Starlight, starbright...

         Most of the time, people who achieved “dream jobs” say that they “went to school, studied hard, and got a job,” maybe two jobs before they achieved what they’d set out to do.
         That wasn’t me. At 17, I was a kid with ADHD, a dream, and no roadmap for my life after high school. To whom could I turn? My father wasn’t around, and he had no experience with higher education from which to draw any words of wisdom. Even if he had the experience, he likely wouldn’t have offered guidance that would have been of any use. My mother had been forced to withdraw from a state university several decades before, and had no experience with student loans, STEM degrees, or private colleges-which were, of course, the institutions I wished to attend, to study the courses that I had been told were the only path to working for the best of the best in the spaceflight industry-NASA. In short, I was adrift in a sea of knowledge, and drowning fast.
         I had well-meaning advisors, to whom I bare no ill will-they didn’t know what to do with an average-at-best, ADHD student with no money, a small social circle, and an awkward personality. How do you tell a student like me that their dreams are unrealistic? My guidance counselor happily stepped in to do the hard job for them. I learned early in the application process to take any and all advice with a grain of salt. My English teacher-again, well-meaning though she may have been-advised me not to turn in my college application essay; to refine it first, it was too conversational, it needed to be more formal. Again, I ignored the advice, happily turning in my essay with my easygoing, conversational tone intact. I’d attended an admissions seminar at MIT where the presenter had said that admissions officers were so tired of getting essays that all looked the same. I knew that if my essay stood out, it was likely my ticket out of the small town life I’d grown up in, to join the ranks of NASA’s best and brightest.
         I got in to every school I applied to. Even my reach school-which ended up being where I went. I claimed my spot at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona, in the spring of 2013. I’ll never forget moving into the dorms-you hear about how small they are, but you never grasp it until you move in. Despite the agony of leaving so much behind in my childhood bedroom, I quickly appreciated that my mother had gotten me down to three suitcases. Despite my refusal to acknowledge it in the moment, she was, without a doubt, absolutely right.
         I couldn’t wait to start enjoying my newfound independence. Making my own schedule! Going out to parties! Attendance being optional! However, I was studying Aerospace Engineering. Those Hollywood movie portrayals of college were…unrealistic, to say the least.