From Cowboy Roots to College Dreams: A First-Gen Journey
Peeing in a Folgers can. Purple irises outside a trailer home window. Chocolate for dinner. The smell of Apple Jolly Ranchers on the morning commute. And $100,000 in student loan debt.
Melissa, lavender farmer, ranch kid, and the first in her family to graduate high school asks whether college was worth it. Raised by a cowboy and a waitress in a one-stoplight Colorado town, she navigates FAFSA with zero help, bombs the interview that changes her life, gets told she’s got “a pretty face, just pick something else,” and survives heartbreak that reawakens a childhood California dream. This is…
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