From a very young age I KNEW that I wanted to go to college. I may not have always known where I wanted to go or what I would study or what the heck I even wanted to do with my life, but I was going to go to college. 

I played competitive softball from ages 12-17 and a huge part of the culture was college and talk of getting college scholarships- which was the ultimate goal for a young girl in sports. I was no exception. I wanted a scholarship. Preferably a full-ride. Preferably Biola. But I would have taken offers from almost anywhere. By the time I was in my second semester of my senior year of high school I had two offers from schools; one from a Christian Private School in Minnesota, and one from a Community College in Northern California. I turned them both down. 

At 18 I realized three things: first was that I loved working and knew that juggling school, a job, and sports was going to be too much for me; next, was that I had no financial support or funds set aside for college and I did not want to go into debt for school; and finally I realized that I still had no freaking clue what I wanted to do with my life. 

So instead I went to Ventura College, my local community college, and picked up a job at Starbucks. During this time I realized how much I loved photography and was putting in all my time and energy into it. I was grabbing my friends and stealing them for spontaneous shoots downtown, taking family photos for my moms friends, and driving to LA to photograph concerts on my days off from Starbucks. 

But of course instead of simply diving into a full time photography career I decided to get my Bachelors degree, so after I finished my associates degree in 2020 I took a semester off (it was pandemic time and I was burnt out and exhausted because I was taking 18 units, shooting photo, and working 40 hours a week at Starbucks) and started at California State University, Bakersfield spring 2021 and graduated from there in the fall of 2022. 

In my years of college I accomplished a lot more than I thought I would. I graduated from Ventura College with Associates Degrees in Arts in Photography honors, Certificate of Achievement in Photography, and Associate in Arts General Studies honors. Then I graduated from California State University Bakersfield with my Bachelor of Arts in Communications with a digital media emphasis Magna Cum Laude. But the biggest accomplishment of all that I managed to do it all without taking out a single loan, I graduated debt free. 

But GOSH I did not like school. VC made everything more complicated than it needed to be in terms of the administration, and I had to fight to graduate on time because most semesters they were not even offering the classes that were required to graduate. I had to do independent studies in order to meet all the required units. 

At CSUB my struggle was that there was minimal instruction and the courses were subpar. We were constantly expected to teach ourselves the material, even if we had no prior knowledge of the subjects (like in introductory classes for example) and when we asked questions we were shamed for having them. It felt like my entire time there was spent struggling to find the right word to type into google so I could go teach myself what I thought was going to be taught in class. There were several times where I was only getting 4-5 hours of sleep a night for weeks at a time because of the workload, not because the classes had a ton of work, but because so much time was spent outside of classes learning the material. It was less than ideal. 

I will say though, there are many things I learned in college that I genuinely do not think I could have learned had I not gone. I developed excellent time management skills, I made connections with others who had the same goals as I did, and I finished something. I set a goal and against the odds (if you go by statistics I should not have graduated college) I accomplished that goal. Now I am able to be an example for my younger siblings and show them what is possible through hardwork and dedication. I was the first one in my family to graduate college, now they have someone who was not the smartest or the best, but still managed to finish and graduate. 

Throughout my four years in school I was constantly asked why I was even in school if I just wanted to be an entrepreneur. Did I even need my degree in order to be successful in business? The answer is no probably not. But is it hurting my business ? No it’s not. It is honestly up to you. Everyone is going to have an opinion, but at the end of the day it’s your life and your decision. You are going to meet all kinds of successful entrepreneurs, some who went to college and some who didn’t. There is not one sure way to be successful and whether or not you go to college is going to make or break your career (unless you’re like a Doctor then in that case PLEASE GO TO COLLEGE lol). 

This is all just my experience and everyone’s story is going to be so different. Even though I had a rough time in school, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I credit so much of my discipline, resourcefulness, and time management skills to school. I made amazing life long friends through school. And honestly, I am so proud of myself for working two jobs and putting myself through school. It showed me my own strength, and when life gets busy now I just think about how even when the stretches of time when I was only getting four hours of sleep a night I still accomplished something amazing. I am a college graduate- the first in my family to receive their college degree. That is not something that can be taken away from me. And now I am a business owner and entrepreneur, it truly doesn’t get better than this.