So how did a Lake of the Woods resident who had to repeat a class at Orange County High School end up as a graduate student at the University of Oxford, one of the world’s most prestigious colleges?
He credits Germanna Community College with helping him turn things around.
Bryant Lyttle had to take Algebra II twice at Orange County High School.
“That made getting into college a little difficult,” he says. “I’ve never been a particularly good math or science student.”
The first-generation college student had taken some Germanna dual enrollment classes. “I tried some Advanced Placement courses and didn’t do so hot, but I did do very well in [Germanna] dual enrollment classes,” he says. “A big part of choosing Germanna was my grades.”
He graduated from Germanna in 2012 with an associate’s degree in general studies with a focus in psychology.
He worked for four years before transferring to George Mason University. “Germanna gave me the confidence to do well at George Mason, he said. He said he earned a 3.5 GPA there, good enough to apply to Oxford.
After earning a bachelor’s of science in Conflict Analysis and Resolution at GMU, Lyttle is pursuing his master’s of philosophy in Social Anthropology at Oxford.
Lyttle said he had heard in high school about a stigma attached to community college –that it was “the 13th grade.”
After starting out on campus at Oxford, he’s finishing his master’s degree online due to the pandemic.
Did he find that faculty and other students at Oxford looked down on him as a community college grad?
“I don’t really think so…. Oxford does a good job of recognizing passion and integrity,” qualities he says he found in many Germanna students.
He said being around students with passion who were there because they wanted to be made him “want to do better and better.”
Lyttle said he has had conversations with people at Oxford about American education and, “I tell them that community college gave me the affordable opportunity to continue my education.
“Only did I learn in hindsight that if I had gotten into my favored schools, I probably couldn’t have afforded them. Community college is an affordable opportunity for those who want to be there and want to do well.”