I suddenly found myself surrounded by ambitious kids who were all working incredibly hard to have a life different from their parents’. Their drive was infectious, and I put in the extra effort to maintain an A average alongside them. We may not have had the latest Nikes or the newest portable CD player, but we had grades to prove we were going somewhere. Doing well in school was a matter of survival for all of us, because education was our only hope. We didn’t have trust funds or parents with high-paying jobs.
