Nicole Daviau dropped out of high school her freshman year. The young teen was already living on her own. When her musical instrument broke, her only saving grace and only reason to attend school, she just stopped attending. Nicole was unmotivated. Bad influences took over her life and she had no direction.
Things began to look better after she took a nanny position. It was the two little boys she looked over who inspired her to go back to school and get her GED. But the bad influences reigned supreme again. Nicole dropped out. Eventually, she returned to her hometown and decided to give her education another chance. Although it wasn't easy.
“I hustled back to the high school and begged them to let me back in,” Nicole told CBS. It took her six years to earn her associate's degree from junior college. The accomplishment was huge for Nicole, but she still had no direction. Her fears began to manifest: she believed she didn't belong in college, that she would never fit in with the brainy elites, and that she was alone. Then a professor convinced her to apply to the University of Southern California.
”I had this really weird feeling that I still didn’t belong,” she said. “[I was] kind of scared and afraid of what the world still had to offer me.”
With the help and support of programs that help first-generation college students adapt, Nicole came out on the other side. She's graduating with her bachelor's degree and already has a job secured.
“I never want to be the person that says if I can do it, you can do it,” she says, “because everyone comes from different circumstances in their lives, and they have their own hardships. But I do challenge people to get out of their comfort zone and try it.”
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