Zach Cole’s laptop wallpaper contains just nine words:
“Math is hard. So is life. Get over it.”
It is what his mentor, UA math professor Dr. David Cruz-Uribe, OFS, said to him during their first meeting.
Cole didn’t experience the motto as harsh, but simply an acknowledgement of realities he had already lived through. As a boy, he experienced family difficulties that caused him to enter the foster care system, followed by his grandparents taking over custody of him and his brother. As a teen, he lived through a bone growth disorder in both of his legs, necessitating thirteen surgeries in a span of six years. Cole graduated from an external fixator to a wheelchair, then to a walker, to crutches and finally to a boot. At one point, he had to reteach himself how to walk.
So, as a first-generation college student, Cole had no trouble believing that life was hard. And having chosen a math major over engineering and computer science but still struggling in courses like Differential Equations, he was learning that, yes, math was hard as well. Fortunately, Cole knew where to find help.
That is where Alabama REACH came in.
REACHing Out
Part of the Capstone Center for Student Success, Alabama REACH provides a community of support for students facing unique challenges — typically those who are orphaned, entering college from a kinship/guardianship or foster care situation, or experiencing homelessness. REACH helps these students by providing financial, academic and social support in the form of a robust peer network. This support, in turn, drives outcomes for students: While the typical graduation rate for this demographic is 2-3% nationwide, REACH posts a whopping 55%.
“Because of REACH, our students are no longer defined by statistics. They are defined by their success,” said Alabama REACH program manager Shannon Hubbard.
REACH targets specific challenges that its students face, like how to manage money and time, how to get around campus, how to get involved and find community at UA, even how to find affordable housing. “REACH is there to help act as a bridge to get you the resources that you need around campus,” Cole said.
But for Cole and many other REACH students, the value of the program goes beyond material support or even training to meet life challenges. What really impacted Cole was a group of advocates who cheered him on. When he changed his major to math, he struggled, and he went to REACH in search of a tutor. He got something better in Dr. Cruz-Uribe: He got a mentor.
“I didn’t have anybody in my background that believed in me,” Cole said. “And [Cruz-Uribe] was the first person who told me that I could do it. That’s what I needed.”
Getting Over
In February, Cole spoke at REACH’s Mardi Gras fundraising luncheon. He praised his experience with REACH, and the ways it opened new opportunities for him. For instance, in the course of his studies at UA, Cole discovered a love of travel.
“I came in as a student who had never been on a plane,” he said. His first flight was to Washington, D.C., for the Policy and Advocacy Fly-In, and from then on, he was hooked. In fact, he wanted to travel internationally, but feared such trips were out of reach because of financial challenges. Nevertheless, Cole brought his dream to Shannon Hubbard at REACH, and she introduced him to the Study Abroad office and helped him win the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship, which, along with other scholarships, allowed him to travel to Tokyo, Japan.
There’s an organization out there that is taking care of students who haven’t been taken care of.
His appetite for seeing the world still strong, Cole applied and was chosen for the Frederick Douglass and Daniel O’Connell Global Internship Program — a fully funded program that allowed him to live and work in Dublin, Ireland, for two months alongside students from all across the U.S., many of them from Ivy League schools. He was the first student from The University of Alabama ever chosen for this program.
Now a senior who plans to graduate with a bachelor’s in math and a minor in actuarial science, Cole has accepted a position in Nashville, working with HCA Healthcare and starting their employee development pipeline as a project manager assistant.
And he credits REACH and the ways it made a UA education possible for him for much of his success.
“There’s an organization out there that is taking care of students who haven’t been taken care of,” he said. Through mentorship, advocacy and resources, REACH gave Cole confidence, and it showed him that he can get over any challenge.
He remembers it every day when he opens his laptop.