Daveed Diggs On The Power Of Mentorship In College Admissions
Amid the chaos of the Covid-19 pandemic, a small but powerful documentary series quietly captured one of the most defining student experiences of our time. 'The Class,' now airing on PBS, follows college advisor Mr. Cam and his students at Deer Valley High School as they navigate the complexities of college admissions during the first year of the pandemic.
Executive produced by actor and musician Daveed Diggs, and Lafayette College President Nicole Hurd, the series underscores the enduring power of mentorship, community, and resilience when the usual rules—and supports—suddenly disappear.
This docuseries itself could have been a victim of pandemic. Instead, Hurd, who also founded the College Advising Corps, pressed the production forward with a smaller crew in place.
What follows is a powerful portrayal of resilience. The students remained committed to sharing their stories in the 2020-2021 academic year, even as the world around them was unraveling. Diggs, reviewing the raw footage from his own pandemic isolation, was struck by the determination he saw on screen.
'I'm sitting at home drinking wine at 10:00 a.m. and getting these dailies from students who were fighting tooth and nail to get through their final year of high school and figure out how to go to college,' he reflects. 'It was inspiring at the time. And I find the story even more crucial now in a lot of ways."
The docuseries highlights the critical role mentors play in students' lives, especially during times of isolation. For parents, this underscores the importance of fostering multiple supportive relationships in their children's lives beyond just family.
Diggs reflects on how the pandemic disrupted traditional mentorship opportunities: "When we locked everything down, we, in a lot of ways, lost community. We'd sort of figured out how to scrape by without people. And what you watch Cam and those students doing is figuring out how to have that in spite of the fact that they were not allowed to gather."
In my research on college access for low-income and first-generation students, I found that mentorship doesn't flourish by accident—it's the result of an intentional school culture. The Class offers a compelling visual example of how this culture can be cultivated—even in the most difficult of times—through trust, persistence, and shared belief.
For parents, this docuseries a call to action: cultivate opportunities for your child to build relationships with mentors—teachers, coaches, counselors—who offer fresh perspectives and affirmation beyond the home.
Diggs credits his own success to mentors who guided him, including during his college journey to Brown University. In one pivotal advising conversation at Berkeley High School, an advisor pointed him toward Ivy League institutions and mentioned Brown University's open curriculum.
'For the kind of weirdo, artsy kid I was, it [the flexbility and culture] sounded right up my alley,' Diggs recalls.
Both Diggs and Hurd encourage parents to share their own educational stories—especially the imperfect, winding ones. 'Don't be afraid to tell your own story,' Hurd advises. 'That's the power of this [docuseries]. It's the power of watching Cam tell his story to these students and then having them be inspired.'
For parents, this highlights the value of sharing their own educational journeys—including the struggles and detours—with their children.
The documentary shows that success rarely follows a straight line—an important lesson for parents who might be anxious about their children's educational trajectories, a narrative that my book'Get Real and Get In' shares as a theme.
Hurd stresses, "None of us has a linear journey. I don't know why we think we do. And I think if you're going to help young people apply to college, you have to remind them their journey is not going to be linear either, and that's okay."
This perspective can help parents release rigid expectations and support their children through inevitable changes and challenges. As Hurd advises families navigating the competitive admissions landscape: 'College is what you make of it and there are a lot of amazing colleges in this country.'
For parents raising children in an increasingly digital world, the docuseries offers insights on balancing technological tools with human connection. Hurd distinguishes between the "transactional" aspects of college advising that AI can handle and the "relational" elements that require human interaction:
"There's the things that are transactional, the things that you need, and AI can help you with in terms of, you know, when are the tests, what are the deadlines... And then there's what, and I think this is what you'll see in the docuseries, there's a relational piece… And that's never going to be AI, because that's actually relational. It's about somebody looking you in the eye and saying, 'I believe in you.'"
Parents can apply this wisdom by helping their children leverage technological resources while ensuring they maintain meaningful human connections that provide emotional support and inspiration.
Perhaps the most profound lesson for parents is the essential value of community in education. As Diggs emphasizes: "Community is really important and it can go away. We take it for granted and it's already been snatched away from us once and we should be also protecting that better."
This insight encourages parents to actively foster community connections for their children and to recognize that education is not solely about academic achievement but about belonging to something larger than oneself. As Hurd puts it, "We belong to each other in these really beautiful and profound ways... when we believe in each other and take care of each other, magical things can happen."
Through "The Class," both Diggs and Hurd offer parents a powerful reminder that supporting their children's educational journeys in college admissions and beyond requires both practical guidance and a commitment to building and maintaining the communities that make meaningful learning possible.
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