I almost quit. I almost quit grad school. Words I never thought I would write, or say aloud. My family rules were very simple and this would have broken them. Work hard. Don’t quit. Help out. Laugh. Run.

We were not card carrying liberal-educated-legacy types in my family. Four generations from immigration until me, all working class, all singing the same song of sacrifice and not giving up. It was part of our bones and breath and being just as much as going to weekly Sunday mass that, as Irish Catholics, even moving from Ireland we could not break the habit. My great grandmother, Catherine, arrived on a boat from Ireland at the ripe age of 17. Unaccompanied minor she would happen to be, she worked as a nanny and maid for local department store owners, Hale Brothers, building a foundation for all those who would come after her. Almost everyone held a service, or trade-related job from the time my great grandmother’s feet first walked up and down 24th Street in San Francisco’s Noe Valley. Back when the streetcar climbed that hill until the final stop in front of her house and immigrants from all different motherlands roamed up and down its streets. In that day, white cloth gloves were required to gain entrance to the Macy’s downtown. Times had changed, but our family and our work had not. Blue collar. Phone company. Long commute and hours.

My father had been given the chance to attend college. First generation college student from a working class family. His father, Mark, a WWII vet and Pearl Harbor survivor. His mother, Catherine (another one — family name), raised the four children, twins arriving while Mark was serving overseas. And went on to raise her grandchildren as the matriarch of our family. She was the cornerstone of my childhood and upbringing.

My father, Dennis, was a college pitcher and worked a part-time job at the local corner store and meat company. He would volunteer firefight during the summer. He had a semester left when he quit college. He said working and struggling became too much and he gave up. He did not ask one single person for help. Not his parents, they wouldn’t understand, he thought. Not his coach. Not a friend. A choice that although I do not know if he ever regretted one that changed his trajectory and mine.

I was raised in a home where my father did not enjoy his work. He was grateful for finding his job at the phone company — he secured it within less than a year after my arrival onto this earth. He worked hard and took every shift of overtime available, climbing telephone poles for a living, but never ever found gratification in what he did. That was evident in his words and actions.

Rules of education became very clear: You will go to college. And finish. I want you to enjoy your work. Study whatever you want. Cue the background music — the sky was my limit and my dreams of being the first woman president, a new-age Susan B. Anthony, a family lawyer and teacher, all soared with it. There is a freedom in the expectation to finish. Just go and finish. And not have the cliff notes of how to find happiness and success. Having no blueprint liberated me. But the ‘work hard’ and ‘no quitting’ became my mantra too. One I relished in. My father’s sacrifice for me and for my brother played like a melody on our family record throughout my life.

And there is a good ending to this story. There must be. I did go to college. And finished. Studying what I wanted. Graduating in four years from a local Jesuit private school, University of San Francisco. I thought my work was done. I had upheld my part of the bargain, or so I thought. Grad school was the rudest of awakenings for me.

I remember the day I opened up my acceptance letter back in the day when you received mail in your physical mailbox. I could not believe it, as I reread the words over and over, that I was accepted to Columbia University, Teachers College. I would be the first on both sides of my family to attend an Ivy League. It was proof that my hard work had paid off. Physical proof. That my birth did not determine my access to the towers of ivory. Social mobility alive and well.

Once I arrived at Columbia, it was not how I hoped it would be. I loved the courses and felt challenged in ways I never had academically. Taking an Education Policy course by a professor influential in desegregation policy and amicus briefs to the Supreme Court. Another professor who pushed us to see beyond just statistics and studying family memories and the creative intelligence of the family. I cherished my time spending hours and hours reading in the library of Butler, or Gottesman, in coffee shops, or up and down the subway lines of the 1, 2, and 3 framing the Upper West Side. But I was challenged in a way I had not fully anticipated both financially and socially.

My money was dwindling, my account overdrawn, and no part time job to secure. Applying for every job I could on campus to no avail, I tried signing up for babysitting gigs, but without any local references came up empty. New York was a miserable place to be broke in. I tried to get creative with eating, but the cheapest three things you can buy is a bagel sandwich, a Papayas hot dog, and a slice (of pizza). Even grocery shopping in a food desert of our own making, everything was overpriced. I found myself skipping meals and going to bed hungry and improvised ways to secure coffee (aka “borrowing” some from the cafeteria).

In this sea of capitalism, I was also amongst the land of trust funds, legacies, children of CEOs, doctors, lawyers, movers and shakers in this country. Private school trademarked and boarding school- and summer camp-approved. When asked where I was from, I would say Sonoma County. “Did you grow up on a winery?” “No, in a duplex.” The manufactured response could not hide the surprise, grimace, and step back in dismay. I do not fit the mode. I am fully aware that my status as a white woman at Columbia allowed me access to this club. Unquestioned. No one asked me how I earned it. But once I made my class known, it was clear that I did not belong.

By Thanksgiving, I was ready to give up. Call it. Be done. The financial struggles and the belief I did not belong almost took me out with the tide to the abyss of the unknown. “Don’t quit. Please don’t.” I heard my father’s voice reverberate in my ears. Work hard. Don’t give up. I went home for the holiday (paid for kindly by my cousin) and thought about what to do.

Back in New York the next week, I returned to my favorite course, Education Policy. The teaching assistant came up to me and let me know they had returned mid-term grades.This professor required full essay responses to complex questions and asked so many questions that your hand and fingers begged for mercy. I had studied wholeheartedly by myself and with a small group of peers, each of us taking on the role of professor and teaching each aspect of what had been read, spoken, or mentioned. She looked at me and let me know I had tied for the highest grade in the class.

In the biggest class I was in, amongst close to 75 other students, I had earned this and deserved to be here. This came at the perfect time, just when I was about to give up. I knew I belonged if my public-educated, single-parent, Sonoma County duplex-living fingers had written the top grade. I earned this on my own. Not without support of course. But no one made calls for me or provided me with the appropriate list of fancy extracurriculars. I was not reproducing social class. A peace and joy washed over me and inspired me to keep going. If my public school, working class roots could set the pace of this class — I belonged. The hard work, the grit, and everything in between had finally been worth it.

The sense of belonging gave birth to inspiration not just for my own work but to understand others as well. Had I not struggled I might not have ended up where I am today. I decided to focus on first-generation students navigating the Ivy League as undergraduates and understanding not why they gave up, but how they fought to stay (most of “persistence literature” focuses on the quitting, not the staying). My own fears and beliefs gave birth to empowerment and understanding of not just me, but my life’s work supporting first-generation college students as they navigate their journey to and through college. Making sure they do not quit, that they know they too can finish.

And so I sat in the graduation for Teachers College, where my father (who had never been east of Nebraska) had made it along with my stepmother and younger brother, and where I had been nominated by the same Education Policy professor to have my story as one of the “student stories” to be read aloud. Former president, Arthur Levine took the podium in Riverside Church and told of the story of hard work and not giving up. It was not a new story; it was the story of me and everyone who came before me.

Kate Bueler is first generation college student and a graduate of University of San Francisco and Columbia University. She is a lifelong educator holding multiple roles in the field including teacher, literacy instructor, researcher, school counselor, and policy maker. She is a College Advisor and Volunteer Manager at ScholarMatch, where she supports our college students and leads volunteer education and engagement.

#MyCollegeStory is a ScholarMatch original series highlighting the diverse and varied journeys to and through higher education. Check back each month for new stories!

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