A Hope in the Unseen follows student Cedric Jennings through high-school and college. Jennings is depicted as a hard-working and dedicated student, and it is for this reason he struggles with bullying in his formative years. He attends Ballou High School in Washington D.C, which is located in an underprivileged area. Generally, the students in the school don't care for academia, while Cedric is intelligent and ambitious, with aims to attend a top university. Ballou High School is an underachieving school, and so Cedric makes the most of extra-curricular opportunities on offer so that he has a chance at achieving his ambitions.
After this, Cedric is offered the chance to attend a program at MIT. However, when Cedric attends the program, he discovers that he is far behind the other students academically due to the poor education he has been given. He realizes how different he is from the others, who are mostly middle-class and have attended much better schools. He is afterwards told by the director of the program that he would be unlikely to be accepted into MIT. Afterwards, Cedric turns his attention to Brown University, works hard at his studies and is later accepted.
When Cedric starts at Brown University, he must adapt to his entirely different surroundings and struggles with feelings of inadequacy. The students around him have mostly had very different upbringings, meaning he struggles to get along with them sometimes. When he returns home to Washington D.C after his first semester, he also realizes how different he has become from his former high-school friends. After this, he continues at university and challenges himself to do the best he can.
Meanwhile, Cedric's mother is struggling with depression at home and is being threatened with eviction. She is saved by the church minister, who pays her rent for her. Cedric continues at college, and is slowly beginning to find his feet. When he hears about his mother's struggles he is angry and upset, but later forgives her. He connects with his father and friends from college and reflects on his experiences and his changed attitudes.
