Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Mount Holyoke. It's beautiful. I could not ask for more in a space that celebrates a focus on professionalism, networking, effective presentation, wise life planning, self-respect, compassion, social justice, personal health, addressing global challenges, accessibility, and precise communication. It has been transformative. My is bright, down-to-earth, polite, and respectful. In just one year, it has become a part of me in the most molecular way.

This residential, four-year institution is wonderful.

However, it is worth noting that such prestigious colleges are not the only valid ways to get an education.

As a former community college, first generation, low-income transfer student, I've learned up close and personal that rank and prestige is about outside opportunities, an immense wealth of resources, community, campus experience, and social ladders into economic classes and high-status careers that were never accessible before matriculating.

These are extremely valuable opportunities that cannot be emphasized enough. However, prestige doesn't singularly define measures of academic rigor, the extent of challenges students face to get through school, or the capacity of its students.

A surprising – and arguably rising – portion of successful community college students are almost otherworldly in what they accomplish. They are resilient. They are hardy. They are educational MacGyvers. They can pull an essay out of a paper clip and intimately understand how to maximize every second of every day in a way many students will never be forced to. They value time. They value getting the absolute most out of every bone tossed their way. They capitalize on the opportunities that they are given without being picky or even having the luxury of selectivity, and overcome seemingly impossible obstacles without complaint.

Those peers may not have always been anyone's gold star, or the "best and brightest", but they know how to WORK. They're humble and effective. There were times when I was barely hanging off the edge of the tugboat, and some of those ships were going to WAR. My peers were practical but relentless. They chase basic security the way children born into means chase a dream.

They are imperfect but they are fighters. You teach one of these folks how to write an essay for the first time, and they hammer at it until they're embracing the most advanced coursework accessible within the next year. They don't stop. They just want to make it. They just want to get their heads above water.

It is the greatest injustice in the world that the struggle won't stop after graduation. For most, the opportunities just aren't there.

These campuses aren't fun or pretty. They're getting the work DONE.

My last semester in two-year school, I did 6 full-credit classes on academic overload, a work study, a full time internship, applied to 6 schools, applied to countless scholarships, and dealt with daily hour-long commutes in all extremes of New England’s full four-season weather. That was nothing compared to some, yet I was so overextended and burnt-out, I often felt I was being held up on four strings by the people in my life that were going to bat for me.

I barely got to extracurricular activities, despite holding so many leadership positions. Without the assistance of my little brother, who is now doing the same balancing act that I was at that time and who made it through high school while helping me commute, taking on babysitting my little brother so I could study, and generally doing everything in his power to deal with his own stress while he put hours every day in to make my dreams happen by dealing with both our schedules at once. I look at him now and with awe. He is the proverbial community college success: resilient, gritty, hardworking, committed, humble, and completely lacking in self-awareness of just how amazing he is. It’s honorable, yet not something either of us are unfamiliar with.

Our dad was a factory worker that was heavily exploited by an industrial system that thought "humane" was optional. He's been abused by people in his work throughout his life, and all he's ever said to us was this: "I don't care what you do, just do something. I want you to have more than me."

My mom has been caught in a mess of medical hells for her entire adult life, which peaked with an aortic dissection that lead to disability and terminal diagnosis. She's been in and out of hospice for years (currently in). She's also written five novels she's never published and labored religiously to get 4.0s as she tried to change her life with commuter college before she was confined to a bed after a near-death-experience that altered our entire reality forever.

This is where I learned work ethic:

From my dad: a disheartened guy working grueling and emotionally devastating 12-14 hour shifts for 20 years begging me to get an education from the day I was born

From my mom: a woman dealing with excruciating (then undiagnosed) medical issues staying up all night every few days with textbooks splayed out across the table, taking notes that looked like the layout for a noble prize winner's greatest research.

From her getting my brother and I to school, then taking my littlest brother to speech therapy and preschool, driving two towns over to night classes, cleaning the house, logging onto online classes, and doing her homework while she's cooking dinner, spaghetti sauce all over textbooks. That's what a valedictorian looks like.

Show don't tell: get an education.

My peer breastfeeding her infant during a final.

Get an education.

Another peer coming to morning class after a 12 hour night shift, falling asleep in his chair. Another classmate offering drive him home so he didn't fall asleep behind the wheel.

Get an education.

Veterans with service dogs and shaking hands as they write in a blue book that might change their lives.

Get an education.

My brother spending 8 hours in school, 2 hours at activities, dropping me off two towns over, going to meetings, picking me up, and doing homework until midnight.

My littlest brother battling mental illness and excruciating nerve pain, exhausting himself to say something five times - and ultimately spell it - for someone who can't understand his speech impediment, because his heart is open. Because he wants to yell, but he doesn't. Because he is kind. Because 12 year old spoonies are still spoonies, even when they can't articulate that they're at a 10.

That's not just work, that's GRACE.

My dad cutting his hands open to break down scrap metal so he can afford enough gas money to heat the house when it's frigid in Connecticut. No hot water for a week? Yeah. Well. Try sitting in front of an electric heater, or microwaving a bowl of water. At least we had heat sometimes. At least we have a microwave.

My dad hand-fixing everything that has ever broken, getting a skill set in wiring and welding and construction, just to get by.

Make it work.

My brother and I walking home in upwards 90 degree heat or frigid temperatures until it's so bad my dad had to leave work to bring us home. Because my parents taught us to get ourselves to school under any condition unless we physically and psychologically can't take it.

A guy working 60 hours a week fixing our furnace on his first break at 6pm "pro bono" because he knows my dad ain't got a dime.

My middle school playmate bringing her baby to high school graduation. (She passed shortly after. RIP Lexi.) Get that education.

My parents taking in over 30 foster kids, sometimes 8 at a time. Share my room, yeah? Easy. There are times when I am shocked overcoming the outrage during housing lotteries. My inner grandma wants to grumble, ‘Heaven forbid fellow four-year students get a luxurious double in one of these mansions…”

As a result of these lessons, my entire worldview is uniquely crafted towards being as productive and purposeful as possible. While at times I feel gutted knowing I cannot seem to help but fall short of infinite potential, I also find myself constantly fielding questions from advisers: "Why do you want to take overload credits? 6 and above insane. Some kids are talking only 3 classes."

Inevitably, I'm following footsteps that showed me how to climb fearlessly, or fail with grace.

"What do you mean you got a concussion and only missed one class?”

“Well, I missed two weeks when my lungs collapsed during my internship at community college, and almost as long when my shoulder dislocated in high school, and two years when I almost died of internal bleeding and had organs removed and reconstructed over 3 operations as a high school freshmen, so I have a lot of time to make up for. You think that's weird? Wait till you hear what my mama did. Wait till you hear about my dad. Or my brother! He walked around on a broken knee and completely shredded and snapped ACL for A YEAR in 10th grade. That’s what happens when you don’t have a reliable relationship with health insurance.”

Yes, you have to be carried to get through at some points. I was a weakling in the shadow of some of my community college peers: mothers and fathers with full time jobs and young kids, people struggling to get by but commuting sometimes 2 hours, and that's just the beginning.

At these institutions, specifically made accessible to a unique niche of people that are far more common than many realize, you have to live and breathe the textbooks, defy dangerous weather on the highways, and deal with everything else in your life on top of your schooling. Life will not wait, so you do what you have to do.

As many nonprofit educational advocate organizations are trying to point out at this moment, community colleges are unsung heroes. They're full of people who are understand that you have to do everything and anything you can to make it happen, whatever “it” is for them. These schools are a door open to everyone. It does not matter if you are low-income and working poor, or simply overcome with familial obligations. Those opportunities are available to parents, untraditional age students, people battling homelessness, people struggling to make ends meet, or even people rolling in debt from being unable to pay necessity bills at no fault of their own.

My advice? Recognize a rock star when you see one: support community colleges. Appreciate what folks from these towns live through and what two-year public schools offer in the face of that.

Alumnae of my four-year residential institution change the world with their incredible minds. They're “in the room when it happens.”

Community college alums are fighting the war, boots on the ground.

You get a lot out of both, and anyone would be wise to learn from either: do what you need to do, but get that education.