First, believe you can. Then follow the hidden-curriculum pathways laid out throughout this book. While on the pathways, don’t overlook the seemingly serendipitous signs, the universe-conspiring twists of fate, that might direct you as they directed productive scholars. How else can you explain how an accidently checked box opened a Ph.D. program, how one rejection produced an acceptance elsewhere, or how mindlessly signing an attendance log produced a scholarship? Keep your radar tuned for universe-conspiring opportunities that arise, and make the best of them when they do. You got this!