THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 21, 1995 TAG: 9505210049
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines
Sarah Butler learned some valuable lessons at the University of Virginia.
She learned how to get into nightclubs under age. She learned how to take good notes in class. Most important, she learned that getting a good education doesn't mean simply racking up a row of A's on your transcript.
She learned all these things because she was a little younger than most of her classmates. At least two years, to be exact.
Today, at age 19, the Virginia Beach native will be the second-youngest student getting a bachelor's degree from U.Va.'s College of Arts and Sciences. She majored in cognitive science, a blend of psychology, computer science and philosophy.
Her grade-point average isn't sterling - it's halfway between a B and a C - but Butler has developed a sophistication and a philosophical attitude way beyond her years.
``A lot of students' sole motivation is grades, grades, grades,'' she said. ``I kind of let it go. Grades are not important to me. I want to enjoy it, I want to learn it, but I'm not going to compete in that rat race.''
Butler, who will turn 20 on Sept. 9, grew up in the Lake James neighborhood, the daughter of a Navy captain and a homemaker. She was a straight-A student, got a 1300 on the SAT when she was a 10th-grader.
In 1991, after she finished the 10th grade at Salem High, she wanted a new challenge. Part of it had to do with her sister, Cayce, another top student, who was a year ahead of her.
``I was not threatened by her success,'' Butler said, ``but I wanted to carve out a completely new path. I didn't want to go through that, being compared constantly.''
So instead of entering 11th grade, she enrolled in Mary Baldwin College's Program for the Exceptionally Gifted, which starts young teenagers on college courses. The students were clustered in a dorm, but they took classes with college-age students. Butler studied biology, chemistry, European history. She got a 3.2 average, or roughly a B-plus.
But she didn't find Mary Baldwin enough of a challenge, so in the summer of 1992, at age 16, she transferred to U.Va. as an entering sophomore.
She got more challenges than she expected. First, there was the social adjustment. As a transfer student, she got assigned to an apartment with upperclassmen. Her roommate was 21. ``She was graduating, and she was stuck with a 16-year-old; we had nothing in common.''
And Butler had a hard time connecting with other students. ``I didn't have anybody. I was a little, tiny, tiny minnow in a huge ocean of really big fish.''
Academics were tough, too, even after a year of college courses. She wasn't used to classes with hundreds of students. She didn't take good enough notes. Her writing style was immature.
Butler got all C's and D's and was put on academic probation for the spring semester of 1993. But she's rebounded. She's found a corps of friends who don't care about her age. And this semester, she's had a mix of B's and C's.
``My goals went from `I'm going to get great grades' to `I'm going to graduate in four years, and I'm going to enjoy it,' '' she said. ``. . . What I have gotten out of the courses has lasted. And in the last year, I've really amassed an education.''
Sometimes, she's found herself poring over sections of a textbook not required for a course. And she talks excitedly about the projects she had to do for a recent ``inventions'' class - inventing the telephone all over again, installing a cooling system for a house.
``Most of the people were engineering students who thought, `This is an easy class; I'm supposed to get an A.' I was just going to enjoy the class and see what I was going to learn.''
The professor, Michael Gorman, said Butler was a serious student, but also had a ``wonderful, happy-go-lucky attitude that intellectual pursuit was more important than GPA. That's very unusual.
``She was like a skater going to the Olympics: She skated her heart out, but she didn't worry about what the judges said.''
Butler may finally slow down. She's taking a year off to work and then she hopes to go to nursing school at Norfolk State University.
She has no regrets and is leaving U.Va. feeling content: ``If I'm a C average student at U.Va., that says something. I'm the average of some of the most intelligent people in the state. That doesn't make me a horrible person.''
To her parents, she says: ``Don't be disappointed about my grades. I got a great education at U.Va. Thanks for sending me.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/Staff
Virginia Beach native Sarah Butler, 19, hugs her dog Orson. She
receives a bachelor's degree from U.Va.'s College of Arts and
Sciences today.
by CNB